Herding: Willow showed a lot of natural balance and cover on her initial stock exposure. She is a very heady dog with moderate eye (a lot of eye when compared to the general ACD population). She had an early tendancy to get sucked into the heads and creep straight in. Willow is an exciteable dog and requires a firm hand when working stock otherwise she will take advantage of the situation to work “her way”. She can be pushy and started her career as a bit of a dirty biter. She prefers working close. When broken of her desire to walk into the heads she is very natural to flank wide. When she is confronted head to head with stock her natural reaction has been to hold her ground and walk straight to the head. If that doesn’t work she will give an appropriate bite. Her strongest virtue is her ability to hold pressure naturally. She is also a dog that contextualizes well and learns jobs quickly. We are currently trialing at an intermediate level on sheep and hope to begin trialing advanced by mid-summer 2026.

General performance: she is a very confident dog that has a strong innate desire to please her master and to work whatever that may be. Extremely food and toy/play motivated. She is resilient in new environments and situations. She is aloof with strangers and treats her interactions with them as transactional. Her ability to enter a ring and go to task required no training, she is extremely easy. She has excellent recovery when things go awry. Willow drills well, catches on quick, and retains her lessons well even with long gaps in training. She is enthusiastic in all she does. She is frankly the ideal temperment for performance of any kind by my perspective.