I put on several puppy hunts in my pen and go to several others. Lots of times in our area the ages (or classes) are split in two catagories. Example would be 8/29 and 12/29. I have been approached about splitting the pups into male and female catagories instead of age. The fellow's reasoning behind this was that many times the females develop earlier and are better at a younger age than the males. By doing this he says the males would get recognition that they sometimes might not get otherwise.. I do see his point in this. Many times females start earlier and are somewhat better at the puppy hunt age than are males.. I myself have had males that got much better after the puppy hunt stage... I know you could just say that the males should be run in Derby hunts then but we don't have many of those around here.... I am considering trying it to see how it goes... I know sometimes change is met with resistance.. If you have and opinion on this please post it here as I am just wondering what everyone thinks about doing this... Thanks in advance....