Ontario Border Collie Club  |
Maximus is of our own breeding, out of Jill by Chase. Max has a steady upright working style, has very little "eye" and has always been willing to speed up or slow down when asked. He travels well and is easy to please. Max started working late; up until 15 months of age, he didn't even look at the sheep. He started all at once and has been businesslike on the sheep ever since. Max is trustworthy with the stock, biddable, predictable on the trial field and is not afraid of his sheep. I learned a great deal through the mistakes I made training my first dog (Max's sire Chase) and I am learning as much watching the results of choosing a very different training style with Max. Still, I am quite fearful of making novice mistakes and I have a hard time knowing what to improve on in our training versus what is working well enough. I was very proud of Maximus when he won the PN at Grass Creek this year; it was the highlight of my trial career. Max stayed calm despite his handler botching the whistles on the cross drive and using sketchy tactics at the pen. Max and I will work on penning, shedding and cross driving over the winter in preparation for the Open class |