Rally?

What is CCD?, we pretty much start at novice (I think there is some before thing but no one really offers it)

Pretty much here its all indoors. Very little obedience outdoors. I personally have never seen it but I know it happens. (how about obedience in a fairground cow shed.. with a JRT and there are tonnes of rodent smells! lol I wasn't entered in that one and boy was I glad) Agility is indoors all winter and spring outdoors summer and fall. My first agility trial was in a park with a rope about waist high as the barrier! LOL thankfully most trials have more barrier than that.

Yes, I have to say I don't see many scent hounds in either. Though I have seen more in obedience. I do have a lot of respect for people who do agility or obed with scent hounds. But to do agility you need more than 5 seconds of focus too.

Its only boring if you are bad at training I have so many people tell me obed is boring. Well if you think its boring you are going to have a hard time teaching your dog its a great game to play with people! My standard for heel is high. Head up eyes on me the whole time. JRTs get too distracted lol to let them look around and hope they don't see something 'better' than me. We have LOADS of dog events around here. Its nothing to see the top obed person in Canada or some of the top agility competitors in the world at a local trial. (in fact some of my friends take lessons from a lady who has been the top obed person in Can so I can say our standards are pretty high) My first obed dog (an intact stud JRT) actually the first dog that ever did more than be a basic pet, got his CD with no score lower than 194, and was 1st each time (novice B as I started teaching with the local obed club before I started trailing) We had a few hiccups in open, with him trying to return the dumbell to people other than me (cause he knew i would take it away after retrieve over high jump) But he only failed a couple of times lol.

Just curious what venue to you play? Some venues the dog can run beside you the whole time and you can have success. That could play into it too.


Well I don't usually train that often, so if you averaged it out then yes Dekka hit her first trial at 12 months and we had really only been working on it for about a month beforehand. She is amazing (she is the one who does movies and things) Not to say I didn't train her before that. But it was maybe 30 second bits here and there. I was more interested in agility by then. I do know many people in local clubs who say that if you have a decent dog you should be able to be ready for novice in 8 weeks, lol keep in mind most of these people have OTCHs so they know what they are doing. Though I only say that if your dog already knows how to learn, and already has basic leash manners, knows sit etc.

I wholeheartedly agree. When I trained Dekka I taught everything silently. The person who was teaching classes when I learnt with Kaiden had us talk to our dogs happily (I guess so they knew a correction wasn't coming) as we worked. The problem was when I got to a trial Kaiden assumed he was doing things wrong as I was now silent. We dealt and got great scores, but I could tell it stressed him out. Train as you mean to compete. If you want that sexy eye up glued to your side heel, then only accept that in training. Don't go meh good enough... If you want your dog to heel whilst you are silent, don't train yabbering on.

Now most people (not all for sure) that I know that start in Rally (vs start in obed and move to rally as its more interesting or to have something else to compete in) have this idea that obed is horrible and boring. They have very little interest in doing formal obed. Here there are so many rally classes and streams that you can to rally for a loooong time and not run out of titles to aim for. So people don't' feel the need to try traditional obed, which is sad as it IS fun.

Just wanted to add that while speed isn't a factor in obedience it IS a factor in rally, at least in AKC. Our last leg for Auggie's RN we didn't place because another guy got the same score we did but he was like three seconds faster. So there's another element. You can't dash through the heeling patterns but there's an advantage to having everything crisp and sharp and even to having, say, an automatic sit while heeling like you need in the OB ring.

I don't know if anybody answered your question yet, Lizmo, but you can find the AKC's requirements for the different levels of rally on their events page. I've not competed in anything beyond novice level but as far as I can tell the biggest difference is that after novice you are off-leash, the number of obstacles goes up in each level, and there's a jump present. There's also something else in the advanced level, I think you have to back up three steps while the dog remains in heel? Backwards heeling basically. And then the dog stands in place while you walk around them in a circle. They call it something funny but I can't remember it off the top of my head.


Also in AKC agility, if you don't Q, you don't place. Probably because placements really don't mean anything - the only thing that really matters is that green Q ribbon. (Well, placement matters when you're playing in Ex B and going for MACH points because of the multipliers, but on the whole it doesn't matter.)

IME the AKC and CKC agility courses aren't exactly easier, but they are more consistent in their difficultly level. (going by what I have heard, and seen on paper and youtube. There are so few CKC agility trials here as they are way more money and less runs) So people have a better idea of what to expect.

Though I do think they should still get ribbons. If an entire masters class can go with only one or two Qs in all the regular dogs then at least people who did do well should get something lol. Here placings mean nothing when it comes to titles. We dont' have multipliers. As there are usually so few 10 inch dogs running I only take placements if it was also a Q or a spectacular run in some way.

