Oh Porter...

So here are the rest of Porter's runs from the weekend.

Like I said yesterday, we had some serious communication breakdowns  :)  

I think a lot of things are contributing to it:

• I can run slightly faster now since I lost weight  :)  I'm finding myself much farther ahead of him.
• I'm running him more like I've been running Stout (all that stuff I've learned in Silvia's class)
• I'm throwing in blind crosses (which I really haven't practiced with him... Why am I doing that??)
• There were a lot of wraps on these courses & I was using stuff I learned in the Dawn Weaver seminar, as well as stuff I've been teaching Stout (which I also haven't practiced with Porter).

On to the videos:

A great run by Porter, but I got lost! 

I was farther ahead than I thought & went too deep to that wrap, so when I turned, it looked like either of those jumps could have been next... Plus I just stood there in my turn to the tunnel, instead of moving toward the entrance  - I could have made it more obvious for Porter  :)  But good boy, Porter!

A whole lot of fails...

I think when Porter knocked the first bar, it just kind of shook his confidence for a little while. He was slower heading around to the tunnel. Then I got way ahead of him while he was in the tunnel - and instead of front crossing or doing a blind, I just stood there & waited so I could rear cross... Duh.

One of my biggest problems lately has been that after we screw up, I just start randomly trying things out there on the course. I need to stop. It just isn't fair to Porter. You can see how lackadaisical I get, and it's only teaching him that he can run lazy too  :)  I need to treat the whole run as if a Q is on the line.

I think that bothers me the most - I am so mad at myself for doing that! Especially since I am constantly telling my students that they need to be clear & consistent in their cues at all times - otherwise they will start to water them down & blur the lines. Which is exactly what I am doing in these runs!  :)  Ugh.

Porter & I share the blame in this run!

I could have been a little clearer that we were taking the tunnel & not the teeter in the beginning... But what was with the random tunnel sniff, Porter?!  :)  And I can blame the "almost table fault" on the way I've been doing it with Stout. I just wasn't thinking...

I was beginning to feel like I had been bragging a lot lately... So I hope posting these will humble me a little!  :)  And I really wanted to share how different these courses were. They had some tough sequences within them!