Obedience and/or Rally-O?

elisabeth

I noticed there are a lot of threads on Agility, which is great because I am involved with that as well, but also noticed there were hardly any threads on competitive obedience.. anyone participate?

Stark and I are training hard and trying to get ready for the spring. We will see how it goes between now and then.

We are having issues on focus... who would of thought that a 9 month old puppy would have issues with focus right?

Everything else is going superbly but have a constant focus is where we are falling apart. Hopefully age, patience, and more training will help this along.. lol. Oh and treats, that seems to help too.. lol.

Cali

I really want to do rally with my dogs but I'm not sure how to get started, I can't go through akc as my dogs are not registered.

elisabeth

I would first suggest taking a basic obedience class then the advance. You really want someone who has been in the ring before, knows what they are doing and uses positive techniques to get the results.

Stark and I have never done this before so this is all new to me as well. We have been working on our obedience since he was 8 weeks old but that's not to say an older dog can't do it!

I think the AKC now has openings for unregistered dogs! You should give them a call! They may be able to help you find a trainer as well.

Stark is dual reigistered (AKC and CKC) so we will be competiting in both countries (more opportunities to trail).

I would strongly suggest working on focus before anything else though. You need to gain and maintain focus in this sport.

We had it, then Stark hit the "butt-head phase" and we are having issues getting it back.. lol.

Criosphynx

Rally interests me, but the classes are not near me or at times when I can go.



lol Cali is a dog trainer

elisabeth

Rally is what we will be doing first, seems a bit easier on the handler (haha). They are quite a bit more laxed than the other, which is what I want in the beginning.


Cali, you should definitely be ahead of the gang then if you train!!!

Call AKC and ask about their new mandates, I am sure they have opened up some of their venues for unregistered dogs! You should definitely do it! Maybe Stark and I will see you at a trail one day.. lol.

kmes

I just finished a Rally class with my pug, Roxy and we loved it! I originally started taking classes with my dogs just for fun but now I'm thinking of trying to get Roxy fully ready to compete. But I would likely only compete within PA and western NY.
Right now Roxy would be fine at the novice level and knows most of the stations (even advanced and excellent level stations). However she really needs some work with completing courses off leash! If a person or a dog is too close to a station she often looses focus and decides to go say hi.

I got lucky finding a trainer. She owns a local pet supply store, and a training facility. She is also a member of the same kennel club that I belong to, so I really got to know her well. She also used to compete a lot with her standard poodle and he earned several titles.

Malibroker

We just finished our first round of Rally O and loved it. We are working on aggression issues with our rescue dog and our trainer suggested we try the Rally class just to expose her to more dogs while we waited for the second half of her feisty Fido classes- no one really had much exception but she finished 3rd in her class and I couldn't be more proud. I have noticed a huge change in her behavior, pray drive and aggression. It really helped increase the bond and trust she has with me. I would totally recommend it

Cali

Lol I guess I should have mentioned I'm a trainer (my job mostly focuses on the average pet dog from puppies to CGC, a few of my clients do agility) thanks for clearing that up crio.
I think that my dogs would do very well at rally, I am sure they'd do fine at obedience as well but rally seems like it would be more fun for them and for me? I will check out the akc to see if they have any classes for unregistered dogs coming up in my area

Papilove

My puppy is a little too young to start anything, but I'm looking forward to rally-o and obedience when she is a little older. I want to do agility too later on.

Elana55

If you plan to do Formal Obedience I would start with that (get the rule book and READ IT). Rally allows you to talk to the dog, slap your leg, repeat a station and do other things that will NQ you in obedience. Formal Obedience is.. well.. formal. LOL

I prefer formal obeidience as the requirements are strict and the precision is necessary to get the right performance. Handler errors will get you knocked out of competition as quickly as dog response errors. It is much more like Dressage with horses in its demands for precision.

That being said, it is challenging because you cannot be stiff! Yup.. need to make if flow and look smooth. Putting an entire sequence together to make it look like it is easy is a REAL challenge.

The suggestion for anyone who wants to do both formal Obedience and Rally is to get at least a CD on your dog before you go for your RN. After doing some rally and a lot more formal obedience I would suggest you be training and doing matches for your CDX before going in rally novice.

If you do it the other way 'round you will be much more likely to NQ in formal obedience due to habits you got in Rally that you take with you in the Obedience ring.