# Cross Training in Different Sports



## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

I'm interested to see what people's perspectives and experiences are on cross training in different sports has been. What has been complementary? What is at odds? For example, rally with ring sport or weight pull with general protection or agility with Schutzhund.


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## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

Rally is a positive for MR as there is no set pattern, weight pulling won't effect anything, and agility won't bother anything that I can think of.


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## steve gossmeyer (Jan 9, 2007)

i do Fr and Mondio and have no issues with it but they are pretty interchangable


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> I'm interested to see what people's perspectives and experiences are on cross training in different sports has been. What has been complementary? What is at odds? For example, rally with ring sport or weight pull with general protection or agility with Schutzhund.


Sheila Booth's GSD Charra earned her SchH III with V-ratings and her USDAA Agility Dog with 3 first places.

Then later she earned her Elite Agility Certificate.

I think she was twelve when she won the Elite Agility. Betcha Uncle Festus Bob knows.


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## Kristina Senter (Apr 4, 2006)

I think much of it has to do with planning commands ahead. 
Personally, I don't care for anything with a very consistent pattern and I think the BEST thing you can do is train for as wide of a variety of scenarios as you can come up with as far as bite sports. 

I've actually started playing with Gator in agility and we're having a blast with it but I had to go into it with some planning. For example, "up" means you will be staying up there, "over" means you will continue after jumping and "walk it" applies to the a-frame and dog walk with the same idea that you won't be returning over the same obstacle. Whereas it is always "bring" for the bitework retrieves over the obstacles and I hold a far more formal composure. As you get into directionals, it will only help you.

I can't see Rally really hurting anything. I would think that Herding would help as far as the teamwork and control work goes HOWEVER, I have seen dogs totally lose their train of thought when they saw distracting animals. I guess that would just depend on the dog. I definitely dont think weight pull would have an issue with any sport as long as you have a specific "pull" command. 

I think FR/ Mondio/ BR are fairly interchangeable but trying to do any of those in conjunction with another bite sport -Schutzhund, PSA, ASR, etc may prove to have some difficult contradictions. The Schutzhund escape bite presents one of the most challenging scenarios that I can think of as far as cross training. You can assign a seperate command for "stay down no matter what" vs "bite him when he runs" but I'm willing to bet that largely depending on the dog, that may be easier said than done in actuality. Keep in mind, I'm also thinking of cross training in the terms of going from one event to the other without having to do any drastic "Ok, now you can forget doing that in THIS trial" training.


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## Scott Dunmore (May 5, 2006)

This is a great topic for me at the moment as I'm working a new puppy and hoping to play with her in various sports. 
For those of you who train Schutzhund as well as ring sports, when do you like to introduce suit work and leg bites, etc? Have you found it's easier to move from Sch training to ring, or the other way round?
Kristina, that's a good point about the escape bite! Makes for interesting helper work, I guess.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> Sheila Booth's GSD Charra earned her SchH III with V-ratings and her USDAA Agility Dog with 3 first places.
> 
> Then later she earned her Elite Agility Certificate.
> 
> I think she was twelve when she won the Elite Agility. Betcha Uncle Festus Bob knows.


Most of my books are still packed away from our move but I think your correct.


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## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

Here is something to consider if you are attempting to do more than one sport, but are not proficient in that one sport, then it really is going to be a mess. I know that there are people that do this and that, but usually they have a pretty good idea of what they are doing, otherwise, what I see is a dog that doesn't really get anywhere, and a handler that gets frustrated.

This is pretty much pointed at bitework stuff. The ringsports are pretty close, but again, if you do not remember the differences, it is going to cost you come trial time.


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

Scott Dunmore said:


> For those of you who train Schutzhund as well as ring sports, when do you like to introduce suit work and leg bites, etc? Have you found it's easier to move from Sch training to ring, or the other way round?


Always leg bites first. I have found it MUCH easier to take a dog with a leg foundation and then convert them for Sch work, than to take a Sch dog and try to get them steady on the legs. You can do Ring with an upper body dog, Cali trialed at FRIII and is a very committed upper body dog. But the best Ring dogs will take what they can get, and many times that's the legs. 

