Principal Parts of Stations Defined:
To clarify what is expected and to make judging more consistent and uniform, the Rally Advisory Committee defined the principal parts of each Rally station. If a principal part of the exercise is performed improperly, the station will be scored as an IP (incorrect performance). If a mistake is made on something that is not defined as a principal part of the station, then it will not be scored as an Incorrect Performance. So a dog that sits perpendicular to the handler but still sits will earn a deduction for Out of Position which is usually 1 point but not an Incorrect Performance deduction of ten points.

Honor:
The Honor has been substantially changed. The Honor shall be performed on a 6 foot leash with the handler in front of the dog. The judge will choose whether the honor is to be a sit or a down. The Handler will leave the dog from heel position after downing or sitting the dog when the judge commands "forward" to the working team. The handler will remain facing the dog until the steward releases them to return to the dog with the command "exercise finished". If the working team is excused for any reason, the Honor requirements are complete, but the Honor team will remain in the ring to re-honor as a courtesy to the next working team.

Failure to maintain position in the Honor is no longer an NQ but is a mandatory IP deduction with no retry. Judges can use a round robin system for pairing an honor dog with a working team or may ask for a volunteer as in prior years for the first dog.

Retries:
Handlers will be limited to one retry for each exercise except the Honor and in some cases the jump. If a dog knocks the bar, walks the broad jump or uses the jump as an aid, the jump may not be retried and it is an NQ.

New Exercises:

There is one new station in Excellent- the Moving Down (#48A).

The moving down requires that the handler down the dog while heeling and then without pausing walk around the dog to heel position. Once in heel position, the handler must pause before heeling forward. The dog must remain down until commanded to resume heeling.

Sign Changes:

The old Moving Down (#27) has been renamed the Stop and Down

Correct performance is still the same. The handler commands the dog to down while heeling and then pauses next to the dog until the dog is down. The dog may not stop in a sitting position at any time and once down the handler commands the dog to heel from the down.

The Jump sign has been changed to read "Send Over Jump Handler Passes By"

Running past the jump is no longer specifically required but the handler may not stop and call the dog over the jump.

Minimum Requirements:

Excellent courses now must have at least 15 stations with 2 Excellent stations other than the jumps and the Honor. In addition, all Excellent level courses must use at least 3 stationary exercises and a minimum of 3 Advanced level exercises. Courses which are novice courses with only jumps and the honor added will not be legal. Advanced courses must have at least 12 station with 3 stationary exercises. Courses must have a minimum of three Advanced exercises other than the jump.

Non-Regular Classes:

Several new non-regular classes and exercises have been added. These include the Rally T Challenge which is scored on a basis of 200 points and has a maximum course time determined by the judge. There is also a Rally Team T Challenge class, Rally Pairs, Rally Team and the Rally Plus class which is a hybrid class containing both traditional obedience elements and Rally elements.

Ties For Placements:

In the event two or more dogs have the same score and exact time to 1/100thof a second, then a run-off will be used to determine the placement. All teams will rerun the course and be scored and timed but the original score will not be changed.

Sign Placement: