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This year at NDTA we are pleased to announce that there will be two official Southern Region qualifying Rally trials, one held on Saturday and one on Monday. Each trial will consist of Novice A and Novice B.
Eligibility
Novice A is for dogs that do not have CD or CDX and have not won a Novice championship test or higher. The handler must not have previously handled any dog that earned an NZKC obedience title (CD, working trials, Ob Ch etc).
Novice B is, at this stage, for everyone else!
Each dog can only be entered in either A or B at any one trial (ie on any one day).
Judges
Our judges are Jean McClymont and Lyn Clearwater, both from Invercargill.
Start Time
The first course walkthrough will be at 8.20 am and judging will start at 8.30 am each day.
Entries
The entry fee is $5 per dog per class and you can download an entry form from this website.
Entries must be in before the 31st of August as there can be no late entries and no entries taken on the day.
Rules
These are official qualifying trials run under the Southern Region code. The rules, including descriptions of the various signs, can be viewed at by clicking here (this document is in PDF format. If your browser software does not currently support PDFs, please download the free Adobe Reader software program by clicking here).
Prizes
Rally is a qualifying sport, similar to CD or AD. This means that, regardless of whether you place or not, you can gain a qualifying certificate towards your first Rally title if you score 90% or over.
There will also be prizes and ribbons to fifth place in each class.
So what is Rally Obedience?
Rally Obedience has often been described as a cross between Obedience and Agility. A handler and dog negotiate a numbered course of around fifteen “stations”. At each station there is a sign indicating a particular obedience-based exercise that they must perform. Exercises include combinations of turns, presents, finishes, changes of position, heeling around cones, halts, stays and jumps. The team must do the course on their own – there is no steward giving instructions – and they are scored on their performance as for obedience. For a little extra pressure, each run is also timed, so that if dogs end up on the same points, the highest placing goes to the dog with the fastest time.
Rally is heel-work based, but the requirement to perform a different exercise every few metres keeps the team on its toes. It does not require the same level of precision as Obedience, the emphasis being more on teamwork and the responsiveness of the dog, and most dogs trained for obedience or agility have the basic skills needed to perform the exercises. In Novice there are no jumps so dogs of any age can enter, including the old, injured or retired dogs that still crave a job to do!
There are currently four titles that can be earned in New Zealand – Rally Novice (RN), Rally Advanced (RA), Rally Excellent (RE) and Rally Advanced Excellent (RAE).
A great video of a team performing a Novice Rally course can be viewed at clicking here.
For more information, please contact Diana O’Kane, ph 03 473 7835, 027 537 2879.
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