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Tim Cutterson, Dog Training

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Vacaville, CA
Tim Cutterson, Dog Training

Professional dog trainer, specializing in high drive, precision training.
3-time National champion

11/30/2024

Session with 🐊 working on a new field. Need to stop being lazy and work him on different fields other than my own. Generalization, but still breaking things down.

Getting ready for the big trials next year 🚀🚀🚀

09/24/2024

Congrats to our club member Dr. John for his win at Regionals 💪💪💪

I have to brag for him cuz he won't brag about it himself, but this is his 3rd win in a row and his 5th Regional win overall ('19, '21, '22, '23, & '24) 🤯🤯🤯

To be consistent in this sport is SO HARD! Especially when you're traveling/trialing at different venues, with different helpers, different tracking, etc.

It shows how much time, effort, and thought John puts in with his dog. Congrats my friend 👏👏

09/17/2024

While Amy has abandoned me at home for the next 3 weeks being team captain at the FCI, these will be 2 of my friends:

Copper, the aggressive resource guarding Bloodhound (he wants to bite my face 😈)

And Gigi the puggle

09/09/2024

Croc-a-doodle's IGP2 protection from this weekend. 98 points. He was a little loosey-goosey at points in the obedience (wide blind, back transport), but looked very strong overall 💪💪💪

Judge Joel Monroe

09/08/2024

Croc and I passed our IGP2 obedience today with score of 94. I was very happy with the Croc-a-doodle 🐊❤️

-6 points for mistake on jump

Judge Joel Monroe

08/27/2024

💡💡 If you want your dog to focus on your face, whether it be for heeling, fronts, or some other behavior, it's incredibly important that you're not moving your reward hand BEFORE you mark.

♦️Many handlers KNOW this, but so few actually do it. It's such a common tendency that we as humans have. Maybe it's because movement or using our body comes more naturally than making a noise with our mouth.

♦️But, if you're moving your hand, throwing the ball, or making any type of movement AT THE SAME TIME that you mark, and that is how you typically reward, your dog WILL start looking for that movement INSTEAD of watching your face. Movement is a more dominant stimulus than sound for most dogs, especially when that movement involves a high value reward!

♦️Doing this may ALSO create more CONNECTION with you and your dog, which in turn may free them up even more and add more emotion to your heeling! Oftentimes, when a dog is just "heeling for the ball" and staring up at the armpit, they can lack expression, and you also lose the ability to communicate with your dog via facial expression, talking, etc.

♦️And lastly, remember, there's not one size fits all approach to dog training! This advice may not be helpful for you and your dog's issues. If your dog shows TOO MUCH emotion (leaking, hectic, etc.), then maybe you don't need to do this 😉

08/11/2024

IGP 2 in 5 weeks! 😬

Just trying to keep this boy healthy so I can get to the competition. Nothing crazy I feel like I have to work on or fix. Just the usual stuff. The IGP 2 is by far the most annoying title to do. Several things you'll never have to do again, but that you need to teach for this level (walking stand, back transport to side transport).

Hopefully we can get through it and move on!

07/09/2024

Just a long ass video of our OB session from this morning.

Courtesy of Mr Pivo 📹

Once a behavior is established, it's important to mix in elements of "trial picture" to all your exercises (something I'm not always good at).

For example: Waiting 3 seconds before you praise or reward after a finish. I tend to reward very quickly because I wanted animation, so this is something I have to remind myself to do every once in a while 😉

07/04/2024

Breaking stuff down:

I’m sure you’ve all heard how important it is to break exercises down. Don’t mash everything together if your dog struggling on one particular piece.

Here's how I've been recently breaking down the jump with Croc. Start with the weakest piece first. The piece your dog struggles with most. That way, if there's a problem, your dog is fresh and you can repeat it as many times as necessary, and maybe even end on that piece and not doing the rest of the exercise.

With Croc, his weakest piece lately is the front. That’s why I’m starting with that. Because he was successful after just after 2 reps, we moved on.

