Novice Rally Question

In Novice Rally, does the dog have to automatically sit when you halt without any command?

No.. even in CARO excellent you can tell your dog to sit where needed, or it can do it automatically. AKC and CKC rally are a little more lenient in rules than CARO and APDT on many things including double commanding if your dog won't sit when you say it.

Thank you! That's what I figured, but couldn't find an answer for sure in the AKC rally rules and thought I'd just ask.

No worries. Unlike competitive ob rally is really forgiving no matter the venue. I had no like for ob, but took rally out of boredom one winter. It helped Cider and I bond in a different way, and it's actually kinda fun now. I'd like to try competitive ob in future, though the transition may be a little rough.

That's good! I decided to enter rally to give Auggie and I some fun positive "ring" experiences outside of agility, so I hope it gives us some good bonding experiences too. => I have no idea what's going to happen when we get in the ring, LOL, I'm just hoping he has fun.

good luck! luce and i are living proof that you can tell your dog to sit approximately 87 times in one novice course and still Q.

Oh, LOL elegy!!
Well, we went out there first thing this morning, and the judge walked the course and my head was spinning. It was a very twisty-turny kind of course and you got a little dizzy going around in all those circles. (They had a LOT of space at this club but for whatever reason decided not to use it and piled things on top of each other... they do that sometimes with their indoor agility courses too and it's kinda frustrating.) Then the judge got to this exercise where you're supposed to put the dog in a down, and I thought "Wait a second... a DOWN?! Nobody ever told me he had to do a DOWN!!"
ROFLMAO. It just never occured to me. I tried very quickly to work on getting him to down from my side - usually he does his sits and downs in FRONT of me, not in heel at my side, so we had spent all week working on a sit in heel. That was fine, but the down... LOL. I spent probably 20 seconds trying to get him to down. I got him back up and then repositioned him so he was kind of in front of me and THEN he would sit and down. I think we only lost the 10 points because I got him up, not because he wouldn't down no matter how many times I asked, LMAO.

Anyway, our score was 90 and our time was 2:16. I was practically laughing my head off through the entire course. (Oh yeah, and one time I stopped and had Auggie sit, and he decided to take a nice itchy-scratchy too! We run agility naked so he's not used to working with his collar on.) It was really funny to me... it's probably not funny to anybody else, but I was there to just have fun and stuff so I thought the whole thing was just comedy. Not to mention Auggie looks so excited and prancy when we're heeling, he cracks me up. He's like "OH BOY THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER I LOVE TO HEEL I CAN'T STOP SMILING YAAAAAY!!!"

So then we went out for the qualifying ribbon presentation and I thought we'd just be getting a little green Q ribbon for our 90, and then all of a sudden the judge was calling my number! We took fourth, ROFL. I was sitting there going "...OH WAIT THAT'S US." Oh God, it was just so funny. Auggie then tried to eat the ribbons out of my hand because we got a cookie too, and he missed trying to take a bite of his cookie. Silly silly dog!!


It's a LOT different than agility. I don't know if I'm totally sold on it, but we'll probably do some more, as long as it's fun (and funny!) I don't think competition obedience is something I'm interested in though... I kept seeing all these people who were SUPER SERIOUS with their dogs and stuff, and then I go out in the ring chattering like a monkey at Auggie, laughing and joking and stuff the whole time. And that's just Rally! I can't imagine how serious some people probably take regular OB. X_X

Congratulations!! Good boy!

Rally is so much fun- isn't it?

Yay! Good job! (Though I'm confused... did he just get 4th or a Q and 4th?)

I've been teaching Kiba a few rally things... I thought we were all that practicing stuff at a trial last month (while waiting) until I found out I had her heeling on the wrong side! D'oh!

congratulations!!

Pretty sure AAC, USDAA and CPE agility are the only places you can get a placement and not Q. My first AAC trial I was floored that I was getting ribbons and hadn't Qd the concept was weird as heck.

Yeah, we Q'd and took 4th - I thought we had just Q'd, I had no idea we placed.
I didn't know there were venues you could place but not Q! Weird...

Congrats again that's awesome

I still think it's weird.. Was nice as a total newb.. You got something potentially.. Being fault free in AAC makes the Qs less often, but I still think it's odd. Makes placements not worth as much.