# Rally Change?



## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

*Huh?*​ 
*I think this means that I'm going to stay in Rally classes over winter after all. Some of these new signs scare me. The send to jump (it sounds like a broad jump exercise?), the 360 about turn (oh my god)... *​ 
*It looks like they've upped the difficulty of some things. *​

*And the STAY. It looks like they knew good-stay-deprived Jack and I were coming! *
​


> Section 4. The Stay Exercise.
> ​​​​​​The judge will designate the area or person in charge of the leash prior to the excellent walkthrough. All exhibitors must be informed of where they need to go to retrieve their leash or from whom during the walkthrough. Immediately following the Finish Sign the handler and dog will go to the Stay Sign. The handler will sit the dog, and command and/or signal the dog to stay. The handler will then walk forward at least fifteen (15) feet, retrieve the leash from any of the following; gate steward, judge or designated area next to the ring exit, and return to heel position by walking around and behind the dog. The judge will order “Exercise Finished” at which time the judging of the Stay Exercise will be complete. The handler will then attach the leash and exit the ring. The Stay Exercise is not considered to be one of the stationary exercises on the course. ​


*NEW SIGNS (NOVICE CLASS)*​ 
Figure 8 – No Distractions – Two pylons or posts spaced approximately 6-8 feet apart. The team enters the sequence with the posts on either left or right and will perform a complete figure 8 around the posts or pylons, crossing the center point three times. 

HALT – Left Turn – Forward – Handler halts, dog sits. With the dog sitting the handler commands and/or signals the dog to heel, as the handler turns to the left and continues to move forward in the new direction without hesitation. The dog must turn with handler as the handler turns.

*** We practiced this last night at class. Hated it, because I have to step out right away otherwise Jacks is trained to pivot-scoot-sit.

HALT – Right Turn – Forward - Handler halts, dog sits. With the dog sitting the handler commands and/or signals the dog to heel, as the handler turns to the right and continues to move forward in the new direction without hesitation. The dog must turn with the handler as the handler turns.​ 
Call Front – Return to Heel – While heeling the handler stops forward motion and calls the dog to the front position. The handler may take several steps backward as the dog turns and moves to sit in the front position. Dog sits in front and faces the handler. The handler will then walk around behind the dog and return to the heel position and pause. Dog must remain sitting as handler walks around dog. (This is a 180° change of direction, about turn.) (Stationary Exercise)

*** How bizarre is this?!

Halt–Slow Forward From Sit – The handler halts, and the dog sits in heel position. The handler then commands and/or signals the dog to heel and moves forward at a slow pace. The dog must maintain heel position as handler slowly moves forward. This must be followed by a normal pace, unless it is the last station on the course. (Stationary exercise)


*NEW SIGNS (ADVANCED CLASS)*​ 

HALT – Stand – Handler halts and dog sits. With the dog sitting in heel position, the handler will stand the dog. Handler may touch the dog, move forward to stand the dog and may pose the dog as in the show ring. Handler then resumes heel position while the dog stands in place. Handler pauses before moving forward.

***Not sure how this is new?​ 
Halt–Pivot Right–Forward– The handler halts and the dog sits in heel position. The handler commands and/or signals the dog to heel, then pivots to the right and dog and handler move forward. (Stationary exercise)​ 
Halt–Pivot Left–Forward– The handler halts and the dog sits in heel position. The handler commands and/or signals the dog to heel, then pivots to the left and dog and handler move forward. (Stationary exercise)​ 

Leave Dog–2 Steps–Call to Heel– Forward– The handler halts, and the dog sits in heel position. While the dog remains sitting the handler takes two steps forward and pauses. The handler moves forward and commands the dog to resume heel position. The dog must move briskly. (Stationary exercise)

***Here's where all those "find heel" drills will come in handy.​ 

*NEW SIGNS (EXCELLENT CLASS)*


Down While Heeling – While moving forward, without pause or hesitation. The handler will command and/or signal the dog to down and stay as the handler continues forward about 6 feet to the Call to Heel marker. The handler will turn and face the dog, pause and then command and/or signal the dog to heel. (This sign will be followed within 6 feet by the Call to Heel marker.) Dog must return to heel position and the handler must pause before moving forward.

