Novice Rally-o

[648117]

This weekend me and Holly went to our first Rally-O competition!

She did very well, I'm so proud of her!

We competed in four rounds of Novice A ("A" is for first time dogs with first time handlers that haven't won anything).

She got first in all four rounds, although in the first two rounds there was only one other dog and in the last two she was the only dog (although there were lots in Novice B) so she automatically got first in those But we got four nice ribbons, two toys, a dog towel and a bag of treats out of it.

But the best bit is that in all four wins she also got a qualifying number of points! You have to get 90 or more points out of 100 to qualify and once you have qualified three times you get moved up to Advanced and Novice B (Novice B runs the same course as Novice A but has experienced handlers/dogs, many of which will already have the Rally Novice title).
So Holly got:

Novice A1 = 94 points
Novice A2 = 98 points
Novice A3 = 97 points
Novice A4 = 97 points

She also got the "Overall Best Novice Dog", which is for the dog with the overall most points for the weekend (Novice A and B combined). The prize for that was a bag of dog food (we will probably donate it to a dog rescue because it isn't the brand that I feed Holly).

So it was a really good weekend, Holly was pretty consistent and was paying attention to me really well even though she must have been tired on the second day (she used to have problems with distractions and sniffing the floor).

Now I just have to send three of her qualifying certificates to the NZKC and she will officially have the "Rally Novice" title so there will be "RN" after her name.

 

[kassidybc]

Good job to the both of you! I think that's pretty impressive! Who cares if there wasnt many other dogs competing in Novice A! You got high scores anyway! I know next to nothing about Rally O, but I know that first place is a good thing!

 

[Anneke]

Wow Good job!!
Even though she was the only dog, you had overall best, and that means she was pretty impressive!

 

[648117]

Thank you kassidybc and Anneke .

We just got back from agility class and even half the people there had heard about our weekend.

We have a 'match day' in two weeks that our trainer organises so hopefully we will be able to run an Advanced course then (without any pressure since it will just be a friendly match day rather than a champ show) to see how Holly goes off lead (Advanced is all off-lead) and figure out what I have to work on (there are a few new signs that we have to learn).

After Holly did her third qualifying round one of the judges made me walk the Advanced course with her to show me that Holly can already do most of it (there were just a few things that I've never tried before but Holly can do the individual components, I've just never put them together).

The next local Rally-o competition that we could enter isn't till the start of September so we have heaps of time.

 

[Linda A]

Congratulations! That is so awesome!!

 

[Vizzla]

Good job! I just got the idea of register for a rally o competition this spring, for the first time. But Alf got a wound so we cant do it right now. But Im looking forward when he gets better!