A little bit about me, Quigley, and this rally dog blog:

Sadly I had to help my competition partner, Mordanna’s Quigley, to the Rainbow Bridge on 01/03/2012. Read the saddest chapter of our story here.

In January 2002 I adopted Quigley, a Jack Russell Terrier (or Parson Russell Terrier, as AKC and UKC refer to them now, though his U-CD degree still says Jack Russell Terrier), from the L.A. West Valley shelter. He was about 3 months old and had been picked up as a stray by animal control in the Chatsworth area. I was looking for a dog who could “do stuff with me”, but I had no really clear plans beyond taking him along when hiking and traveling.

For the first years of Quigley’s life, I just worked on typical “household” training. Sit, stay, leash manners, off-leash reliability, and some fun, silly pet tricks. Rally had been at the back of my mind for some time though, after reading about how much fun a friend had with her dogs in the sport (hi Katie!!!). At that point I set a CGC as our first goal, and Quigley passed the test on April 17th 2005.

After that we set out to find a basic obedience class. On suggestion of the instructor we then moved on to formal competition training, and in June 2006 Quigley and I entered the rally ring for the first time, at an APDT trial in Goleta. ILP registrations for UKC (2007) and AKC (2008) followed not far behind.

Quigley’s registered name “Mordanna’s Quigley” comes from the name of a character I used to play in an online fantasy game. Mordanna was an animal tamer/trainer, I used the name as a nickname online, and for my internet domain.

I’ve never previously trained to any formal requirements or shown in any competitive dog sports, even though I’ve owned and trained dogs since I was eight years old. Quigley is my first “performance dog”, our Novice A days aren’t far behind and we’ve learned a lot together, but at times I still feel like a very green handler.

We dabble in obedience a little, but rally is what we both love to do. Personally I don’t see it as a “stepping stone” to obedience, but rather as a sport worthy to stand on its own merits – that’s why we are pursuing titles in four venues rather than just one. Rally has certainly helped us on our journey to earning the U-CD and CD, and continues to improve our work in Graduate Novice and Open, but that’s more of a pleasant side effect rather than purpose in itself. Neither did completing our RE and URO3 make me stop competing in Rally.

Last December Quigley and I completed our RAE3 and often people ask me why we still continue on. I always ask them “why not?” Yes, it’s disappointing that there are few trials of other venues in Southern CA and in AKC there is currently no other challenge than keeping on racking up double Q’s in increments of ten, but hopefully that will change soon. Meanwhile the Front & Finish Rally Ratings with their reports on top 10 overall, by group and by breed (based on placements and the number of other dogs defeated) are a fun pursuit.

In the grand scheme of things we aren’t a super high precision team, but we have fun and for the most part Quigley’s performances are very consistent. In 2009 Front and Finish ranked Quigley #8 Parson Russell Terrier in AKC Rally Combined, and in 2010 he made #1.

Thanks for reading – maybe we’ll see you ringside some time!

Sabine and
URX URO3 UCD FO Mordanna’s Quigley GN RLV-AOE ASCA RNX/RA CD RAE4 RL3 CGC