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How To Improve Your Scores! This month we will focus on Rally exhibiting, and next month, the second part of this article will focus on Obedience trialing. I will outline for you some common mistakes and how you can improve your scores. The most common mistake made by handlers in the Rally Novice class is TIGHT LEADS. One of the great things about moving up to Advanced and Excellent Rally classes is that you don’t have to deal with that darn lead, but in getting through Novice, most judges agree that tight leads are the common cause of deductions. You can deal with this in two different and distinct ways. You can choose to get a six foot lead and give your dog plenty of slack in the lead when you are maneuvering the course, or you can use your regular four foot lead, and keep your hand down. Especially on exercises which require you to walk around your dog, you can keep that lead slack by bending your body down. Remember there is no penalty for having the lead touch the ground, so it is best to keep it down there. One more thing that is pertinent to avoiding a tight lead is to TALK TO YOUR DOG. Let’s discuss that further. Talking to your dog is THE BEST way to avoid points off in Rally. It keeps your dog from lagging, forging (all causes of tight leads mentioned above) and most of all it keeps your dog HAPPY!! One of the greatest tools to a great Rally performance is talking in an animated voice to your Golden Retriever. It keeps their tail wagging and keeps them as your working partner. By interacting with your dog, you can give them verbal cues to anticipate the requirements of an exercise. Say for instance, that you have a 270 Left turn in your course. You know that your dog tends to bump you on left turns. Give the dog a back command with your voice, right before you are about to execute the three quarter circle and you avoid the bump. You can also use your hands, which is our next subject. HANDS are another fantastic tool that becomes even more important as you climb the ladder to Advanced and Excellent classes. Start your novice dog learning hand cues along with your voice cues for the exercises and you have a great transition when you have to take the lead off. Hand cues are great for backing dogs up, (remember that 270 left turn) and also for keeping them focused on you for the spirals and weaves which are common causes of lagging and forging. Spirals and weaves cause the handler to focus a lot on the exercise with their footwork, and forget about cueing the dog. So use your hands to capture your dogs attention and you will avoid those deductions. Starting at the Novice level with your dog focused on your hands and voice, Excellent exercises like the offset figure 8 which has distractions of treats or toys will be a snap. And, do not forget BODY ENGLISH. Body English, which is prohibited in regular obedience is a great tool for avoiding deductions in Rally. You can use your shoulders in weaves to pull the dog in and out of the weaves. You can use your shoulder to snap a dog into a pivot. And those left turns, pulling your shoulder back is a great way of keeping them from forging and bumping on those exercises.
My motto for Rally, which is drilled into our students, is Use your
hands, use your voice, but do not use your leash. If you have not yet seen Rally take the time to watch it at a show near you. It is great fun for you and your dog! |
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