Novice classes are for beginners, and one has to earn 3 first place's in their classes over competition in order to qualify for open. Usually this is the order that the Junior's ring goes in. Novice Junior, Open Junior, Novice Senior, Open Senior, Best jr Handler where all 4 winners (if there are competitiors from all four classes) go back and get picked Best. Although it is rare for a
Novice to get Best Jr Handler, I have seen it happen before.
When your in the open classes you have the chance to compete for points within your breed, group, and state. Points are tallied based on the people you beat for instance...You are in Open Senior, and you placed 1st in your class out of 14 kids and than you go on to get BJH, and the total amount of people competiting were 30. Than your total amount of points is now 30.
Also if you get 5 Open wins with competition, within the year. You can qualify for the Eukanuba Classic, and if you get 10 wins you can compete at Westminster the Super bowl of dog shows. In order to compete in juniors you need a registered pure bred dog, unintact or intact, and a junior number which you can get an AKC.org, Look on links for direct link to the page.