The biggest problem I see going from Sch to Ring though isn't an upper vs lower thing. It's an arm presentation thing. Many (not all) Sch dogs who have done it for a few years, can go spend a year doing Ring work, get solid on their targeting, but the minute the decoy stands like a Sch helper, with an arm presentation, all that foundation work comes flooding back and they go for that arm. And that arm disappears at the last second, resulting in an esquive. Depending on the dog, over and over and over.


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## Anne Vaini (Mar 15, 2007)

Tracking and performance do not mix well. (Problems with sniffing and attentnion)
Therapy dog and performance do not mix well. (Problems with dog running into the audience for petting)

Disc freestyle, canine freestyle, agility, flyball, weight pull, high jump, stunts and obedience can all be trained together. Some dogs have problems with adding d/a.


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

Well, you know me, I love to cross train LOL So far I haven't found to many things that are at odds with each other, if you put some forethought into them. Obed and agility I think can only help you with the protection sports. Each sport either requires things like a front, or doesn't penalize the dog if they do it. Solid retrieves (no chewing) are desired in all of them, heel means heel, etc. General agility training is good for the dogs confidence on different surfaces, the ability to generalize when it comes to jumping, climbing, etc. IE they don't just jump a Sch or FR style jump, they jump anything you tell them to. The food on the track in Sch training needs to be proofed against in FR, but it doesn't take much for the dogs to realize it's fine to eat it in one place, but not another.

The only thing I see some potential conflict in is herding and the protection sports. If your dog is solid in the protection sports first, then I don't see (haven't had) any problems going into herding later on. But if you are doing herding first, you are teaching that dog from the beginning to respect the stick. Which depending on where you herd may be a long bamboo pole LOL Move away from it, give to the pressure, and if you don't you are going to get whapped across the face with it. This can create some conflict with the stick in the protection sports where we want a completely different response. It's not impossible to do, but it does take some thought and specific work to work around.


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

Anne Vaini said:


> Tracking and performance do not mix well. (Problems with sniffing and attentnion)


What type of performance events are you talking about? 

Tracking is one of the 3 phases of Sch, and the dogs don't have any problems knowing when it's time to track, and when it's time to do focused obedience.


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## Lacey Vessell (Nov 18, 2006)

I would really like to show the versatility of my dogs, but don't think I can do two different sports at one time with them as it stands now. More my problem (lack of knowledge and skill) ....then the dogs. I'm at the mind set right now that I would rather "master" (for lack of a better word) one venue at a time, then try to do many and accomplish very little. Although I would like to eventually title both of my younger ones in SchH and FR. Agility would be something that I would definitely be interested in though.


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## Khoi Pham (Apr 17, 2006)

I think if the training is clear and the dog has a clear head, you should have no problem, my dog has foundation in SchH for the first 2 1/2 years of his life, I got him to SchH 3 then I switch to PSA and now he is PSA 1, one of the previous thread was conflict on the escape fo SchH, in SchH the down in bite work is not absolute, in PSA the down is absolute, but the picture is different, the dog will understand what is right and what is wrong if you train him right, in SchH, the picture to the dog is that when you call him out from the blind and tell the helper to step out and then you fuss and down your dog, in this picture, the dog can bite when the helper escape, in PSA, the dog don't see the blind or the same routine and so the down to him is absolute, same way with passive bite, in SchH, when the decoy is standing still he can not bite, but in PSA if your dog don't bite the passive decoy he failed, you must train your dog to understand that a bite command is a bite command no matter what the decoy is doing passsive or active, it won't take him long to learn that he can bite a passive decoy in a suit.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Anne Vaini said:


> Therapy dog and performance do not mix well. (Problems with dog running into the audience for petting)


I was kind of wondering about this one as well. I just got done reading the book _Dog Heroes of September 11th _by Nona Kilgore Bauer and on almost every page, they talked about how the search dogs usually knew when it was time to work for the search and when it was time to go into therapy mode for the firefighters looking for their fellow firefighters, even if the dog wasn't formally trained as a therapy dog. Like Khoi said, I would think that if the dog's head is clear and they know when it's time for "work work" and when it's time for "petting work," they'd probably be fine. Dogs can be so wonderfully sensitive to people around them.


