Uffspring
Rough Collies Rally and Obedience
We have recently started to compete in rally obedience with Baby – Uffspring Undreamed Of – with only 9 months of competing at both online rally and rally shows, Baby is now Uffspring Undreamed Of VRL2 Ex (video rally excellent levels 1 and 2). This means that she has had 3 excellent (above 190/210) scores from 3 different judges. We have now progressed to levels 3 and 4 in our online rally.
We have also started to compete in ‘live’ rally shows and have attended 2 shows so far. She has achieved 2 excellent scores in level 1 rally competitions so far (and 1 3rd place) and 1 excellent (first place!) and 1 qualifying score in level 2. Rally is a kennel club recognised and organised competition and many competitions are organised under kennel club rules but there are also several independent bodies organising rally including Talking Dogs rally. Baby has recently competed in her first Talking Dogs Rally and scored an Ace score (similar to excellent in KC rally) What is kennel club rally? It progresses from level 1 to level 6 with the exercises starting relatively simply and progressing to complicated obedience tasks such as a retrieve, distance control, send away, waits to recall etc. Between the signs the dog has to maintain the heelwork position next to the handler – in levels 1 and 2 on lead and in higher levels off lead. All rounds are scored out of a total of 210 with points being deducted for any mistakes.
Why rally? In my opinion rough collies are intelligent dogs and need a job to do to engage their brains and bodies – having a walk a day is just not enough for collies and untrained collies can become bored, frustrated and anxious. Rally suits collies as the heelwork position is more natural for them and they are perfectly capable of learning all the different tasks and performing them really accurately, with good training. Rally involves the dog and handler working as a team to navigate a course with numbered signs indicating different exercises that you have to perform; a sort of obedience exercise obstacle course.
It is also fun and appeals to the perfectionism of both collies and myself! It builds brilliant relationships and bonds between owner and dog – I am immensely proud of how hard my dogs are prepared to work for me! And how well we’ve done at rally with Baby so far – more to come, I hope!
NEWS: Baby is now officially known as Uffspring Undreamed Of RL1Ex after achieving her level 1 excellent qualification. Jane Spendelow |
