Page 163 - K9 News - Issue 15 - March2021

six levels and progression through the levels is
dependent on gaining three Excellent scores
under three different judges, or six Qualifying
scores under four different judges. A Qualifier
is scoring 175/200 at Levels 1-4, and 180/200
at Levels 5 and 6. In all Levels, scoring 190 or
above equates to an Excellent score. All three of
the Weimaraners I have competed in Rally with
have gained their Rally Level 1 titles, hence the
“RL1” after their KC names. Hantz and Bentley
each have a couple of Excellent scores too,
which I was thrilled with. I was however kicking
myself after LKA 2019, when thanks to a silly
error on my part, Bentley was scored 189/200 Gaining Bentley’s attention shortly before
at Level 2. Nerves got the better of me and on his run at the NSDT Retriever Club’s Open
what should’ve been a 180-degree inward turn, Rally Competition. It is essential to clearly
I turned outwards and dropped five points. I communicate with your dog and let him know
knew as soon as I’d done it but it was too late. it’s time to work. That sandy surface is so
I’ll never make that mistake again! He will be tempting, but with (a lot of!) reward-based
nine years old in July, but there’s no reason training, they will learn to consider you to be
much more appealing than their surroundings.
we can’t pick up where we left off, we just
need the shows to re-commence. My goal is to
upgrade his RL1 to an RL2.Ex title (Rally Level
2 Excellent). Hantz and Lucy are no longer with
us, but they were a joy to work and we had a
very enjoyable time training and competing
together. They were both veterans when they
went to their first Rally events but we made the
most of the few years they took part in.

The reason I enjoy Rally is the teamwork
element, just you and your dog learning the
various exercises and working together to
Lucy partially through a Level Two course
execute them as accurately as possible. A
at LKA’s Rally, held in conjunction with the
challenge I had with Hantz was sometimes General Championship Show.
competing with the floor surface for his attention.
This is after all, a Gundog breed with an instinct
This exercise is
to hunt and I had to work hard to get him to
“Call Front, Finish
focus on me, rather than the enticing scents
Left” and the sign
all over an equestrian arena for example. He’d
looks like this:
keep a loose lead but on a not so good day,
he’d lose a few points for lack of attention.
Nevertheless, he would perform the exercises In the the photo above, I have stopped and
well and those involving recall were fantastic cued Lucy to move from the heel position into
because he loved to be by my side. Bentley and the front position and to immediately sit. This
Lucy’s noses weren’t as difficult to entice away is the “Call Front” element of the exercise.
from the floor, possibly because they were more The “Finish Left” involves the handler cueing
food motivated so this helped during training, the dog to resume heel position and sit there
but every dog is different. neatly, before progressing forward to the next

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K9 NEWS DIGITAL / MARCH 2021