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> I was kind of wondering about this one as well. I just got done reading the book _Dog Heroes of September 11th _by Nona Kilgore Bauer and on almost every page, they talked about how the search dogs usually knew when it was time to work for the search and when it was time to go into therapy mode for the firefighters looking for their fellow firefighters, even if the dog wasn't formally trained as a therapy dog. Like Khoi said, I would think that if the dog's head is clear and they know when it's time for "work work" and when it's time for "petting work," they'd probably be fine. Dogs can be so wonderfully sensitive to people around them.


Or, it could just be that dogs like to be scratched behind the ears and they know from experience that it ain't gonna happen while they're on the rubble pile working. I don't think the dogs' behavior in this situation is as complicated or as mysterious as some people like to make it sound. Our dogs know when its time to search, but they also know that, when put into a crowd of people sitting around, that they'll get as much petting as they want. 

Maren:
Check pages 52 and 53 of the Dog Heroes book for my husband and his dog Elvis. Pages 142 and 143 cover my SAR training mentor and friend, Elizabeth Kreitler (author of the quote in my signature line) and her dog Nero.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Konnie Hein said:


> Maren:
> Check pages 52 and 53 of the Dog Heroes book for my husband and his dog Elvis. Pages 142 and 143 cover my SAR training mentor and friend, Elizabeth Kreitler (author of the quote in my signature line) and her dog Nero.


Very cool about your husband and Elvis! I remember seeing Elizabeth Kreitler's name and thinking "where have I heard that name before?" Your signature, of course.  Neat book.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

So let me throw one more out there...since I know very very little about it. Footstep/Schutzhund style tracking versus AKC versus real world tracking/trailing (SAR, etc). If you can, which do you start and how/why?


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Akc is similar to Schutzhund although the basic TD from AKC is on level with the Sch III. 
They would be a nice foundation for real world tracking but not necessary. 
I've done both and following real world trailing and air scent with FST has been a pain. JMO but a dog will fall back on it's foundation traing when it gets in a jam. This has been one of the obsticals with Thunder's FST. Whe he missed a corner, he would automatically lift his head trying to find a scent. 
Same with his article ID on a FST. When going into the wind on a FST he would airscent the article and rush to it with a "WTF should I keep my nose down when I perfectly well know where it's at?" That's a real PIA if the article is 100+ paces down the leg. 
Same with a cross wind. "WTF should I go this way when I can smell it over there?"
Dern good real life article indications though!


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## Anne Vaini (Mar 15, 2007)

> What type of performance events are you talking about?


Stunt dog shows -disc, high jump, tricks, sometimes agility and/or flyball (but those are a bit different, IMO). Cutesy stuff that makes the average person go "wow."

I dislike tracking and "bark for bite" training because it has put severe faults into my dog's other activites. We made a bit of progress - Abby figured out that she is not allowed to track on astroturf.  I'll give $50 to anyone who can get her to keep her nose off the ground permanently. :grin:


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

<<<I'll give $50 to anyone who can get her to keep her nose off the ground permanently.>>>

Ok, ok, you take a really small collar, attach the ecollar to it. Strap it under the dogs nose, I guess that would be the chin huh? Then you....... well you get the idea. If I just give you my checking account number you can deposit it straight into my account. ok???

DFrost


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## Anne Vaini (Mar 15, 2007)

Haha. Maybe I'll crack out the ecollar wth her. I used it once to dramatic effect (and permanent result).


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## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

David, I think she is backing out already. Girls.[-X


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Jeff Oehlsen said:


> David, I think she is backing out already. Girls.[-X


I see that, what ya gonna do? Ya try to help

DFrost


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## Anne Vaini (Mar 15, 2007)

Oh Jeez. Men! haha!

Yeah... See I'm thinking ecollar on the snout may not work so well. Most likely result is that Abby would be afraid of her nose. :grin:


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## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

Send the 50 bucks. You are renigging with that lame ass theory??? Send the money, and next time remember we actually know how to train dogs here. Cheater.


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