ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE IN MULTIPLE DOG SPORTS: CANINE CROSSTRAINING

By Gerianne Darnell

Gerianne shares her crosstraining secrets in her latest book, Canine Crosstraining: Achieving Excellence In Multiple Dog Sports. With this book, you will learn how to set up a training plan while e actively managing your dog's stress during both training and competition, how to properly set goals, and how to use economies of scale while training multiple dogs in multiple sports. Even if you only train in one canine sport, this book will help you turn your failures into success!

Gerianne Darnell has been successfully crosstraining for more than 35 years. Her ten crosstrained dogs include:

• Esther UDTX - Basset Hound

• OTCH Skye TD - Border Collie

• CH OTCH Zipper TDX - Papillon

• CH OTCH Zack UDX TDX MX MXJ - Papillon

• OTCH Rudy UDX TDX MX MXJ - Papillon

• CH OTCH MACH Rumor UDX TD RN - Papillon

• CH CT OTCH MACH HC VCCH Riva UDX TDX RAE VST - Border Collie

• DC Raymond UDT RAE NA NAP NJP - Border Collie

• CH OTCH MACH HC Rick UDX10 OGM VER RAE TD TDU - Border Collie

• GCH OTCH MACH Robert UDX OM2 RN TD - Papillon

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sunshine Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781617811722

Gerianne Darnell

Gerianne Darnell has been successfully crosstraining for more than 35 years.

Book preview

Canine Crosstraining:

Achieving Excellence in Multiple Dog Sports

© 2015. Gerianne Darnell

ISBN# 978-1-4951-3741-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts quoted in reviews.

Printed by Litho Printers & Bindery, Cassville, MO

Designed by Heidi Lowe

This book is dedicated to my dogs, past and present:

Gerianne’s Esther Marie UDTX, Can CDX TD, Ber CD

Basset Hound Esther

OTCH Schuyler King TD, Can CD

Border Collie Skye

Am/Can CH OTCH Denzel Loteki Top Secret TDX, Can CDX TD

Papillon Zipper

Am/Can CH Am/Can OTCH UOCH UACHX

Loteki Sudden Impulse

UDX TDX MX MXJ VCD3, AD VAD, EAC-V EJC-V NGC-V NAC,

CL4-RF CL3-HS, Can UDT

Papillon Zack

OTCH UUD UACH

Loteki Secret Agent

UDX2 TDX MX MXJ NJP VCD3, PD1,

OAC OJC-V NGC NJC TN-N, CL4-RF CL3-HS

Papillon Rudy

Am/Can CH OTCH MACH UCDX UAg2

Loteki Denzel Spread The Word

UDX TD RN MXB MJB AXP MJP VCD2,

AD PDII, EAC-V EJC-V OAC OJC

NGC TN-N TG-N WV-N, CL4-RFH CL3-S

Papillon Rumor

CH OTCH CT HC MACH VCCH VCH UCD UAg1

Outburst Chasing Butterflies

UDX RAE TDX VST HXAsd HIBd HSBs MXB MJB NAP OJP,

STDsd, PDI, EAC EJC OGC TN-E WV-O TG-N, ASCA RS-N, CL3

Border Collie Riva

DC V UCDX UROC URX ARCHX

Ettrick On Edge

UDT VCD1 BN RAE HXAsd HXBd HIBs NA NAP NJP, TN-O,

RL1X RL2X RLVX RL3 RLV-AOE RL2-AOE RL1-AOE

Border Collie Raymond

CH OTCH HC MACH VCH C-ATCH

UOCH UUDX UROC URX ARCHMX

Skyland Ricochet

UDX10 OGM TD TDU VCD2 VER PUTD RAE

HXAsd HXBsd MXS MJB MFB T2B,

EAC OJC WV-N TN-N NCC, RL1X RL2X2 RL3X

RLVX RL3-AOE RLV-AOE RL2-AOE RL1-AOE

Border Collie Rick

GCH AKC/UKC CH OTCH MACH UCD URO1

TopFlite Ricochet

UDX OM1 VCD2 BN RN GN PCD MXB MJB MXF T2B,

Can CD RN, CL3, TBAD TG1

Papillon Robert

The family in 2001

Rick herding ducks

Best friends Riva and Robert

Table of Contents

Forward

Chapter One      Setting Up a Training Plan

Chapter Two      Stress Management for the Crosstrained Dog

Chapter Three    Crosstraining in a Small Universe

Chapter Four      Goal Setting

Chapter Five      Dealing with Disappointment:

Turning Failure Into Success

Chapter Six        Training Tips

Chapter Seven    Putting It All Together

Bibliography

Photo Credits

Esther

Rumor as a veteran

Forward

My husband George and I picked up our first dog, Basset Hound Esther, on the way home from our honeymoon in 1977. George still laughs at the memory of the look on my face, sitting in the back seat of my dad’s car while holding a very smelly, very squirmy eleven-week-old Basset Hound puppy. I truly wondered what I had gotten myself into. My unease was reinforced by the havoc Esther would wreak upon our tiny rental house while we were at our college classes every day. We didn’t know what a crate was, so we just layered the house with newspapers and left for the day. I’m sure you can imagine the mess!

We soon figured out that we needed help, and off to puppy class we went. Thirty-eight years later I still like to tease my first teacher, Deb Owens, about starting me down this crosstraining road! I quickly found myself hooked on dog training. Esther went on to get her CD at the tender age of fifteen months (and I’ve never shown a dog that young again!) In 1980 Esther and I discovered tracking, and my crosstraining journey truly began.

Although Esther eventually earned her UD and TDX, in the beginning I struggled to teach her to retrieve. Food was taboo in dog training back in the 1970’s, and Bassets don’t work very well without it. Esther was about eighteen months old when I decided I needed another dog to train. Border Collie Skye entered the picture in 1979, and this time I was determined to do everything right! What I did instead was make an entirely different set of mistakes with Skye.

In spite of me, Skye became my first OTCH dog. He was then followed in 1984 by my first Papillon, Zipper, and I totally lost my heart to this delightful little breed. Zipper was my first conformation champion and my first CH OTCH TDX, and another venue was added to my crosstraining journey. Zipper and Skye were best friends, and they spent many happy years chasing squirrels together. The proudest moment of Zipper’s life was when an elderly squirrel had an apparent heart attack and dropped dead out of a tree in front of him. Zipper felt his destiny had finally been fulfilled.

Although I very much enjoyed obedience, tracking, and eventually conformation with my first three dogs, agility did not exist way back then, and herding was definitely not on my radar screen. Rally was also many years in the future. I did not realize at the time how much free time and extra money I still had!

In 1986 I saw an agility demo at the Gaines Classic in Houston. I thought it looked interesting, but I couldn’t imagine that the AKC would ever get involved with agility. I also wondered how in the world you could train for something that required so much stuff! In 1989 I watched another demo, and that time I thought, well, maybe some day I might pursue it. That day finally came in June of 1994 when I took my first beginning agility class with Papillon Zack, who was six years old at the time and already a CH OTCH TDX. I remember telling my instructors on the first night of agility class that since Zack was an OTCH dog, he would be doing everything on my left side; we quickly abandoned that plan! Zack was an agility natural, and I soon had homemade agility obstacles strewn all over the yard. Shortly after starting Zack in agility, he was joined in his agility training by then three-year-old Papillon Rudy and Papillon puppy Rumor, so I had three dogs to train and show in agility, obedience, tracking, and conformation. The number of training venues was growing!

For the first couple of years that I did agility, I kind of lost my way in competition obedience. I still showed a little bit in obedience, but it was all