Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

What’s Your Rally Cry?

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A couple of you mentioned in yesterday’s comments that you didn’t know what Rally was.  Since I was a bit unsure about what to write today, I’d thought I’d give an explanation.

This is Rally the way I understand it.  Of course the AKC has many more details on their website.

Almost a year and a half ago, I was a steward at a local high school, you can read about that here.

So what is Rally?

Basically Rally is dog obedience set up on a course with written instructions at each station.

IMG_2357 Simple enough.

The course is set-up by the Ring Judge. You and your dog are a team.  Each team is timed and enters the ring with a perfect score of 100.  The judge will deduct points if you make a mistake.  The timed portion of the event is in case of a tie.  In that case they go to the time and the team that completed the ring the quickest wins.

The rally rings I worked were probably about twenty to thirty feet squared, and the course is set up using left, right and about turns so you are almost walking a path.  The judge determines what commands are requested at what stations.  In the rings I’ve stewarded the commands have been laminated and they are positioned in the stand so as to be easily read.

Some of the commands are very hard.

This sign means do an about turn (turn around and head back the way you came) and then turn right.

Once the judge has set up the course, instructions are given and then you have the opportunity to walk the course without your dog.

Judge Instruction Receiving the Judge’s instructions.
Rally Walk Thru Walking the course.

There are four levels of Rally.

Novice, Advanced, Excellent and Advanced Excellent.  As you can imagine the commands increase in difficulty with each level.  In the upper levels, some of the courses are completed off-leash. In this case the Steward will take your leash and hand it back when you exit the ring.

In those levels, part of the course requirement is for a dog to ‘honor’ another dog.  This simply means your dog will lie in a certain spot and not move while a competitor completes the course.  The Steward at the exit is in charge of the stop watch and keeping an eye on the honor dog to insure the honor is done correctly.

There are two no-no’s that I know of in the ring.

1) Using food, while you can hold your hand a certain way against your body, or point with your fingers, you are not allowed to trick your dog into thinking you have food.  The first Rally I stewarded, a woman came into the ring and her dog sat and she gave the dog a bit of food and the Judge disqualified her on the spot.  She was still allowed to complete the course, but her score did not count.

2) Tags on your dog’s collar. The judge will tell you take it off or you get a DNQ (did not qualify,)

They award blue, white, yellow and red ribbons to the top four teams.

Ribbons

How do I qualify?

In order to qualify and earn a ‘leg’ you need a passing score of 70.  Once you’ve achieved three legs (under at least two different judges) you’ve earned a title!

In the rings I’ve worked, once the judge awards the ribbons they will ask, Who got their first leg?  Who got their second leg?  Who titled?

Akita This team was amazing to watch.

People who work these kinds of dog shows will tell you, Rally is the hardest ring to work and it needs to be run correctly.  In the advanced levels there are sometimes jumps incorporated into the course. When a team signs in they are asked what height their jump needs to be.  It is up to the Stewards to make sure the jump heights are correct for each dog.  A Corgi’s jump height will be different from a Golden Retriever’s.

What’s a Steward?

It is the Steward’s job to make sure all competitors are where they are supposed to be and that the rings run smoothly.

Steward

It can sometimes be a bit stressful (like when a competitor is showing in another ring at the same time) but it is a lot of fun.  My friend Ann and I run a tight Rally ring.  After our first Rally Steward we were told by the Judge that we were the best Stewards she’d ever had.

Have you ever attended a competition show?  Did I clear things up for you or just confuse you?

Food Guarding….Day Three Hundred, Fifty

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I’ve had a couple of instances where the dogs have snapped at the cat as they all clamor around my legs at feeding time.   I found the best way to diffuse the situation is to feed Bob first.  Then Bob is out of the way and there are no issues.

Saturday I made a run for raw food, so I had a bathtub full of chicken necks.  After letting them defrost for a few hours I went in to separate them into individual baggies, naturally Delilah had to come with me, just in case I missed the baggie and dropped a neck on the floor, or I turned my back for a minute so she had an opportunity to lap the chicken water. 🙂

After about 20 minutes Sampson decided to check out the bathroom, when he tried to pass Delilah she snapped at him.  I didn’t hear her growl, she just turned her head and snapped at him.

