Thanks, Kathy! 
I think I still need some translation, though, if anyone is up to helping the simple-minded. 
"E) A Nursery dog must place two (2) times in the top twenty percent (20%) (rounded to the nearest whole number) of dogs competing in any Nursery Class of five (5) dogs or more, sanctioned by the USBCHA, to qualified to compete in the Nursery Championship Finals. A Nursery dog that places in the top 20% of a full National style judged Open class counts as a qualifying placing."
Does this mean a dog only has to run - and place in the top 20% - in any two (2) trials, and he qualifies? But what about the points I hear of? Surely there are scores of nice Nursery dogs who could go to two or three nursery trials, place accordingly, and qualify. How, then, is the field narrowed to fit the availability of runs at Finals? Anybody? Bueller? 
Though I see only 54 Nursery dogs currently listed as qualified for the 2011 finals. So, another question: How far in advance of any given year's finals must one qualify? If I were to make a real try for qualifying my Gael for 2012, is there a cut-off date by which she'd have to be qualified, say January 1st 2012 or so?
"F) The nursery dogs must run a full National style course, without the shedding work, in order to be a qualifying class."
This is your basic Open trial course, with 450+ yard outrun, etc? Or is "National style" not dependent on yardage measurements?
What I'd also like to know is, if one qualifies for Finals by meeting the criteria above, aren't there are still points to be earned somewhere, to assure we make the "cut," given the presumably limited number of Nursery entries available at finals? So even if I'm lucky enough to get Gael qualified, might we still miss out by not earning these mysterious points?
It's still confusing me, because some of the 2011 Qualified Nursery dogs on the USBCHA website don't even list two trials, only one!
Sorry, I'm not trying to be a pain. I can't read legalese, either. 
Thanks again ~
Gloria
P.S.
Thanks, Debbie. I see we were reading the same page at the same time. I'm still confused, though, as the world can see by my further questions, above. Entering Nursery or Open is good, but there's the "points" thing I don't see mentioned there, among other things.
Again, I apologize if I seem obtuse. I don't mean to be!
Gloria -
Focusing on Nursery for the Moment as that seems to be what you are mainly asking for. Points are irrelevant. You simply need to be in the top twenty percent at two sanctioned Nursery Trials during the qualifying year. For the 2012 Nursery Finals that means sanctioned Nursery Trials from Aug 1, 2011 through July 31, 2012.
It is probably best explained by numerical example. The minimum number of dogs for a qualifier to come out of Nursery is 5 dogs in the class. 5 dogs times 0.2 (20%) is 1 dog qualifies from that class. If there are seven dogs there is still only one qualifier (7 x 0.2 = 1.4). At eight dogs in the class the top two dogs qualify (8 x 0.2 = 1.6). The next step is when three qualify at 13 dogs (13 x 0.2 = 2.6) and so on.
You can also qualify by running in a full Open Class and finishinbg in the top 20% of dogs in that Open Class (e.g. 50 dogs you would have to finish top 10). This is a less common way of qualifying but it certainly can be done. For example, I watched Amelia Smith qualify her Star dog this way at the Snowbirds trial over New Years.
In order to qualify for the Nationals you need two qualifying runs. Points do not matter - only that you get 2 qualifying runs. If you look at the USBCHA Nursery Dog list you will notice that it lists all dogs with 1 reported qualifying Nursery Run. Only those dogs listed with two qualifying runs have already qualified.
One very important thing to remember is that you MUST BE A USBCHA MEMBER WHEN YOU RUN for your qualifying run to count. You can pay to join as an associate member in advance of your first trial and your points/qualifying run will count. But if you do notdo this it will not count. I know of at least one person who was not aware of this when he got a qualifying run for the 2009 Nursery Nationals. It did not count and even though he got a second qualifying run after joining he did not qua;lify because of it.
Most Nursery courses - at least out here - ae approximately equivalent to the Pro Novice Courses. In fact several of them run as a combined class with Pro Novice and you can pay slightly more to have your single run count for both Nursery and Pro-Novice. If you want to be truly competitve at Nationals though you will need to stretch your dog out to close to Open distance by the time of the National Finals. The tendency is for the Nursery Courses to get longer and a bit tougher as the year goes on.
As for accumulating points for qualifying for Open it is based on the top 20% of dogs running at each trial and goes down in descending order.
Assume 19 dogs run. The top 4 dogs would get points as follows: 1st place - 3.8 pts, 2d place - 2.8 pts, 3d place - 1.8 pts, 4th place - .8 pts. Now assume a trial with 90 dogs (like Sonoma for example). Eighteen dogs would get points as follows: 1st place - 18 pts (#of dogs running x 0.2), 2nd place - 17 pts . . . 18th place - 1 pt.
The number of points to qualify for Open Finals varies each year. Obviously though it is better to win a high entry trial than a 10 dog trial for points purposes. You get to count your top 5 point trials. Thus, if you get points in 7 trials, only your top 5 point trials count to your total.