*** Cool!​ 

Stand While Heeling – While moving forward, without pause or hesitation the handler will command and/or signal the dog to stand and stay as the handler continues forward about 6 feet to the Call to Heel marker. The handler will turn and face the dog, pause and then command and/or signal the dog to heel. This is a 180° change of direction, about turn. (This sign will be followed within 6 feet by the Call to Heel marker.) Dog must return to heel position and handler must pause before moving forward.

*** Really cool<:​ 
Stand – Leave Dog – Sit Dog – Call Front-Finish – While heeling, the handler will stop and command and/or signal the dog to stand, the dog must stand and stay without sitting first. Then the handler will walk forward approximately 6 feet to the Call to Heel marker. The handler will turn to face the dog and command and/or signal the dog to sit. When the dog sits, the handler will command and/or signal the dog to front. The dog sits in the front position facing the handler. On command and/or signal, the dog will move to heel position. Dog must sit in heel position before moving forward with the handler. (Stationary Exercise)

*** I am SO glad we are working on signals!!!!!

Send to Jump – At the sign for this station, the handler will command and/or signal the dog to leave heel position to execute the jump. The dog must leave the handler immediately and execute the jump. The handler must maintain a straight path of at least a 3 foot distance away from the jump and may not pass the jump until the dog has returned to heel position. The dog must jump the jump in the proper direction and return to heel position without pause, hesitation, or stopping. The team then continues to the next station.

*** This has my mind scrambled, and I guess I need to see how this is done. It sounds like you send the dog over the jump and then immediately call to heel and back behind the jump or next to it?

Stand-Leave Dog-Down Dog-Recall – While heeling, the handler will stop and stand the dog using a command and/or signal, then walk forward approximately 6 feet. The dog must stand and stay without sitting first. The handler will turn to face the dog and command and/or signal the dog to down. When the dog downs, the handler will command and/or signal the dog to front. The dog must sit in the front position facing the handler. On command and/or signal, the dog will move to heel position. The dog must sit in heel position before moving forward with the handler. (Stationary Exercise)

*** Again, REALLY glad we've been working on signals.

Double Left About Turn – While moving with the dog in heel position, the handler makes an about turn to the left while at the same time, the dog must move around the handler to the right and into heel position. The handler must take one or two steps forward before performing the exercise a second time. The handler will end up turning 360° to the left as the dog turns 360° to the right around the handler. The dog does not sit at any time during this exercise.

*** So double schunthund turn?

Stay – This sign will be used as a marker for the stay exercise. The dog must remain in the sit position while handler retrieves leash and returns to heel position and the judge says “exercise finished”.

*** >.< 

Call to Heel Marker – This sign will be used as a marker for associated exercises.​


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

Do you know when these changes will take effect?

I for one, am very happy with the Stay change - the first time I was in Rally Exc was the last time - the judge set up the jump on a diagonal heading straight for the honor dog - my dogs are trained but I pulled them right then and there - too many of the dogs went charging towards the honor dog. So perhaps I will enter once again once the change goes into effect


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

I think I saw it will be April 2012?

I think possibly the stay will be fine and probably will make more sense than the current set up where people put their dogs in a short stay and talk to them the entire time. <- I was planning to use the honor as practice before getting into novice, but the walking 15 feet to the steward or gate to grab the leash and back won't be worse than the stay in BN at least.


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## sammydog (Aug 23, 2008)

Wow! Rally is sure complicated! :


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

sammydog said:


> Wow! Rally is sure complicated! :


I think it just got complicated... :bowl:

Here's a response I just read regarding the jump... 



> Who knows? Seriously the judges are discussing this now and we don't agree what it means. I think it means the handler sends the dog to the jump from the sign 10 feet away and cannot pass the jump until the dog has returned to heel position. In addition, the handler must be a minimum of 3 feet away from the path line of the jump.


From the sounds of it, the jump has officially become something I can't really practice in my living room.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

the part I'm excited about is where they define "luring" and "pleading" and make them substantial deductions!


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

Grins - the funny thing is, I can remember learning and enjoying most of these exercises as doodles to perfecting heeling, fronts & finishes. Before Rally existed - you know, the stone age  

It made the lessons and training sessions way more dynamic and fun.


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

Where are the changes being posted and/or discussed? TIA


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## sammydog (Aug 23, 2008)

Loisiana said:


> the part I'm excited about is where they define "luring" and "pleading" and make them substantial deductions!


