In response to removal of the stick hits from IGP titles by the FCI, USCA has created a new title: United States Prufung (USP). Please see the letter below from USCA.
Also, a note from our Regional and National Breed Warden, Heidi Theis:
“USP will be judged most likely only by USCA judges – or foreign WUSV judges where their countries do not yet have federal law prohibiting stick contact. FCI judges will not be allowed to judge these titles so please keep that in mind.
If someone has me as a judge you need 2 separate event authorizations and do essentially 2 trials. You can do USP one day and IGP the next day if your club wants to offer both so your members can earn titles with stick contact still. IGP won’t have any stick contact.
My club will definitely take advantage of this to retain stick contact titles on our dogs. We will do IGP but we will also do USP, my club has collectively decided we want to require USP titles on our member’s dogs!
As your Regional Breed Warden and as the National Breed Warden, I wish to encourage everyone to do the same, most especially on their GSDs. USP will be accepted for USCA breed survey (not for SV breed survey). You can do only USP if you want for this purpose.
I hope the PNW Region promotes USCA EB’s effort to retain stick contact, it is an important test!”