Rally Obedience

[Leslie and Halas]

Halas and I did our first Rally Obedience trial this weekend. We got a 94 on Saturday, and a 93 on Sunday. So that's 2 qualifying scores. One more and we get a title! It was pretty fun. The people in our obedience club are really supportive, so that just makes it more fun, with most of the people from our rally class participating in the trial. We redid one exercise in each trial, so that cost us 3 points each time. And then we just had a couple of minor errors that knocked off a few more points. We even got 2nd place ribbons in each trial, but that was out of 3 dogs the first day and 5 dogs the 2nd day. We're in the 1A class, so there just weren't that many dogs. The 1B class was much larger, but I think that's for people/dogs that already have some kind of obedience title. We had a good time, so I think it's something we'll continue doing. We're going to switch from rally back to regular obedience for a few months now, but we'll go back to rally when it's closer to the spring trials. We're not going to do any regular obedience trials, but I can tell there are some obedience things we need to work on, so that's the reason for the temporary switch. Rally obedience is very laid back, and you can talk to your dog as much as you want. Traditional obedience doesn't allow that, so it just doesn't seem quite as fun. And spending time together having fun is our main goal here. Halas seemed to really enjoy himself, and he was a very sleepy puppy Saturday night and last night, after spending several hours each day at the trials.

[DeeDee and Sheila]

I am from Bloomington, IL and am waiting for my doodle to be born. I was so excited to see and hear about the training you are doing with your dog. What exactly is rally obedience and where do you do it? Do you know of any good trainers in bloomington? Maybe we'll meet someday!! I think Halas is a doll. I think I'm getting a reddish doodle that will be about 20 -30 labs. A mini Aussie doodle. I am excited and nervous. Have had labs and hunting dogs before, but want a smaller dog now and no shed sounds like a dream come true to me.

[Adina P]

Good work Halas!

[Kyoko]

Great job done, Halas!!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Congratulations, Leslie & Halas! We're all very proud of you both!

[Rose]

Sounds like fun. Congrats to you and Halas! :-)

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Congratulations Halas! Peri's trainer offers Rally-O...we may do that at some point after Peri gets more consistent with sit, come, stay.

[Sandy]

I had never heard of Rally Obedience, but after seeing your blog I've looked into it. It sounds like a blast! There is a school that teaches it in our area, so I have e-mailed them for information. It sound like much more fun than regular obedience classes. It might be just the thing to tide us over the long winter months.

[Leslie and Halas]

Yes, rally uses most of the traditional obedience commands, but it works a little differently. They set up a course, with about 15 stations. The first station might be Sit, Walk Around Your Dog. Then you move on to the 2nd one, which might be Right Turn. That moves you on to the 3rd one, and so on. So you just have to go through each sign in order, and do the commands. You have to have a loose leash the whole time, so your dog really has to heel and focus on you. But you can talk to him as much as you want, and I think give commands as many times as you want. There are huge deductions, maybe even disqualifications for making collar corrections/jerking on the leash, or speaking harshly to your dog. Firm commands are fine, but they don't want you yelling at your dog. It's supposed to be more laid back than traditional obedience. It really is fun. You should check into it. I think there's a Rally group here on DK.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Congratulations! Do you do the standard obedience commands in rally? I really don't know anything about it, but it really sounds like fun!