Larry, you found the magic paragraph in the minutes… personally, i felt that all the wording we came up with in the meeting was a threat to future box innovation. I did feel that the particular box in question was training in the ring (using the definition in the back of the NAFA rulebook as my guide — of course, by that token lots of other things could be called training in the ring, like tape used on the front of the box, or food in the runback area, etc. etc. ).

There’s really no easy way to say that certain attachments or obstructions aren’t allowed, without inhibiting future box design. What exactly constitutes an attachment or obstruction? Is tape an attachment? What if somebody designed a box where the front had a lip on the bottom, or the sides had slight wings, and they were all the same material as the rest of the box (just the way the wood was cut or something). (And assuming all that stuff fit into the legal box measurements of course.)

Look how far boxes have evolved in the past 20 years. I like to think that new box designs are adopted b/c they make dogs turn better and faster, which generally means that they turn safer as well. I just don’t want to see NAFA inadvertently curtail that sort of development.

Lisa