Dipping A Paw Into Rally O... 17:51

So Rally Obedience has only been recognised by the Kennel Club over here since the 1st January of this year. It had found it's way over here in a small way with independent organisations over the previous few years, but they were all in completely the wrong area.

There was one to be held last weekend, and a few friends were going (planned Toller invasion!) so I decided to enter...

I only entered Elton because I thought that was probably enough stress for one day lol As the day dawned I had read the list of signs a couple of times, practiced once and done a lot of hoping that his obedience background would see him through! There was nothing on the list he wasn't theoretically capable of. Though thank goodness for the person that walked the course with me - I would have NQd almost before we even started, cos the first sign was a spiral which I would have done completely incorrectly!

Anyway, he was amazing and we only dropped 1pt on the main round (my fault - tight lead), but then I got flustered and messed up the bonus exercise (lost 4 of the 10pts and 3 of them were my fault! The other 1 was an out of position for him coming in to me so enthusiastically he overshot...), which put him out of the placings. He was actually on the same score (205) as placed dogs, but because I kept hesitating his time was slower. So now we can add rally to the list of breed, obedience and agility. It was very scary! But I suppose we ought to go for the other two Qs now :)