Max’s Greatest Obsession

Uncertainty about who was going to graze sheep here at Heatherhope this year. Then lots of nursing and then grieving over the loss of Betty and Zack. Then an infection and Lyme disease in Hector. Then tall grass needing cutting and baling. Then the sheep’s owner had a wedding to attend.

A long wait; but today, at the start of August, we finally have a handful of sheep to graze. The first grazing of sheep at Heatherhope for 2025. And along with that, the chance for Max to herd.

Max is a dog with focus. Max is obsessive. We must give him a tennis ball when we first let him out of the kennel, or he will chew off parts of the ATV or frantically bring us sticks or blades of grass to toss. Then, every 20 yards or so on our slow way around the hay field, he must have that ball thrown so that he can retrieve it.

Max is obsessed, but that’s okay. We like him happy.

There is only one thing better than retrieving tennis balls: working sheep.

Though the newly grazing sheep were out of sight on the far side of the pasture, Max immediately knew they were there.

His even greater obsession had kicked in. He was doing what he was born for.

Martin Luther once looked at his dog begging food at the table. “We should all pray with that kind of dedication and intensity,” he wisely said. It is, after all, what we were born for.