A
few kilometres outside the charming, heritage listed
country town of Strathalbyn in South Australia, re-
sides the current President of S.A.W.S.D.A, Milton
Cross. A fourth generation local farmer, who owns/ share
farms approximately 800 hectares in Angus Plains. 600 hec-
tares are currently utilised for cropping, with the remainder to
run on 1200 head of Dohne Merinos.Milton’s Father was “Old School” in his farming practises and
used Border Collies to assist with his sheep. His forefathers
originally immigrated from England around 1856 and settled
in the area that Milton and some of his other family members
still live and farm in today.At the age of 12 his Grandfather took him to watch his irst
sheep dog trial and this provoked his interest in the sport.
When he was 15, a former very successful trialler, Malcolm
Sorrell, whose preix was Sorrego who was running trials at
Milang at that time, asked Milton to come along and assist
with releasing sheep. Spending time watching and listening
to the triallers at the event increased his passion to join the
sport and his Uncle gave him his irst pedigreed pup to get
him started. Her name was Echo Park Gem. Echo Park preix
was later taken on by his brother Stefan.Milton’s irst trial was with Echo Park Gem in April 1985 at the
Strathalbyn trial, he was 18 years old. hey won the Encour-
age event and the following week entered Murray Bridge and
won the Novice. his early success prompted Milton to think
trialling was an easy sport, however he soon discovered he was
wrong as it took him a number of years before his next taste
of a win.Milton relected on those days “One of the things I consider
fortunate about starting trialling so young, is that I met and
got to listen to some of the legendary stockmen of that era of
men that lived and breathed stockwork using paddock dogs.
Lew and George Noble, Ross Dodge, Ron Seabrook, Jim Pow-
ell, to name a few, there were many others. As an 18 year old it
seemed like every old trialler wanted to come along and pass
on their knowledge.”here was a turning point in Milton’s trialling career and that
was attending a working dog school run by Greg Prince in
the ’90’s. He developed a whole new approach to training his
dogs which has inluenced him right through to this current
day. Milton said “I want the dog to be natural and use its brain
when it needs to, yet be obedient to me when I need it to be.
To have the strength it needs when I need it and to leave things
alone when nothing needs to be done, and the brains to work
all that out”.One of Milton’s philosophies is “To get the job done”, whether
trialling or farm work. “You can inesse your work next time,”
he said. “In a trial you aim to get the sheep through the obsta-
cles and in the pen in a given time, however some people may
spend extra time losing less points along the way and may only
reach the irst or second obstacle. I’m a farmer, it’s no good
when the shearer comes and there’s no sheep in the yard, but
they went through the irst and second gateways beautifully”.He also stated “I don’t go to trials to beat other triallers, I go
there to beat the sheep and to be happy with my dogs run. If
we happen to end up on the top and win, that’s great, but as
long as my dog and I have done our best, I’m happy. Farming
is my bread and butter, it feeds my kids, trialling is importanthttp://www.stockdogs.com.au AWSDM 7