Next piece: GOING OVER the jump (he sometimes hits it). I'm not asking him to BRING, I’m using a toy and saying "GET IT" which means he DOES NOT have to come back over. That way, I can isolate this piece. Equally as important, I start talking to him and walk to the side of the jump.

Next step, picking up the DB, coming back over the jump, and fronting. So, I’m putting multiple pieces together.

Since he did this great, I put it all together.

Whether you WORK ON ONE PIECE, or whether you put the pieces together should depend on how the reps go! You MIGHT NOT even want to put everything together if your dog struggles on one pieces.

Also, start with the weakest pieces FIRST, so you can devote the most energy to that.

07/01/2024

Progress on the front "chute" 🚀🚀🚀

We've been using the chute WITHOUT the dumbell for several weeks now, and just recently started incorporating the DB into it. Croc's fronts are particularly bad on DB fronts because he LEANS BACK, so I'm planning on keeping the chute here for a while until I see more confidence, commitment, and 💪 memory.

He's understandably slowing down a little because he's thinking and navigating through it, but I think with time it'll get sharper 😉

Rewarding by jumping back so he drives into me is also helping a ton.

06/26/2024

Had a great time teaching at Camp Canemo this year

Thanks to all who participated!!

06/21/2024

Croc and I are getting some really productive training done at Camp Canemo

05/26/2024

We just started teaching the hand touch from basic position a few weeks ago. I first saw this used in this way from Bridget Carlsen several years ago.

The reason I decided to use this is to have another bridge behavior that I can use to "boost" him.

The only other boosting behavior I have is barking, BUT, this is causing a little bit of a leaking problem, so I want to have other options.

The SECOND reason for the hand touch is to fix his basic position. You can't really see from the angle of the video, but he LEANS his head/body away from me in basic position. So, because the hand touch is directionaly straight up, hopefully the anticipation will make him orient his body straighter.

05/25/2024

I love having new s**t to work on.

Now that we're finished trialing, we have lots of time to fix things (our next trial isn't until September).

Trial prepping is actually not much fun for me 👎 Lots of stress, and you have to do sessions that aren't very enjoyable for me or Croc. Like: longer routines, being more stoic as a handler, acting more "trial-like", maybe fewer helps/rewards, etc.

But now, we go back and work on our problems. One such is vocalization on the bite. This started to develop a few months back after we taught him to bark after the out. There's a lot of conflict and anticipation about outing-barking, and this is what's causing the growling.

So, as per Marko's request, we're teaching him a passive hold in the lock-up position. This gives him a bridge behavior before the out, and helps calm him (he vocalizes more when he's fighting).

He's allowed to fight when the helper is active, but during the lock up, he has to be passive. We're not combining this with the out yet (that would make it extremely hard for him), so the final reward is just slipping the sleeve.

05/23/2024

Ground sniffing!

Our 100 point track from the trial.

Croc is developing into a good tracking boy❤️ He has very low food drive, but he likes to hunt and fight for the food.

We still have some work to do on difficult conditions. With short, dry grass/dirt or high winds, he can still struggle, but I'm really enjoying the process ❤️

05/21/2024

Croc's IGP1 obedience from this weekend.

Obedience is the phase I get the MOST nervous for because I care about it the most. I never wanted to show a routine that is technically correct but has no heart. My favorite OB teams to watch are the ones where the dog is riding on the edge: recalling so fast they're almost slamming into the handler, attacking the dumbell, heeling so actively they're almost leaking, balls to the wall send out, etc.

I was happy with our routine.

Slightly incorrect fronts and we need to work on the long down 😬 We had long down first, and he totally checked out here, so when I went to pick him up, he wasn't 💯 engaged at the start. It was one of those things nobody noticed, but I felt it.

Once we started heeling, he woke up a bit, and he built-up gradually that, by the recall, he was in a good emotion.

Aside from that, the rest of the routine went as I expected.

