What Rally can learn from Agility

[repost from The Pink Pin]

Rally was originally proposed as a mix between Obedience and Agility. But, most people will say, it really has almost nothing to do with agility. The only agility-like aspects of Rally are the numbered course and the fact that it's timed. Other than that, Rally is very firmly rooted in Obedience. The signs and their performance are all Obedience tasks.

Further, many Rally people have never done agility. They may be new to dog sport, or they may have done obedience or be taking obedience classes. But there is one fundamental way that Rally does relate to agility that many people simply don't think about.

In Obedience, a dog progresses from task to task, with a break in between. Heel on leash. Break. Figure 8. Break. Stand for exam. Break. Heel off leash. Break. Recall. In Obedience, the "between exercises" break time is when the handler can praise the dog, and the dog gets mental and physical time off, even if just for a few seconds. It can be a way to keep the dog relaxed. But it can also signal a mental disconnect, then the need to reconnect as the team moves on to the next segment.

In agility, there are no breaks. You start at the first jump and end at the last, and the rest of the course is a constant flow of multiple tasks. Even on the table, the dog is expected to hold attention and position. In agility, good handlers know to treat the course as a single piece. While novice agility handlers will occasionally handle each jump and obstacle separately, not thinking about the next thing down the line till they get there, that doesn't last long. You quickly learn in agility that if you are not planning two to three obstacles ahead you are not going to be setting an efficient line. And in agility there is certainly no time to stop and see what number you're on, figure out what you're supposed to do there, then do it. In agility, all of the obstacles are well known and trained ahead of time and the handler walks the course until he or she feels confident of what needs to happen to create an overall fluent, fast, efficient, smooth line.

The problem is, too many people treat Rally courses like Obedience with breaks. They heel to a sign, peer at it to make sure they know what it is, sort out the details in their head (reminding themselves that this is the call front with/without a halt, or the spiral with the dog INside), complete the sign, then heel to the next sign and do it all over again. They do not think ahead from one sign to the next, much less about how their speed and line exiting one sign may affect approach and performance of the next. They certainly don't think of the Rally course as a single unit, to be accomplished as one piece. As a result, we see a lot of slow, jerky, and/or hesitant performances. Doing Rally this way is handling piecemeal, and the score and time will reflect it.

In Rally, there are no breaks for praise. The team is supposed to start at the Start sign and keep going until the Finish sign. When you think of it that way, it becomes clear that Rally competitors need to walk and plan their Rally course as they would an agility course. Handling as a single line will produce a much smoother, faster run that is a lot more fun to do and to watch.

The first and perhaps most important thing is to know the Rally rules and signs before entering. Handlers should understand each sign at a glance and have the performance of each sign ingrained so they don't have to actually think about it, and can let their subconscious take over the task. This also means that the dog knows its job. Dog and handler confidence begets smoothness.

If you really know and understand the signs, then your walk through can be focused on pace and smoothness. Walk the course once to make sure you know where everything is and what follows what. Then walk the course with an eye to how the *next* sign affects your line on the sign you are currently performing. How will your exit from the call-front-finish-right carry you to the offset figure 8? How should you pace and angle your jump in order to have a smooth transition to that 270 right? Think ahead. What we learn in agility is that often, a mistake at a jump actually started three jumps prior with a poor cue or a bad line.

Finally, walk the course as many times you can as a complete flowing line. Concentrate on keeping your shoulders back and head up and striding out in a brisk, smooth pace. You have a destination. That destination is not the next sign, it's the finish line.

Like agility, Rally should be a dance between dog and handler moving as a cohesive whole throught the course. Walk and think of your Rally course as you would an agility course, and see how your performance improves.

Long time no speak

It is interesting how one can become silent when a goal is in sight. For me the goal has been to finish Jura's AKC championship. Some call the "CH" a beauty title, some call it certification to breed (as the dogs are supposed to be judged against their breed standards with the ultimate goal of judging fitness to breed - which is why the dogs must be reproductively intact) - in my case, more than anything else it was fulfillment of a promise.

First of all, Jura finished his CH in Santa Rosa California with me showing him to a British judge on August 20th. At a later date I will write about that experience (but I had to share the photo from the experience - that is GRASS that we are on - no wonder California can experience such nasty fires! It looks like a berber rug.)

Second let me go back to the promise.

