Understanding the UK Dog Agility Grading System

Not everyone who takes up agility has any interest in competing – plenty of people come for the fun and the bond with their dog and leave the rosettes to someone else.

But if you're curious about where competitive agility leads – or you've seen class descriptions like "Grades 1 and 2" and wondered what they mean – read on.

The Royal Kennel Club (RKC), which governs competitive dog agility in the UK, runs a grading system from Grade 1 at the beginner end to Grade 7 at the top.

Grades group dogs by experience and results, so much of the time you'll be running against dogs at a similar stage. Some classes are restricted to a narrow band of grades, while others are open to all grades in a height category – meaning a Grade 2 dog might occasionally find itself in the same class as a Grade 7. The class type will tell you what to expect.

Dogs progress by winning classes. A win has to be a clean one: first place with a clear round inside the course time.

At Grades 1 and 2, two clean wins move you up to the next level, and at least one of those needs to come from an agility class rather than a jumping class. The bar rises from there. Higher grades require more wins, and more of them from agility classes specifically.

There's no skipping grades. Every dog works through each level in turn.

For the first four grades, there's an alternative progression route. Rather than winning classes, a handler can choose to move their dog up on points – earning 100 points at each grade, with at least 50 of those points coming from agility classes rather than jumping.

This route is entirely the handler's choice. Once selected, the dog can't return to a lower grade.

Points progression isn't available beyond Grade 4 – from there, wins are the only way forward.

At competitions, classes are run in one of two ways.

A graded class is open to up to three consecutive grades, with separate results recorded for each grade, so everyone is still compared against dogs at their own level.

A combined class brings multiple grades together with a single set of results. Heights are still kept separate, so a large dog won't be running against a small one. A win in a combined class still only counts towards progression from your current grade. You can't jump up multiple levels on the back of one result.

Different show organisers structure things their own way within those rules. At Be Happy Agility Shows, for instance, classes are grouped into named levels: Nursery for Grade 0, Pre-Intro for Grade 1, Intro for Grades 2 and 3, Novice for Grades 4 and 5, and Expert for Grades 6 and 7. Pre-Intro dogs only run against other Pre-Intro dogs, but from Intro upwards the grades within each level run together, so a Grade 2 dog might find itself competing against a Grade 3.

A dog's grade and their jump height are two different things, and it's easy to mix them up. UK agility uses height categories alongside grades, so two dogs can both be Grade 3 but jump at completely different heights depending on their size.

Their grade tells you how experienced a dog is. The height category determines how high the jumps are set for them. Both are important in competition.

When Pinkfox describes a course as being set around Grade 1 and 2, it means the course is designed for dogs who are relatively new to agility – including approachable sequences, manageable course times and nothing that assumes any prior competition experience.

If you're just starting out, or you've been training for a while but haven't competed yet, Grade 1 and 2 is exactly where you'd expect to be. Most dogs take time to work through the early grades, and that's perfectly normal.

The grading system exists to make agility fair and enjoyable at every level – not just for those aiming for Grade 7.