Rally Obedience is a distinct competitive format from the standard obedience already covered on this site. Dog and handler move together through a numbered course of signs, each one instructing an exercise to perform on the move, judged on flow and accuracy rather than being called ring-side one exercise at a time. This article covers both bodies that run it: AKC and FCI.
This is a 39-minute walkthrough from a rally judge with 17 years competing and 14-15 years teaching the sport, judging for the Canadian Kennel Club and the Canadian Association of Rally Obedience.
What Makes Rally “Rally”
A Rally course places numbered signs around the ring, each showing the exercise the team performs right there before moving to the next one. Handler and dog stay in near-constant motion through the whole course, a genuine contrast with standard obedience’s format, where a judge calls one exercise at a time and the team executes it, then waits for the next instruction.
Crufts, AKC, and FCI standard obedience all run that judge-called format. Rally replaces it with a course you read and move through at your own pace.
Why Handlers Often Start Here
AKC states this directly about its own sport: “Scoring in Rally is less rigorous than in other competitions like traditional obedience.” That’s not just marketing language, it maps to a real rule difference.
More Handler Freedom
At Novice, AKC explicitly permits and doesn’t penalize “unlimited communication from the handler to the dog,” including verbal commands, hand-clapping, leg-patting, and hand signals to keep the dog engaged through the whole course. Compare that to standard obedience’s Championship-level classes, which cap a handler to exactly one command per exercise. Rally’s entry tier allows the opposite: ongoing encouragement, the whole way through.
That freedom narrows as the classes climb. AKC’s own Excellent and Master classes both prohibit leg-patting and hand-clapping outright. So “Rally is more forgiving” describes the entry point specifically, not the whole sport at every level.
FCI’s own regulations are a technical document, not marketing copy, so there’s no equivalent official quote to cite on that side.
The Virtual Option
AKC runs a permanent Virtual Rally Program, not a pandemic-era trial run. Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Excellent are all available virtually: the handler sets up one of AKC’s own pre-designed courses at home, films the run following AKC’s own guidebook, and submits it to a pre-assigned AKC judge for remote scoring. The qualifying line and age minimum stay identical to in-person trials, and a title earned virtually counts exactly the same as one earned in a physical ring.
Two real limits are worth stating plainly. Master isn’t offered virtually at all, and the combined RAE title can’t be earned this way either, since it needs same-day double-qualifying scores at one physical event. Virtual scores also don’t count toward qualifying for AKC’s Rally National Championship.
FCI has nothing equivalent. Its Rally regulations make no mention of virtual, video, or remote judging anywhere in the document. For a handler with no local physical trial to enter, that gap is the single most practical difference between the two bodies.
AKC Rally
AKC runs five classes, each earning its own title, more tiers than either body runs in standard obedience.
The Class Ladder
Novice (RN) leads to Intermediate (RI), then Advanced (RA), Excellent (RE), and Master (RM). Each of the first four titles needs three qualifying scores at licensed or member trials; Master needs ten, certified by at least two different judges. The qualifying line stays fixed at every level: 70 of 100 possible points.
Difficulty by Class
- Novice: on leash, 10 to 15 signs, no jumps.
- Intermediate: on leash, no jumps, 12 to 17 signs, at least three pulled from the Advanced sign pool.
- Advanced: off leash, one required jump, 12 to 17 signs.
- Excellent: off leash, two required jumps, 15 to 20 signs, and leg-patting or hand-clapping encouragement is no longer allowed.
- Master: off leash, 15 to 20 signs drawing from the Master, Excellent, and Advanced pools at once, with no retries permitted on any sign, a stricter rule than any class below it.
Beyond the Five Classes
Two titles sit above the core ladder. Rally Advanced Excellent (RAE) comes from 10 same-day dual-qualifying scores in Advanced B and Excellent B. The Rally Championship goes further still: 300 championship points from scores of 91 or better in Advanced B, Excellent B, and Master, spread across 20 separate trials, with at least 150 of those points coming from Master specifically. Non-regular classes exist too, Choice, Pairs, and the Virtual program covered above, sitting outside the core titling path.
