Rally Obedience

Rally Obedience is one of the newest dogs sports. It was the brain child of Mr. Charles Kramer. I think Mr. Kramer is probably the best person to describe his sport. (The below quotes are from his book "Rally O, An Introduction to Rally Obedience" 2nd edition from the "Introduction Chapter"

"The name Rally Style Obedience has been adopted for this concept of Obedience training and competition because of the use of directional signs to guide the handler throughout the performance in a manner somewhat similar to the sport of Rally Care Racing"

"...The exceptional feature of Rally Style Obedience is the allowance of handlers to communicate with their dogs, both verbally and with hand signals at any time and as often as desired, throughout the performance."

"...the article in which I first described the Rally-O concept, I expressed the hope that Rally would become an Obedience program that emphasized fun and excitement for the dog and handler by providing a more 'natural' approach to the performance."

Rally Obedience incorporates all of the great philosophies of training using positive reinforcement and giving encouragement and feedback to your dog. It is for this reason that I LOVE Rally and am a little evangelistic in my approach to Rally. It is a sport that all ages of people and all ages of dogs can train and compete on a level playing field!

A foundation of basic obedience moves - sit, down, come, stay are required for success in Rally training.

Although I compete in and encourage the development of AKC Rally and soon UKC Rally my heart belongs to APDT's version of Rally Obedience. They were one of the first groups to offer titles and they have tried to keep Rally as close to Bud Kramer's original version. Also, you can give food reinforcement WHILE in the ring (under certain guidelines). You can download the rules for APDT Rally from their web site at www.apdt.org