The aspect of our OB I'm AM extremely happy with, however, is that I think he stays pretty open throughout. He shows some pressure on our about turns (which also need some work 🤔), but I'm happy with the rest ❤️

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Videos

Full video on YouTube channel #timcutterson #dogtraining #igp #obedience #heeling #focusedheeling #obediencetraining #schutzhund #malinois #germanshepherd #workingdog #dogsport #dogtrainersofinstagram

The "follow" behavior for IGP motions. Full video on my YouTube channel 👀 #timcutterson #igp #dogtraining #dogtrainer #schutzhund #obedience #obediencetraining #malinois #malinoistraining #dogsport #dogtrainersofinstagram #dogtrainingtips #heeling

It's been a long and intensive process to build the right attitude & picture in Croc's obedience, but I'm very happy with where we're at now ❤️❤️❤️🚀🚀🚀 #timcutterson #igp #malinois #schutzhund #dogtraining #dogtrainer #malinoistraining #workingdog #obedience #obediencetraining

Session with 🐊 working on a new field. Need to stop being lazy and work him on different fields other than my own. Generalization, but still breaking things down. Getting ready for the big trials next year 🚀🚀🚀

Just a hodge podge of various OB things we've been workin' on 🐊 🏃 🔷️ Creating faster lock-up on stand by stopping right away 🔷️ Integrating the front platform with his retrieves (his retrieve fronts are the worst!) 🔷️ Tighter pickup on flat retrieve #igp #schutzhund #dogtraining #dogtrainer #Malinois #malinoisofinstagram #timcutterson #cuttersondogtraining

Teaching fronts is hard #igp #schutzhund #dogtraining #dogtrainer #malinois #dogsport #obedience #obediencetraining #timcutterson

My own dogs are also not really potty trained 🤫🤫🤫 #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainerproblems #hypocrisy

2 things I have learned from working with this dog: 1.) I love bloodhounds and want one 😍 2.) I desperately want Copper to love me and be my emotional support dog 🤗 (although he is terrible at it 😢) #behaviormod #behaviormodification #resourceguarding #bloodhound

IGP 2 is finished!! My hopes and dreams are to compete at a high level with this boy 🐊 We had a pretty dang good preparation for this trial, and I was extremely happy with the end result. Of course, we exposed some holes, and we have A LOT of work to do before we hit the big show, but I feel like the Croc-a-doodle and I are on the right track 🚀🚀🚀 Just simply GETTING to the big competitions is so hard in this sport 🤯 Not only do you have to complete the BH, IGP1, and IGP2, but you also have to: - Keep your dog healthy - Find the time to train and travel - Spend time THINKING about and analyzing your training - And a bazillion other unpredictable factors that pop up when you're training a canine! #timcutterson #cuttersondogtraining #dogtraining #igp #schutzhund #dogsport #Malinois #malinoistraining #obedience #obediencetraining #dogtrainersofinstagram

Croc and I passed our IGP2 obedience today with score of 94. I was very happy with the Croc-a-doodle 🐊❤️ -6 points for mistake on jump Judge Joel Monroe

The Emphatic Marker

💡💡 If you want your dog to focus on your face, whether it be for heeling, fronts, or some other behavior, it's incredibly important that you're not moving your reward hand BEFORE you mark. ♦️Many handlers KNOW this, but so few actually do it. It's such a common tendency that we as humans have. Maybe it's because movement or using our body comes more naturally than making a noise with our mouth. ♦️But, if you're moving your hand, throwing the ball, or making any type of movement AT THE SAME TIME that you mark, and that is how you typically reward, your dog WILL start looking for that movement INSTEAD of watching your face. Movement is a more dominant stimulus than sound for most dogs, especially when that movement involves a high value reward! ♦️Doing this may ALSO create more CONNECTION with you and your dog, which in turn may free them up even more and add more emotion to your heeling! Oftentimes, when a dog is just "heeling for the ball" and staring up at the armpit, they can lack expression, and you also lose the ability to communicate with your dog via facial expression, talking, etc. ♦️And lastly, remember, there's not one size fits all approach to dog training! This advice may not be helpful for you and your dog's issues. If your dog shows TOO MUCH emotion (leaking, hectic, etc.), then maybe you don't need to do this 😉 #timcutterson #cuttersondogtraining #dogtraining #dogtrainer #schutzhund #igp #obedience #obediencetraining #dogsport #Malinois #germanshepherd #malinoistraining