I met Roy as a pup in October 2004 while trialing with Amanda in Virginia. Roy was the stud fee for the services of Amanda’s Imp Star CBCA 4741 to Barbara Ray’s Trim CBCA 2501. Star of course was Supreme Champion in 2002 under the guidance of Stuart Davidson. Trim is the daughter of Barbara’s Imp Roy ABC 76755 who in 1999 was the winner of the “Purina Outstanding Herding Dog”.

When Amanda told me that she would be selling Roy once we got back to Canada I almost immediately decided to buy him.

Roy quickly showed that he was interested in the flock. I normally do not start young dogs until they are 8 months plus. So I started Roy on sheep towards the end of summer 2005. He proved to have good stocksense and was very kind to his sheep – he did however have a lot of problems with driving. Training was cut short by a very wet fall – soaking all my fields to complete uselessness, and as I do not normally train young dogs on pregnant ewes, Roy’s training for trials did not continue until some time in June of 2006. During the winter I did however use him regularly for chores – moving flock into barn, through the chute etc. I also appreciated his quiet demeanor around the flock during lambing when his respectful distance to the ewe, but with a firm and determined command of her made lambing a lot easier for me. I was really looking forward to trialing him in 2006 but to my dismay he blew every outrun that I took him to.
As I have trained quite a few dogs I am aware of the “he never does that at home” syndrome but with Roy it was different – he became a completely different dog –
he just blew his stack – probably because he read my nervousness when I went to the post with him. So half way through the trial season I decided to pull him out of competition and let him mature some more. We returned to the trial scene in 2007 when he managed a more laid back attitude to trials which resulted in good placements or wins at the few trials that we participated in.

I am looking forward to running him in Open in 2008.