Rally Practice

It was another busy week. I had Drill Team on Monday night, Wednesday I helped Barbara with her new Basic Family Dog class and Thursday I visited Furry Paws and Feathers Pet Supplies to get more treats. Friday morning I went tracking with my friends Amiga, Ayla and Trotter so I thought that I would have a lazy weekend and get to sleep in.

Instead Barbara and I went out to the Animal Protection Society training center and met Ayla and her person Sandi. We practiced Rally obedience which is a fun way to do obedience. Rally is a course with stations of obedience skills like heeling around cones, fronts and finishes, different kinds of turns. You get points off your score if you don't do the station correctly. I am learning the skills so I can do all the stations. Barbara and Sandi set out a course and Ayla and I took turns practicing. Of course we got lots of praise and treats for doing the skills.


Barbara and I going through the figure eight cones.



Ayla doing a right finish around Sandi.

It is a lot of fun to do Rally and dogs should encourage their people to try this sport. Don't worry, you do not have to learn to read the signs - only your people do.

There are Rally competitions with different levels of courses and dogs can win prizes and ribbons. Barbara and Selkie used to do lots of Rally together and they earned the Rally Novice (RN) and Rally Advanced (RA) titles. Here is a picture of them getting their RA at the Gordon Setter National Specialty in June 2006.




My mom Misty recently got her Rally Novice title and has a leg towards her RA. I'd like to get good at Rally so that I can win prizes and ribbons and have lots of initials after my name.