Rally Obedience: Starting a Class

On a recent survey of my Agility students, I discovered some commonalities: 

• Most students participate in more than one form of dog sport.
• Many people were becoming interested in the new Rally Obedience event.

Close friends of mine recently had the opportunity to participate in a Rally titling competition and raved about the event! They stated that its fortes included:

• The individual exercises were fun and challenging.
• They were laid out in an interesting and sequential manner.
• Handlers could talk to their dogs throughout the entire sequence.
• Food was allowed to be used during competition between exercises.

I, too, was interested in the sport of Rally. I had read about it in Front and Finish, and agreed with its principle of allowing the handler to praise their dog throughout the time in the ring. Although there were numerous training clubs and facilities in our dog-sport-rich Chicago area, none of them were offering a Rally Obedience class. 

The same friends who had participated in the Rally event were also opening up a new positive reinforcement based training facility. Excitedly, I approached them about having me try my hand at teaching a Rally class. Although I have spent the last eight years teaching a wide variety of dog-training classes (puppy kindergarten, Flyball and Agility), I had neither done nor instructed Rally. Confident in my abilities, they accepted my proposal and were thrilled to be able to offer Rally as one of their core training classes.

Being that the facility was new, we were unsure what type of clientele would be interested in Rally. We agreed that the main requirement was that the dog must have a thorough understanding of all Novice level Obedience exercises. Although that was the minimum requirement, we believed that there would be dog/handler teams interested in the class that were much more accomplished.

I did my best to design a class that was basic and explanatory enough for the true ‘Novice’ person, but that would be challenging for the more expert dog/handler team.

Because of my experience in teaching all levels of Agility, I knew that learning the individual obstacles was relatively easy for most dog and handler teams. It was teaching the team to perform the exercises in a quick, polished manner, getting smooth transitions between the obstacles that was the most difficult concept. I believed that Rally would prove to have similar challenges; most teams would be able to perform the individual exercises, but polishing them and helping them to keep the sequence running smoothly while still reaping the benefit of the open communication and body cues to the dog would be the biggest challenge for the students.

Armed with my new Rally Kit comprised of the Bud Kramer Book entitled Rally-O: An Introduction to Rally Style Obedience, the rules from the various organizations that offer Rally Obedience, and the full set of Rally equipment purchased from J and J Dog Supplies, I was ready to go! (Side note:  If you have never been to J and J Dog Supplies in Galesburg, Illinois, it is quite a historical place! The complex in which it’s located has served as both a Mental Institution and a POW camp in WWI.)  I also applied for, and was approved as an APDT Rally judge and representative.

Using these things, I designed my first 8-week session. Each class was to last 60 minutes, and a course would be run each week. The first seven weeks of class were divided into 6 sections for the hour:

1. Review of each of the exercises in the night’s course
2. Free time/break while we set up the course
3. I walk the course with the handlers
4. The handlers would walk the course on their own
5. The teams would walk through the course with their dog. At this time many teams would be out on the course at once
6. Each team would run the course individually. During this time, the handlers could choose if they wanted to be scored or just be assisted during their run.

On the Eighth and final week of the session, two different Rally courses would be run.

Our first group of students came in January of 2000. The group was just as we suspected:  All handlers had competed in Obedience before with dogs who had earned from 1 CD leg to a UD title, and all of the handlers had competed in some other canine sport. The class went great, and everyone was very enthusiastic!! Not surprisingly, their common question was:  WHEN are you going to have a trial?

We at Pawsitive Performance have been sponsoring the class for over six months, and the interest and enthusiasm continues. We are hosting our first APDT Rally Obedience trial soon, and our students are all very excited to put all that work and training into action! I can’t wait to see the results, for I am sure they will be stellar!!

Lisa Haidle teaches Rally Obedience and Agility FUNdamentals classes. She has over 8 years of competitive dog training experience and has trained dogs in Obedience, Agility, Flyball, Tracking and Conformation. To date, Lisa has earned 37 titles with her dogs, including one of the most versatile Toy Poodles in the history of the breed. She is a member of the APDT, an Agility and Rally judge. Lisa lives in Wheaton, Illinois, with her husband David and her highly titled Toy Poodles Mabel and Ike.

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