Originally posted by elizabethann
What's Rally - O?

P.S. Thanks for the ideas folks.
Rally Obedience is the newest competitive venue the AKC has endorsed. Competing in this venue enables you to put titles on your dog for completing specific requirements. It is a lot like regular obedience competitions but you are allowed to talk to your dog and encourage them but without food in the ring. In formal obedience competitions, the handler will be disqualified if a command is given more than once and encouragement is only allowed in between exercises.

The primary reason Rally was introduced as a competitive venue with the AKC was because of the lack of dogs competing in a formal Novice, Open and Utility Obedience competition. With the onset of Agility almost 10 years or more ago, people were given a venue to compete that was more exciting that formal obedience. Their dogs could run and perform and the handler could give the dog verbal commands to accomplish a course. As Agility became the HOT ticket item, the competitions started to see more handlers running agility courses and less handlers entering obedience rings.

When I started obedience over 25 years ago, it was common to compete against 30 or more dogs in a Novice (beginning) class. Now if you have a class bigger than 15 or 20 it is unusual. Rally is the AKC's hope that more people will be drawn back into competitive obedience by making it more of a "fun" venue.

My first dog I competed with - Taffey had a UDX (highest obedience class) title.

Dixie has a CDX - intermediate title and a JH (junior hunter) and two legs towards her senior hunter. She doesn't particularly like doine formal obedience so I don't persue that with her but she loves to hunt so that's where I spend most of my time with her now.

Dusty has his CD - Beginning obedience title and is ready to start showing for his CDX. He has been clicker trained from the age of 12 weeks and he got two first places and a second with scores in the high 190's (200 is a perfect score). He has no desire to hunt so we are going to do Rally with him too. It should be a breeze since he already has his other Novice title.