I think that would be good! I remember seeing someone walking around the course like they had a treat in their hand the whole time.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Loisiana said:


> the part I'm excited about is where they define "luring" and "pleading" and make them substantial deductions!


But what do they define as luring? 

I know our instructor was bothered about people who go from sign to sign leading the dog with an invisible treat. That I can totally agree with. 

But what is too much?  Like my hand signal for getting my guy to stand is my first three fingers together like I'm holding a treat. It works in novice without any deductions, but...?

(I had a chuckle at the "pleading")

@Sharon - I've seen chatter elsewhere and they were buzzing about it at class last night. The comment I posted above came from the Yahoo obedience group.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

I saw the luring and pleading part on the balanced obedience facebook page. 

I think the jump sounds like a horrible idea. Rally is supposed to be a lead in to obedience, not agility. Why would I want to teach my dog to go take a jump and then return around the side of it?


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

Sunrise said:


> Do you know when these changes will take effect?
> 
> I for one, am very happy with the Stay change - the first time I was in Rally Exc was the last time - the judge set up the jump on a diagonal heading straight for the honor dog - my dogs are trained but I pulled them right then and there - too many of the dogs went charging towards the honor dog. So perhaps I will enter once again once the change goes into effect


We had this exact set up. We honored first but went last, and the judge forgot us through a whole second honor. It stunk. Tally always seems perplexed by the honor as we never practice it. He expects me to leave like an obedience stay but then I hang around.

The new signs seem fine. Are they dropping out any?


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Ljilly28 said:


> Are they dropping out any?


I had a question about the same thing... 

Before the list of the new signs, there was a list of current signs. I didn't see any reason why they were listed... now I'm wondering.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

http://www.akc.org/pdfs/about/board_minutes/1111.pdf

starts on page 20


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

*Luring​*​– _The appearance of having a reward in hand. i.e. holding the thumb and first
two fingers together as if holding a treat. No treat need be present._​_
_*Natural Manner​*​​​​– Not artificial, free of affectation; what is customarily expected in the
home or public places.​
*Pleading​*​​​​– Repeated urgent commands and/or signals to elicit the proper behavior from​
the dog while the dog remains unresponsive to handler’s commands and/or signals.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Oh bugger. 

I think I would still risk it if it gets my dog into a stand from a sit position. We've worked on kick back stands too, but walking him into a stand with the hand signal gets a better natural stack position. 

Why would rally take points off for something that it OK in regular obedience? Or am I overthinking this and the judges are mainly bothered by people luring dogs around pylons with the "treat" vs something that could be a hand signal?

If it's just 1 point, I mean. If it's big points off, it'd be worth turning the three finger into a pointed finger. And I see 6-10 points? Holy cow.


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

I think they might be referring to the 'air cookies' that are so common in Rally


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Sunrise said:


> I think they might be referring to the 'air cookies' that are so common in Rally


So I should put the hyperventilating on hold then...


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

When you see people in novice begging and pleading with a dog who is giving the paw and doing the air cookies, it does give Rally a bad name, lol!


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Ljilly28 said:


> When you see people in novice begging and pleading with a dog who is giving the paw and doing the air cookies, it does give Rally a bad name, lol!


 
Especially when they do that through the whole course and QUALIFY


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Ljilly28 said:


> When you see people in novice begging and pleading with a dog who is giving the paw and doing the air cookies, it does give Rally a bad name, lol!


Or hunched over and using their finger to guide their dog around the course when they are off leash.... 

I wish they'd done away with the clapping hands or leg slapping and clucking too. One of the trials we were at, it was a little embarrassing to watch some of the handling in the ring.


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## Stretchdrive (Mar 12, 2011)

One thing I hate is when I see a dog/handler team that was doing all the begging and pleading ending up with a nearly perfect score!!


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## Stretchdrive (Mar 12, 2011)

Loisiana said:


> I think the jump sounds like a horrible idea. Rally is supposed to be a lead in to obedience, not agility. Why would I want to teach my dog to go take a jump and then return around the side of it?


 
I agree, when in obedience does a dog go over a jump as they go away from you, and then return around the jump? I know it is not "obedience", but if it is suppose to lead to obedience then why is this one of the exercises?