Yeah, there have been times when only one or two dogs Q out of a whole class. I have actually been that one Q in a whole class several times... it doesn't happen a ton in the excellent classes but it's actually fairly common in Open. Then again a lot of people scrape through Novice on some lucky Q's and then get into Open and have no idea how to cope with the sudden elevation of challenges. As a result Novice has been getting a lot more difficult to try and make it less of a shock I guess?

I know a lot of people who play USDAA or NADAC who hate AKC. I don't know if it's really harder or if the challenges are just different, so if you haven't been playing AKC all along it seems hard, but I've heard people wailing about "crazy" courses when they aren't really that bad at all. And I've seen some really crazy courses, but usually where I draw the line at crazy is when a judge has put in a challenge that is actually DANGEROUS for the dogs. And until some recent regulations that was starting to become common... but now they've made more safety regs and things have definitely calmed down. I think it really just depends on what you're used to doing, and then when you switch venues you have a different set of challenges. I think that goes for all the venues.

The only time placement matters is when you're going after a MACH and you need MACH points. They are getting rid of that though... I think in July they are dropping the multipliers. I don't know why they made that change. I know some people are really unhappy because if you have a consistent dog who is always fast and almost always places first or second you can snag those points really fast. It's not like you are taking points away from other dogs by getting a multiplier either... I dunno.

Around here pretty much everyone who does CKC also does AAC. LOL they don't seem to like CKC much. I think its the lack of games and higher cost, though some people complain about the lack of runs. AAC recently added a challenge class. Harest.thing.I.have.ever.seen as a class.

I hope they stay for when I get there lol, but not too many enter those classes at trials I have gone to.

Beanie -- The multipliers go away July 1. The reason being that it levels the playing field a bit. Competitors in more rural areas had a huge advantage because of the smaller class sizes whereas those in areas with bigger trials have a much larger task ahead of them. When I was in IL, for example, outside of Chicago a 20" excellent B class was usually 5-20 dogs (and 20 was a LOT). Since moving I've yet to see a 20" exc B class with fewer than 70 dogs. Also, the different heights tend to vary wildly interms of entries...20" is almost always the largest, followed by 16, 24, 12, and 8.

Plus the argument has been made that the dogs taking the top spots at decently large events really don't need the multiplier anyway in terms of MACH pts...the only difference I see it making are for those who trial minimally yet still try to reach the top % of their breed on pts.

Thanks for the link! Could someone explain what a few signs mean?

"Halt 1,2,3. steps foward" -1 2 3 steps to what? Sit after this?
"Spiral left/right" - are you moving around a cone or something?
"Moving Side Step"
"Call front, finish left/right" - ??

Also, if I were to teach this myself, what would I need? My curiousity is sparked again in rally. haha.

"Halt 1,2,3. steps foward"
This is what you do:
Halt, sit.
One step, halt, sit.
Two steps, halt, sit.
Three steps, halt, sit.

"Spiral left/right"
There are three cones set up in a line. You first walk around all three cones, then you walk around two, then around just one. That's the decreasing circle thingie I mentioned in my first post, LOL.

"Moving Side Step"
You take a step - I'm pretty sure it's to the right because the dog is on the left - to the side, and your dog needs to take a step to the right with you in heel.

"Call front, finish left/right"
You leave the dog in a stay, then you do a recall. The dog needs to come to the front of you first, and then you "finish" which is put the dog back into heel. To finish left is the dog goes to your left side and does a turn/pivot and then goes back into heel; finish right is the dog goes to your right and goes around behind you back into heel.


If you wanted to train it yourself I would say train a GREAT heel, and make sure you can get all kinds of behaviours with your dog still in heel. I remember the first rally trial I went to I looked at all the signs and went "$&#*! Nobody told me we'd have to do a DOWN in heel!!" I'd been working on sit in heel (working towards an automatic sit on halt, actually) but had COMPLETELY forgotten about down. Derp!
After that it's basically just learning what all the different signs mean!

Its pretty much all 'doodling' or heeling in interesting patterns. Check out youtube. Lots of rally runs out there

The way I've always seen it done, there's no leaving the dog in a stay. As you heel, you call the dog to a front - you can take three steps backwards as the dog comes around to the front before halting. The dog shouldn't sit at all until he's in a front position.

At least in APDT, this is the correct definition. There is no recall...it's a moving call to front from heel.

I feel the same way about this. Most people who have told me they don't like competition obedience because it's "boring" are people who have not actually trained a dog to any degree of reliability in the sport.

I think at the Novice level, agility is definitely easier for people to feel successful with. They can give the dog extra commands all they want and runs are generally a minute or less, so you don't really need a dog who is able to work a prolonged time without reinforcers. Not that people don't have challenges in agility and like I said earlier, there are certainly a good number of dogs entered in trials who are really not ready.

It's because there are too many dogs getting MACHs each year. For titles such as MACHs or breed CHs, there is an ideal of what percentage of dogs competing should be able to complete the title in any given year. If the number gets too much higher than that ideal, you can count on changes to be made to make it more difficult.