How Signs Are Numbered
AKC’s signs run in numbered tiers rather than a single flat list. Signs 1 through 99 can appear at any class level. The 100s, 200s, and 300s are progressively reserved for higher classes, so a course’s real difficulty comes from which numbered tier a judge is allowed to draw from at that level, not from a separate difficulty score.
A universal sign like Halt-Sit might open a Novice course. A 100s-tier sign like Halt-Side Step Right only shows up once a team reaches Intermediate or higher, and the 300s hold the required jump signs reserved for Master.
FCI Rally
FCI runs a single International Class. There’s no class-to-class progression the way FCI’s own standard obedience moves a dog through Class 1, 2, and 3.
How Scoring Works
Every team starts at 100 points, with deductions made against a fixed sign-point system as the run happens. The final score sorts into three tiers: Excellent at 90 to 100 percent, Very Good at 80 to 89.99, Good at 70 to 79.99, and anything below that counts as a failure.
The Sign Point-Value System
Instead of gating harder signs behind a higher class, FCI grades every sign by point value: 1, 2, 3, or 4 points depending on how demanding it is. A single course draws from all four tiers at once, 18 to 20 exercise signs in total. At least 7 must be 4-point signs and at least 5 must be 3-point signs, so a baseline of real difficulty is guaranteed even with only one class to enter.
A 1-point sign might be something as simple as a Down. A 4-point sign like Turn Apart, a synchronized 180-degree turn away from each other, asks considerably more of the team.
Age and Titling
FCI Rally’s default minimum age is 18 months, higher than FCI’s own standard-obedience minimums (10 to 15 months) and three times AKC Rally’s 6-month floor. National-level titles are left entirely to each country to define. The only title FCI itself administers is the international FCI CACIROB certificate, awarded to the single best “Excellent”-graded dog at an approved international competition, a placement-based award rather than something any dog can accumulate independently through qualifying scores alone.
How AKC and FCI Rally Differ
- Number of classes: AKC runs five, each independently titled. FCI runs one.
- How difficulty scales: AKC gates harder signs behind higher class entry requirements. FCI keeps everything in one class and scales difficulty through a sign point-value system with mandated minimum counts per course.
- Age minimum: AKC fixes 6 months. FCI defaults to 18 months, adjustable by national kennel clubs.
- Titling model: AKC’s five class titles are each qualifying-score titles any dog can earn independently, plus a combined RAE title and a full points-based Championship on top. FCI’s only body-administered title is the placement-based FCI CACIROB; everything else is left to national kennel clubs.
- Physical vs. virtual access: AKC runs a permanent Virtual Rally Program covering Novice through Excellent, with virtual titles counting identically to in-person ones. FCI makes no mention of virtual or remote participation anywhere in its regulations.
FAQ
How Does Rally Differ From Obedience?
Rally moves through a numbered course at the team’s own pace, judged on flow. Standard obedience is judge-called, one exercise at a time. See AKC, FCI, and Crufts obedience for the full standard-obedience picture.
Is Rally Easier Than Regular Obedience?
Not in terms of simpler exercises. AKC’s own materials describe its scoring as less rigorous, and its entry level allows far more handler encouragement than standard obedience permits at any level. That gap narrows considerably by the time a dog reaches Excellent or Master.
Does FCI Rally Have Levels Like AKC?
No. FCI runs one class for the whole sport. Difficulty comes from a sign point-value system built into that single class, not from a class ladder.
Can I Compete Without a Local Trial?
For AKC specifically, yes. Its Virtual Rally Program covers Novice through Excellent entirely by video submission, with titles that count the same as an in-person win. Master and the RAE title aren’t included, and FCI currently has no equivalent virtual option at all.
Can I Train Rally With My Pet Dog?
Yes. The skills underneath Rally, heeling attention, clean position changes, working calmly through a sequence, are the same ones that make any dog easier to live with day to day.
Curious what obedience training looks like for your own dog, competition or not? Talk to PetCoach’s team about a plan built around what your dog actually needs.
