My First Rally Title

URO1

 (United Kennel Club Rally Obedience Level 1)

Saturday

with Judge Laurie Soutar
and the giant walking traffic cone

Celebrating my first 2 Qs

Sunday

with Judge Isobel Hutton

Celebrating my first performance title
"Hey, giant traffic cone, that's my rosette!"

Wow!  Mom thought it was time we assessed how our Rally training was coming along. No matter how well you do in class or how many classes you attend, a class setting is relatively quiet and becomes routine after awhile. Eventually, you have to set foot in a ring and see how well you do within the hectic environment of a trial. Both Conformation shows and Obedience/Rally-Obedience trials are environments filled with lots of new dogs, new people and commotion.  

At a Conformation show, the noise level is fairly uniform with occasional bursts of humans clapping and cheering. Once in the show ring, you are expected to move around the ring in the same way every time with the only real variable being the number of other dogs (and handlers) in the ring with you and your handler.  

At an Obedience & Rally-Obedience trial, the noise level constantly fluctuates from complete silence to clapping and cheering and the commotion includes:  multiple dogs practicing off-leash in close proximity, dumbbells flying through the air and sometimes banging into walls, dogs jumping over various jumps, dogs running through tunnels and weave poles, and loud voices echoing from the obedience ring. In contrast to the show ring, the rally ring is always different – you never know what the sequence of exercises will be until you start moving through the stations. The first level of UKC Rally requires proficiency in 29 exercises. Success in the Rally ring requires you to perform the exercises (15-17 of the 29) accurately (subject to minor or major point deductions which are mostly caused by human error) as you move around the ring all the while ignoring the commotion and noises outside of the ring. 

As fun matches are few and far between, we entered the Maple Leaf Kennel Club’s UKC Rally trial this weekend to gauge how well we can work as a team in the midst of so many distractions. Supported by classmates and friends, with no expectations and no pressure, we worked our way through 3 courses and earned scores of 84, 88 and 90 (finishing in 3^rd place) to complete my first performance title: URO1.  

A passing score is 70/100. Had the giant walking traffic cone not made so many errors, all of my scores would have been in the 90s. On Saturday, the majority of points lost were as a result of redoing stations that really didn’t need redoing thereby incurring otherwise unnecessary deductions. On Sunday, points were deducted mostly for “tight leash” occurrences caused by the human’s failure to take note of the distractions on the floor and pre-empt my exploration of such (namely, the “tumbleweeds” left behind by the numerous shelties and goldens (smoothcoats never leave behind tumbleweeds!)).   

A Great Big Thank You goes out to last semester's instructors at Swansea Dog Obedience Club: Jane McLaughlin, Monica Anthony & Karen Stewart and this semester's instructor at Campaign Dog Academy: Heidi Kadoke.