Back in April of 2003 I travelled to Scotland to fetch a springer puppy from a breeder I had met some two years earlier.

Sometimes we have to wait for the things we want - Jura was worth waiting for!

At 10 weeks he was a ball of skin with huge paws, a beguiling face and loads of spots (ticking). And he looked REALLY different from the show springers in the US. Before I drove away with this "wee pup", the first of my breeders dogs to leave the country she asked me whether I was planning to show him in conformation. To be honest, the whole conformation world bothers me. The whys and wherefores can wait for a later time. I took one look at her face and I heard the tone in her voice and asked if it was something she wanted me to do (with a sinking feeling inside). She said, yes, that it would mean the world to her if the dog she was sharing with me and allowing to be taken so far from home were to be shown in the US and if he were to get his American Championship. I suspect I sighed audibly and I told her that she was giving me a tall order as the British bred Springers look very different from the Show Springers in the US and differences are not features that are favored in the dog world - that it would take finding judges who would judge the dog relative to the standard rather than relative to what they saw most often in the ring. I knew that my statements were not penetrating when I looked at her face. So I made the promise that I would show him and that I would try to finish his American CH.

Well his first show was as a puppy right before the English Springer Spaniel Specialty at Purina in September of 2003 and we were told that he looked like "an Import" (duh) and that I would never finish him. Uh Oh. Fighting words. His first point towards his CH did not come until December of 2005 when taken into the ring by a professional handler, Santiago Pinto. After periodically going on the road with Santiago, Jura "pointed out" by the end of 2007 (a dog must earn 15 points; of those wins at least 2 must be 3, 4, or 5 point "majors"; the number of dogs to be beaten to win 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 points is a function of the region in which the dog is shown and the history of breed entries in the past year). Santiago thought that Jura needed a better known handler to obtain his "majors" so Jura went on the road for 4 months with a well known Springer handler. The stay was short because it did not work out - they put weight on Jura trying to fill out that skin and all that happened was that he looked fat and different. I took him home, helped to get the weight off, recondition him and he forgave me for sending him away (thank goodness). We showed periodically but had trouble finding shows with sufficient entries to have a "major". Our first break came a year ago at the Kansas City Royal when Gloria Geringer gave us our first major (yea). You'd never know from the show photo that I was elated because I have a great frown on my face (concentration). Over the time hunting for those majors I had put the full 15 points on Jura without earning the CH. I saw that there was a set of shows in August in California that was slated to have 2 British, 1 Finnish, and 1 Australian judge. I thought OK, I will travel to CA and give it one last chance - he has his 15 points and I have given it my best, but it is time that Jura gets on with the rest of his life and performance career.

So August came, and my friend Patti, a repro vet from the Chicago area and co-owner of Jura's love child, Colin, and I loaded up 5 springers and drove to CA. It took 3 days on the way out - day 1 took us through KS and CO to Denver; Day 2 we went north to WY and crossed the salt flats of UT; Day 3 was NV down to CA. Colin showed first on the Thursday with Patti and he was the puppy through & through having a blast in the ring - maybe 3 steps with 4 paws on the ground but who cares! He got a blue ribbon :) Patti's tri-color Springer and Jura were in the open class and when we took first I found myself holding my breath. We stayed in the ring for winner's dog and I really only remember the judge pointing to us and while I knew it was that we had won, I dared not think positively! Even taking the picture did not make it sink in; nor did the next 3 days of shows.

Only when I was entering Jura in agility at the ESS National and going to the AKC website to get his registration number did I get the thing that made me smile: on his data page it said CH Berkenbar Bysanze RN NA NAJ. It was official. The results had been tallied and the second major was acknowledged. We had done it with a win under a British judge, Mr. Robert Jackson. I fulfilled my promise.

My breeder was indeed over the moon, she now has a dog of her breeding that has finished in the US. In fact, the unofficial count is that Jura is the 7th full import dog to finish his CH in the US - and more amazingly, I, a novice conformation person, was there at the end of the leash when he won his majors. When the show photo comes, I'll share (see above- kept another promise :) ).

In the meantime, Jura seems to know that his show career has wound down. We will show at the Springer Spaniel Specialty again at Purina on Saturday in the Best of Winners Class as a finished champion. We won't win, we will still look very different from the other show dogs, but he is still an English Springer Spaniel and a finished dog even though he "looks like an import" (duh).