While most 15-year-olds hold out hope of driving a car soon, then attending prom and graduation, Christopher Banke was thinking a bit differently at that age. That was the year he accepted that his life’s work would involve a career training dogs. That was when he trained his own Doberman, Dana and others noticed how good he was and one of them, Margarete Iaquinto, took him under her wing. That was when he founded the Algemeiner Schutzhund Club. Iaquinto also too the opportunity to recommend young Chris Banke turn his attention to training German Shepherds. That was a fortuitous recommendation; it may have been a let to Chris moving into the ranks of the best dog trainers anywhere. By the time Christopher Banke was 19, he had already established his very own dog training facility, “Chris Banke Protection Dog Trainer” when he was just 19. That facility is very large and located in Vermont and it is still going strong decades later. In fact, during a career that has now spanned more than 30 years, Christopher Banke’s dog training career he's led to the training and coaching of hundreds of dogs, but it also has had a great many highlights. For example, Christopher Banke became the first-ever American trainer to compete successfully in the RSV2000 World Championship, which he accomplished with his dog, Iriac vd Maineiche. They competed in the IPO 3 handler-owner trained (HOT) category. A few years later, his dog, "Dino von der Maineiche,” whom he prefers to call “Dino,” received a trial score of 207, which is the second-highest Schutzhund/IPO 3 score in U.S. history. Dino also played a guard dog in the Oscar-nominated film, “Frozen River” in 2008. Comments are closed.
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