Rally Obedience (sometimes called "Rally-O") is a new take on traditional obedience competitions.
Rally-O encourages human/canine verbal communication, eye contact, and moving in harmony. Teamwork is the goal.
In both Rally-O and traditional Obedience, dogs perform heeling, sit, stay, and recall. In traditional obedience competitions, these tasks are performed one at a time in a fairly predictable order. In Rally-O, these exercises can come in any order and combination. In traditional obedience, interaction between the handler and their dog, other than quick succinct cues is discouraged. In Rally-O, handlers can use encouragement, praise, and even petting.
Sounds great! Where do I start?
Rally-O has a course of 10 to 20 stations in which the dog/handler team performs a given task that is defined at each station. Courses vary between each competition. The team is judged not only for performing the tasks defined at each station but also for their communication and teamwork. Judges are looking for loose leashes and happy dogs. At advanced levels, dogs are off-leash. Harsh corrections and even a verbal “no” will add deductions to a score.
Rally-O can be done at the competition level, or simply as a fun way to spend time communicating and bonding with your dog.
Training techniques
The skills required for Rally-O are:
- Teaching your dog to walk with you in a “heel” position (by your left knee)
- Teaching your dog to sit, down, stay and come, and some changes in direction
- In advanced levels, your dog must do a simple jump
All of these skills can be taught using reward-based methods of marker training, targeting, or lure/reward.
Heel
The best way to begin to teach the heel cue is off leash in your house.
Additionally, it is important to build your dog’s ability to pay attention to you in distracting situations. The “watch me” cue is one of the very first things to teach your dog.
Things to avoid
- Avoid the use of physical corrections, including leash corrections to keep your dog next to you in the heel position. A leash is only for safety, not for pulling your dog into position.
- Try to avoid the habit of using a leash to direct your dog as it might become a crutch for you and an inadvertent cue for your dog. Rally-O is about clear communication so directions should be verbal or physical cues, versus through use of moving the leash in the direction you’d like your dog to go.
- Avoid the use of stern cues. Rather, have a conversation with your dog as you are navigating the course together. Instead of harshly commanding her to “sit!” at one of the stations, you can use an upbeat tone of voice when you ask her to “sit” and when she does mark with a “yes,” praise and move on to the next station.
