Cavaliers & Rally: Cavaliers Just Want to Have Fun

As we know, Cavaliers make fine obedience competitors and many that do compete do very well in that sport.  Now, AKC also offers the Cavalier owner another sport that many dog and handler teams find much more fun and rewarding.  This sport is AKC Rally®.  Rally is a sport designed to be a kind of bridge between the Canine Good Citizen title and Obedience titles.   Rally allows virtually unlimited communication between the dog and handler as the team makes their way around a course of designated stations which test many different skills.  

The handler can talk, encourage, praise, clap, pat their legs (in Novice or Advanced), or give more than one signal to their dogs throughout their time on the course.   Many dogs that might otherwise be too shy, too uncertain, not ready for or just plain don’t want to do obedience find that Rally is just the ticket.  And we all know that while Cavaliers can indeed do pretty much any canine sport, what they really want to do is have fun.  Rally is just plain fun.  The team gets to wend its way through stations where they may have to do a complete 360° turn, or go slowly, or go fast, or stop and do a down, or weave through some cones or do a pivot or one of the 50+ different fun skills.  All the while, the Cavalier gets to prance happily on a loose leash next to his/her favorite person who is telling him/her just what a lovely dog he/she really is.  It just doesn’t get much better than that.

So, if you want a challenging sport or just a way to have some fun with your Cavalier, try Rally.  Visit the AKC website www.akc.org for detailed information on how to get started, AKC Rally® rules, and upcoming competitions.