I have competed in multiple agility venues and each has their own challenges and each has areas where they may be easier or harder than other venues. When I started competing in AKC agility, it was brand new and the courses could all be easily run with the dog on one side the entire time. Lots of people got worried if they felt they had to switch sides, especially when they had to run their dog on the right. Times certainly have changed!

There are signs that say how many steps you're supposed to take and which direction, backwards or diagonal, but I think that's different. But maybe I'm thinking of the honor exercises in Advanced which are exactly like obedience.

In this case it is that the handler may take up to three steps backwards to fascilitate getting the dog into front. They may also just stop, or just take one or two...just not more than three...

Totally agree with you there - hope my earlier posts weren't coming across that way because I think most of us would have had at least one occasion where we've gone into the ring and our dogs haven't worked to their normal standard or it's basically just been a disaster (for me it's been more than one occasion - I get really nervous and it impacts badly on my dog).

However IMO most of the time when a handler steps into the ring who trains their dogs with very old school methods it's usually obvious and reflected in the dog. I know the handlers who use old school methods because they really aren't shy about explaining to you how they train their dogs or demonstrating it for you.

This has always been my experience with Schutzhund too. And I agree completely that hardly anyone I would talk to in obedience would understand what I mean when I refer to drive.

CCD stands for community companion dog, it is kind of like the encouragement class. It is exactly the same as novice except the heelwork is done on leash, there is no change of position/dumbell exercise and down stays are a minute shorter (2 minutes instead of 3), and a couple of other minor differences.

LOL that sounds like our annual royal shows! The dogs have to compete agility and obedience where they toilet the cows in the morning :S I haven't entered there either (yet haha).

For some reason all our agility and obedience trials use waist high ropes as the "barriers".

We probably see more in agility over here, I know one other person trialling with a beagle in my state, and they've done one trial LOL.

Definitely, you need more than five seconds of focus in agility, but I did the hard work and got that when we were training obedience so when I started agility I had a dog who could already focus and work in drive just about anywhere at any time. That was my biggest struggle in obedience so that has made agility a lot easier for us.

COMPLETELY agree - I was just using the excuse or explanation given to me as to why people find it hard TBH a lot of people lack the skill to make heelwork fun and exciting. Trying to get the people in my obedience classes to 'have a party' with their dogs when they get something right is like pulling nails!

I am sure your standard is high, I was talking generally when I said it depends on your standard (just in case you thought I was picking on you ). I see people passing in all levels of obedience with low scores and with dogs who don't work with any great attitude, who look flat and lag and lack animation etc. I think how high a standard you have definitely impacts on how challenging a sport is for you because it shapes how much hard work you put into it.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'venue' - we have two options here, ANKC agility or ADAA agility. Only ANKC agility gives you official titles. In terms of rules, difficulty etc they are almost exactly the same in a lot of ways and people cross between both with no real problems.

We are only new to agility and haven't competed yet but I don't want my dog running beside me. I am training her to take obstacles independently of me and getting her working further away from me (even though we do distance stuff in obedience) has definitely been a bit of a challenge - like I said I don't find agility EASY, I just find it easier than obedience because I am not starting from scratch with a dog who I struggle to get focus and drive from.

Do you have any videos of what your novice obedience rounds look like? I am not doubting that the right trainer with the right dog could possibly have a dog competing in eight weeks but even the top trialers I know take on average 12-18 months from puppy hood to have a dog ready (in their eyes) to trial.

I'd love to see some videos of your dogs they sound amazing


ETA: I had a look at what the requirements are for an OTCH in the US. That is really interesting! Here, to compete in UD dogs must first have an Open title and then to get an OTCH they have to get their UD title (three quallies in UD) and then get an extra five UD passes with scores over 185. It must be quite competitive to get an OTCH in the US when it is reliant on coming 1st!

But then it's really more than 8 weeks...training leash manners and sit and other basics are part of training for obedience competition.

Holy crap I have a lot of reading to do to catch up! lol

I don't have any obed vids. I haven't entered an obed trial in... almost 5 years? I was briefly president of the local obed club then decided to go back to school and quit all things obed. The only dog sport I dabble in these days is agility. I did to a bit of rally, but with my time and funds so limited I save them for our favourite activities (DD and agility) I am hoping to be done school next year, yes I have been in school the whole time :rofl1:

This is the most recent video anyone has lol. Its on a friends youtube. Its not a great run, I it was the end of the day on day two of a trial. So this is her fouth run of the day.
YouTube - 2pamperedpaws's Channel

I am in Canada, so again the obed rules are slightly different than the US ones.

I thought call front finish left/right was you halt, the dog sits, you call the dog to the front position from heel position and then ask for the correct finish, either right or left.

Am I wrong? Finishes for Enzo and I are incredibly easy. Heeling she does wonderfully at it, nice tight heel, eyes up, but for the LIFE OF ME I cannot correct her CROOKED front. ARGH.