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Hi Karen,
I didn't look at those links to You Tube, etc., but they sound like a good thing to look at. I'm sure you can do it with no classes. Just read the book, study the signs, and do a lot of practice. The things I found important to remember are:
1. Make sure that you always try to keep up the pace. Don't let your dog lag and slow you down. The dog actually does better if you keep up a brisk pace and in the end the scores are important, but I have had a tie breaker for placement with Coco several times and the fastest time will take the placement with two identical scores. So 3 seconds can make the difference.
2. Keep the rally signs on your right and stop right at or just before the sign to perform the exercise. If the sign is in the middle of your path, that means there will be a change of direction and you perform the exercise right in front of the sign.
3. Make sure every time you see that Halt sign (stopsign) on the station sign that your dog actually sits all the way down before you continue with the exercise. Same way with Down - make sure their elbows hit the ground before continuing. I found myself not giving coco enough time to get all the way into the down positon or the sit position before giving the next command and as a result I am sure I lost points for incorrectly performed exercises.
4. It's better to re-do a station and lose 3 points than lose the whole 10 by moving on when you know you have performed it incorrectly. Not counting poor postion, of course. A little out of position on the sits and downs isn't a dealbreaker. But failure to perform and a 10 point loss is very bad. Go ahead and re-do the station if you know you've done it wrong.
5.; The judge will always give the opportunity during the 10 minute walk through prior to the class for you to ask questions. Don't hesitate to clarify if a sign doesn'tmake sense to you or you have any doubt about what is being asked of you. The judges are just great about explaining things during the walk through. And generally you can go back after the class is finished and ask to see your score sheet and have the judge explain where you lost your points. They are mostly very helpful about that too.
6. Almost every Rally class I've been in the judges have talked about people losing a lot of points on the Call front, 1, 2, 3 back. Remember to count your backward steps and don't take any extra little correction steps. A step is a step, count them. Call the dog to your front position and make sure it sits all the way down, then step back with one foot and bring the other foot back to meet it - that is one step - calling the dog to front at the same time you are moving - and it's ok to tell them to sit when they get there if they are hesitating. Take one more step back with one foot and the other step back with the other foot, bring the first foot back to meet it, that's two steps - calling the dog to front as you are moving and getting him into the sit at front position before doing it again, the next one being one, two, three - same thing on the third step you bring the other foot back to meet it, but don't do any other shuffeling of the feet. Feet are very important in this exercise and it is in just about every Rally Course I've been on. And also from experience I can tell you that I always take too big of steps. My trainer keeps telling me that small steps for small dogs are time savers in this exercise. No sense in making the dog move any further than it needs to. So practice that back, back, back with small steps.
7. the other thing everybody loses a lot of points on is tight leash. Talk to your dog, encourage her, coax her, tell her what you want her to do, but don't tug on that leash. A good way to practice this is to just stick the leash in your pocket and practice heeling and making turns without using the leash. Make sure she is keeping up with you. I kept slowing down trying to get Coco up to heel and the slower I went the more she lagged. As soon as I got it that I needed to pick up the pace and INVITE her to come along, everything went a lot better. I had to do a little "posting" with her on the corner lags, but after she got caught on the wrong side of a tree or a street sign a few times she started sticking pretty close to my side.
8. Make sure you are right on the start line when you start. Don't waste a foot by standing back a bit. Get right up next to it. And don't break your pace until you are completely through the finish sign. That stop watch doesn't stop til you are clear through the finish line. Time counts.
And yes, you can do this easily without classes. Classes are helpful because there is someone there with a lot of experience cluing you in to what to expect and where you will lose points. But there were a lot of people in my Rally Classes who never took a class, just read the book and signed up. So go for it. I will try to get you a link to Diane's website - that is my friend and trainer. She has a lot of good info on that site about Rally, but for some reason tongiht I could not get on the site. When I do I will send you the link. You can always e-mail her with questions too. She's very helpful.
Right off the top of my head I can't think of anything else, but if I do, I'll e-mail you. Once you have done this the first time, you'll be good to go the next time. It gets easier every time I go in the ring. And you having already been competing in Obedience, this will b e a pice of cake for you.
Mary
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to try this without taking a class??!!
