By Heidi Clayton
There are many activities that you can participate in with your dog for fun that will sharpen your dog’s obedience skills, keep them fit, and build a stronger bond with your dog. Two very popular sports that any breed or size of dog can participate in are AKC Rally Obedience and dock diving.
Rally obedience is much less rigid than formal AKC obedience. In regular AKC obedience, you are penalized for talking to or touching your dog. While you still can not touch your dog to qualify, talking your dog through the course is encouraged. Rally involves 10-20 displayed signs that have various commands written on them that are arranged in a course during which you will weave through with your dog and ask them to perform each command. The course is done off-leash, but you are allowed to clap your hands or do whatever you want to encourage your dog through the course, which is a big difference from traditional obedience. Signs in the course start with simple commands like sit, stay, down, turns, recalls, and jumps. Everyone at every level from novice, intermediate, excellent, and master/choice starts with a score of 100 with deductions made for errors. The lowest possible score you can get to get a qualifying score is 70. I have done Rally several times with my own dogs, and I enjoy it much more than traditional obedience because I can verbally encourage them, which I think makes it more fun for my dogs.
Another up-and-coming popular sport is dock diving, and it is a perfect sport for dogs that love to swim. Dock diving has three different games you can play. The first is the distance jump, where the farthest jump into the pool wins. The dog remains in a stay until you release them to jump into the pool as far as possible. There is also the air retrieve, where your dog jumps into the pool, grabbing a bumper that is suspended in the air across the pool. The third game is very fun to watch; it’s a “hydro dash” where the dog swims laps, fetching floating bumpers while competing for the fastest times. Dock diving is a lot of fun. I am currently trying to train my boy in distance jumping so we can give it a try.
AKC sports are not just for purebred dogs. If you have a mixed-breed dog that you want to do something fun with, give Rally or dock diving a try. You can learn about both sports at the following: https://northamericadivingdogs.com/content/view/cmsid/18/What_is_Dock_Diving and https://www.akc.org/sports/rally/.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at heidi@fouronthefloordogtraining.net.
Heidi Clayton started Four On the Floor Dog Training to provide positive, reward-based dog training in South Jersey. She breeds, trains and shows bull terriers under the SoraBully’s Bull Terriers kennel name. Email questions to heidi@fouronthefloordogtraining.net or learn more at https://fouronthefloordogtraining.net