I wasn’t in the least way prepared for this so I handled it all wrong. 🙁  I shouted “Hey!”  Then I said, “GET OUT.”  Both dogs tried to leave the bathroom, but eventually I sorted them out and got Delilah outside and Sampson in, and I shut the door and left her out there.

I sat there wishing I had a clear glass door so Delilah could sit outside it and watch Sampson and me in bathroom sorting chicken necks with me slipping him the occasional neck.  Which wouldn’t be the right way, since she wouldn’t understand why he was getting the necks and she wasn’t.

I’m really at a loss at the best way to handle the situation.  Normally Delilah does not guard her food, I can reach down and take her dish away if I need to.  I have in fact taken something from her mouth with no issues, so it’s not a typical food guarding issue.

So how about it?  How do you handle this?  Do you have a dog that guards a particular food, or any food at all?  If so, how do you manage the situation?

 

Lessons From A Dog Show….Day Three Hundred, Forty Nine

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You learn a lot of interesting things when you Steward at a dog show.

No Pedigree Required:

The thing that excited me the most is finding out that it doesn’t need to be a pure-bred dog in order to compete and title in Obedience, Rally, Agility or Utility.

I always thought in order to enter a dog into any of the dog shows, the dog needed to be a pure-bred, with papers.  I found out yesterday that is not the case.

During the scoring process at the AKC show yesterday, I had to check the Judge’s book with the Judge’s score sheet to make sure the team and dog were correct.  That’s when I noticed it, one of the teams had listed the dog’s breed as “All American.”

“What the hell is an All American?” I asked.

Yes my darlings, yesterday I found out that a mixed breed like Sampson or a little rescued Chocolate Lab like Delilah that came with no papers can be registered with the AKC and can earn titles, and compete paw to paw with the purebreds.  A mixed breed or a dog without papers is classified as an “All American” or “Canine Companion.”

These All American or Canine Companions need to be registered with the AKC, and then you can enter them in a trial.

I’m thinking this is probably more about the All-Mighty dollar and less about people squawking that their dogs can’t compete but I don’t know for sure.  What I do know is I have two dogs that I need to register so I can title them in Obedience and Rally, and possibly one in Agility. 😉

You cannot use a food treat in the ring:

One competitor gave her dog a little treat just inside the ring.  The Judge had to tell her she was excused.  She could still do the course, she just couldn’t qualify.  A qualifying score is 70 or better out of 100.

No tags on collars:

I don’t know the reason for this, but there cannot be anything hanging off from the collar.  We had a quick shuffling of dogs as one woman frantically tried to remove the tag from her dog’s collar.  *Note to self, bring a pair of pliers with you to the dog show.

Bring paper towels:

Yup, dogs around other dogs sometimes get excited or nervous and accidents happen.  Oops!

Stewards get any food they want….for free:

While there were all kinds of foods for competitors to buy, if you had a Steward badge on they just handed you food or drink.  We even had a lovely lunch consisting of roasted chicken, macaroni salad (which this gluten-free gal could not eat) and tossed salad.

Pay attention to what your dog is doing:

One woman (the same one who treated her dog in the ring) wasn’t paying attention to her dog after she left the ring.  She was so focused on getting to her friends and telling them what happened that she didn’t notice her dog had stopped walking and lay down.  Yeah, she basically dragged the dog from the ring.

Some dog people are nasty:

One lady came up to me near the end of the last trial and asked for her competitor number; I said “I’m not allowed to give those out” as I was scoring at the time and the scorer must really pay attention to what is going on in the ring. 

She snotted back at me “I’ve been stewarding at another ring, let’s not go there.”

My inner bitch said, “Go F*** yourself,” but my mouth said, “This is my first time doing this and I don’t have an experienced Steward on site.”

My inner bitch was tickled when she didn’t place.

Seeing I was pretty busy most of the day, I didn’t have an opportunity to take a lot of pictures, but I did sneak my camera out of my back pocket a couple of times.  Here are some random pictures from the trials.

There were crates everywhere!

 

Judge Lynda Moore giving instructions before the walk-thru.

When her number was announced as first place, there was a moment of silence and then a surprised, "That's me!"

 

Jake the Pointer, what a beautiful dog.

 

I called this "Viszla Row."

 

What do you think?  Have you ever heard of Rally, Utility, Agility or Obedience trials?  Titles? Is it something you would want to try with your dog(s)?

 

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