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| An example of an AKC Rally sign |
Rally-O is a growing dog sport that offers a fun challenge to pet dog owners who enjoy competition. Basic obedience skills provide the foundation for competing in this sport. Rally-O helps owners develop teamwork with their dog while reinforcing basic and advanced obedience maneuvers.
Each Rally-O course is an obedience obstacle course. Specific obedience-style exercises are written on signs and placed in varying sequences for the team (dog and handler) to negotiate. Participants must complete the obedience exercise at each station before moving on to the next. Each team is scored on its performance at each station (or rather, marked down for lack of performance...!) From a maximum score of 200, teams can “qualify” and receive a ribbon if they earn 170 points or more, and after three qualifying scores, they will earn a Rally-O title that can be written with the dog’s name. For instance, my dog Phoebe has earned her AKC Rally Novice title and her official name is now Tanglewood’s Star Bright, R.N. (Rally Novice).
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| An example of an UKC Rally sign |
The maneuvers in Rally-O can range from simple heeling exercises (heeling with your dog beside you, you halt and the dog sits) to much more complicated. To a beginner, the advanced exercises might sound overwhelming, but you and your dog learn together, step-by-step. Everyone starts with the basics like having your dog heeling next to you, making left and right turns, learning how to do an “about turn” with the dog staying in heeling position, and learning how to sit and down in heel position. Gradually you learn more complicated steps like weaving around traffic cones, having your dog “stay” in a sit while you walk around him, or having him sit squarely in front of you when you call him to “front” from heeling.
Once you are ready to move on to the advanced and excellent courses, there are difficult and fun new challenges to master. At the advanced levels, everything is done off-leash. An example of one of the most advanced exercises: while heeling with your dog beside you, you signal the dog to stop in a stand-stay while you walk 6 feet away, command your dog to sit in place, command your dog to come straight and sit again directly in front of you, and finally command your dog to return to heel position, sitting next to your side, before starting on to the next exercise. The advanced levels always have easier Novice signs mixed in with more difficult signs. This reinforces what you have already learned, and helps you and your dog feel like you can accomplish something even if you have trouble with a station or two.
Another exciting challenge with advanced rally courses is that they include one or two jumps for the dogs to jump over while the handler walks alongside. Some dogs are scared of the strange-looking jumps at first, but when they learn what they are, and how to do them, almost all dogs enjoy the jumps. In fact, because advanced dogs are off-leash, sometimes a dog gets so excited when he sees a jump on course that he leaves the handler to go jump!
This video shows my dog Atlas and I performing an
Advanced Rally course.
Some of the advanced rally stations can be almost diabolical, like having your dog heel in a figure-8 pattern around two cones while tempting bowls of food or toys are on the floor. (Not all venues offer this insane challenge). Most new handlers look at these stations and think, “Oh, my dog could never do that!” With practice, even the most unruly food-hounds can be taught to ignore the food bowls. Honest! There is nothing that compares to the realization that you taught your dog to happily perform these complicated maneuvers.
There are several venues that offer titles in Rally-O, with the most common being AKC, UKC, and World Cynosport. Each venue has some differences that make its Rally-O courses unique.
Here are some helpful websites for further information. (World Cynosport Rally used to be run by APDT; thus some websites still refer to APDT rally. Make sure to check with Cynosport to get the most up-to-date info on the former APDT signs).
http://rally.canissapiens.com/ --AKC and APDT signs, descriptions, and mini cards to print out
http://www.akc.org/events/rally/index.cfm -- AKC rally page
http://www.ukcdogs.com/res/pdf/2011RallyRulebook.pdf -- UKC rally rules
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