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Another spot to read up (I'm sure everyone's looked here already, but I just settled down to check all the groups) - the Rally Obedience Yahoo group. 

It's all about the directed jump in Excellent.


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## rhondas (Sep 10, 2010)

Well, AKC has finally caught up with APDT (still a ways to go for Excellent) with more challenging signs.
All the new AKC ones have been in APDT for some time. 

Now, I hope AKC will also start deducting three points for each repeated command like APDT does in all classes. 

It's good that they are going to start deducting for pleading etc - heck I have seen it in AKC Rally Obedience Advanced and Excellent with no points deducted and also in APDT. It does give Rally and is not fair to the teams who have truly clean runs with enthusiasm.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

I think Jodie already mentioned inadvertantly teaching a dog to go around a high jump instead of returning over it. 

The other thing I saw mentioned elsewhere is that it's also conceivably going to mess up your broad jump training. <- Admittedly a lot of these stations have the dog going to heel position and I'm uncomfortable about that since I don't want my fronts to get messed up.

Makes you wonder why they didn't just introduce the broad jump exercise. Especially since it's not as difficult to train as this send-to-jump thing will be. :uhoh:


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## pkgoldens (Nov 13, 2011)

I down loaded all the new rally regs last night. I have allot of work to do since my one girl is in Excellent. Need to know all the signs. I will probably enter her in the spring in Advanced B just to see how it goes. Allot to think about since most of what was put out was not recommended by the Rally Advisory Committee


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

I saw this in my email this morning, thought it was a great idea. 

I think this was aimed at judges especially as there was so much confusion over the vague writing. But if you had questions... 



> I have been asked to collect questions about the interpretation of the new AKC Rally Regulations, summarize them, and send them in a single email to the AKC so that they won't be totally flooded with emails and can put out information to everyone in a reasonable way. If you have such questions, I would appreciate it if you would send them to me at the email address below using the Subject line: Questions about Rally. If you could get questions to me before December 1, that will give me time to compile them and have them ready for the AKC Delegate meeting in December, where I am on the Delegate Obedience, Tracking, and Agility Committee. Thank you.
> 
> Please send questions to XXXX
> 
> ...


**** I edited out her email address, because she'd posted this on an email list vs a public forum.


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

Megora said:


> I think Jodie already mentioned inadvertantly teaching a dog to go around a high jump instead of returning over it.
> 
> The other thing I saw mentioned elsewhere is that it's also conceivably going to mess up your broad jump training. <- Admittedly a lot of these stations have the dog going to heel position and I'm uncomfortable about that since I don't want my fronts to get messed up.
> 
> Makes you wonder why they didn't just introduce the broad jump exercise. Especially since it's not as difficult to train as this send-to-jump thing will be. :uhoh:


I agree with this wholeheartedly. I still have a tiny bit of a grudge against my APDT Rally O class from years ago which gave cheers and applause for even crooked sits. It was too supportive, lol. To then do AKC obedience, I had to retrain all our fronts and sits to be straight.


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

pkgoldens said:


> I down loaded all the new rally regs last night. I have allot of work to do since my one girl is in Excellent. Need to know all the signs. I will probably enter her in the spring in Advanced B just to see how it goes. Allot to think about since most of what was put out was not recommended by the Rally Advisory Committee


If a Master title is introduced, then I am going to take Tally and Flirt back through Excellent B Rally, but I am curious if we can go back to Novice B in Obedience(?) since it has been more than 60 days and one has a CDX leg(?). I never know the rules correctly!


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

In case there are people who aren't on the rally forum, the AKC released the rules/regs for the new signs/changes. I haven't read through it yet, but it supposedly answers a lot of questions. 

Here's the link. 
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/events/rally/2012RallyRegulationsDRAFT.pdf


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Rather than start a new thread.... I thought I'd ask right here... 

What do you guys think about what's going on with APDT Rally? I saw a bunch of emails bopping around my gmail about it going away?


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

So has anyone done the new signs yet? I have a few questions! In Rally Excellent's new jump, after I send Tally over, may I call him back to heel as long as my feet don't stop? With the sings that say things like DOWN AND STOP, what is up with the footwork. I don't get if it is a moving or stationary exercise. In Rally Novice, Do Lush and Copley turn right with me or do I call them to heel for the new Halt, Turn Right, Forward?


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