Around 2002 or 2003 when our family was busy with three kids in all kinds of activities my youngest daughter Leisa started begging for a dog.  Finally I gave in and said we would get a dog to replace her two older sisters when they headed off for college.  As that time got close Leisa and I started to do a lot of research into different breeds and such.  We decided on a breed called English Shepherd as the perfect family dog for out in the country.

So in the spring of 2006 we drove up to a breeder in Chaska Minnesota with the idea of buying a female English Shepherd.  When we got there all the female dogs had been spoken for.  So we went with a male runt of the litter and named him Max.

As a young dog Max had lots of energy and taking him to obedience school only helped some.  In our woods Max was really at home running all over, chasing deer, jumping in the creek and just being a great companion.

Max had an incident with a car around 2011 which resulted in surgery on his front leg.  That slowed him down and mellowed him out.  But he still had many years of walks in the woods, visiting with our neighbor Grandma, and hanging around with family every night in the house.

In just the last couple months Max really slowed down and problems with his hips eventually made it very difficult to get up and walk.  We put him to sleep July 15, 2018 and buried him up on the ridge.  A very sad day, but a wonderful 12 years of selfless love.