I know if you have a veteran you're able to enter an AV Veteran class without entering a breed class. However, if you choose to enter a breed class as well are you then obliged to go in, or can you miss it and still go in AV Veteran?

Strictly speaking if you have entered the Breed class you should be present in the ring. However you are able to withdraw your dog so if the Veteran class is judged before the Breed you could withdraw.

EDIT to say you can't withdraw from a class and then enter a later one - if you withdraw it has to be all classes from then on.

So even though there's no prerequisite to enter the breed class, if I put her in both breed class & AV she'd still have to be present in the breed class to show in AV?

Withdrawal I doubt is an option - we're scheduled late, but unfortunately AVs are (probably) even later! So I think the breed classes will be in first.

As I understand it if you have entered a breed class you must do it if you are present on the show ground, secretaries will have put your ring number in the breed class stewards box, they may however be sympathetic if you were held up by a traffic accident or something like that.

Now this only applies to puppies and veterans if you wish you can enter a suitable AV class only if your breed does not have a Puppy or Veteran class and if a puppy and you win you can continue to the Group or BIS providing there was not a puppy class in the breed. But if you enter a breed class, say Junior or Post Grad you can still challenge for Best Puppy in Breed providing you have not been beaten by another puppy of the breed.

This is very difficult to explain although I have it clear in my mine as you write it down you wonder if you are giving the wrong information, I think I have it straight for you though.

Yes, that reads correctly to me :) I'm usually pretty clued up on the rules but this particular scenario never occurred to me before, and there doesn't seem to be any provision for it in the rules and regs. It didn't seem quite right that you should be able to miss a breed class yet still go in AV, but on the other hand I couldn't see anything forbidding it with a veteran. Puppies and veterans are such a minefield! I know a few years ago I had an unbeaten puppy from a group AV class and I had to be quite insistent about the fact she was allowed back in for the puppy group.

So I suppose I have to either just opt for AV, or enter her in both and be prepared to miss them if I can't get her in the breed class! Ho hum...would've been much easier if I could've covered all bases :D

You need to look at the Regulations covering the BEST PUPPY IN SHOW, it is this that talks of a puppy being eligible if it has competed and has been unbeaten by any other puppy.

Now if there are classes for the breed and those classes include a class for puppies that is where you exhibit your puppy however if there is no class for puppies you can choose to go into another breed class or to go into the AV puppy class.

Now if you decide to put your puppy into the breed open class you are unlikely to be placed but providing no other puppy is placed you may go into the challenge of Best Puppy in Breed providing the show has such an award.

i asked for my friend last week at a show she was entered in her breed class & the veteran, but i was told that if she was entered in the breed class and she didnt go in it she would be classed as a beaten dog!!, so you either do the 2 classes or just the one

If you do not go into the breed class you have entered you are classed as absent or withdrawn either way you can't continue to show at that show, that is the official KC regs.

It is allowed to do the Breed class and then withdraw from an AV or Stakes class in order to remain unbeaten.

I personally prefer to do breed classes anyway, so enter my veteran(if I want to show him) in the breed class(if I like the judge...lol.