PJ,
Kimm hand-stacked him but keep in mind that Max has never shown so he's not all that used to being hand-stacked. His front is very nice and his rear is excellent so he free-stacks better than most Rotties. Because he's a bit over-weight, hand-stacking allows us to take the roll out of the area behind the shoulders -- something that will go away once he actually gets into show shape. The main difference between him and Rowdy in terms of topline is that Rowdy's topline is level all the way to the tail and Max's drops a bit at the croup. Both are correct but our taste is for a more Rowdy-like topline.

Max's headpiece is very much a Rowdy-type head with a shorter, wider muzzle and a bit more cheek fill and backskull. In short, he's an improvement on Rowdy in many ways which is always the objective of a breeding program.

If Max has a downside it's his size. He's big! His proportions are excellent so you don't really notice it until he's standing next to another Rottie but he's almost a 1/2 inch taller than Sundance and Sundance is very large. Sundance has more bone and a bigger head but Max is just as impressive physically. Put him in the ring with a bunch of much smaller males and he'll look positively enormous!!

I must admit that I don't mind larger Rotties. I don't want them over the Standard but I don't mind them crowding the 27-inch mark. As long as they are structurally correct. Max has very nice structure and he moves like silk. When he's moving, you don't notice his size at all. Like Rowdy .

Jim