World Trial 2026…The Road to Scotland

We’re so excited for the World Trial! Alasdair and I will be traveling with Moss, Nite, Bute (on the team) and Cymro, who is the Team’s alternate as well as my own.
We are blessed to be staying with dear friends and can’t wait for the shenanigans and humor.
To watch great handlers with top dogs in beautiful Scotland—what a brilliant opportunity!
For me personally, it will be a great learning experience on very different sheep and terrain.

There’s quite a lot that goes into getting 4 dogs to Scotland. First we travel from SC to California (coast to coast!) as our National is less than a week after we return in Alturas Ca. We’re very grateful to Bryan and Allison White for letting us stay at their gorgeous ranch as our hub.
The part that makes us nervous about the International travel isn’t the miles, as much as everything around them.
Paperwork (USDA, ET Authorization, CDC import form, etc) all has to be exact. Even a small error could get you turned away. More than that for us, is the Flights, as an aircraft change can result in our dogs not be allowed on the plane
Air France’s max dog transport for 500 crates is 4 per plane (only on certain ones) and because they can change aircraft size up until last minute, even a confirmed slot is not assured
If a last minute change does happen, you have to pivot quickly and we are very fortunate to have generous, smart people around us helping to navigate it all
From Paris, our pet taxi takes us via the chunnel to just outside Dover to rent our car; we’ll then drive to our friend’s Andy and Joyce”s beautiful farm, just north of Stirling (Scotland).
4 big crates also changes number of hotels rooms, rental car size, pet taxi requirements etc. It’s definitely a learning process!
Right now we are set to arrive 10 days before the trial starts.
It looks like we may be able to stay a bit longer because of help from folks on the west coast dog sitting; fingers crossed!
Once the trial is over we’ll drive back to Dover return the rental, pet taxi back to Paris for the morning flight as it’s the only direct one that takes 4 large crates and fly back to CA then drive to Bend, then back to Alturas for the National and ultimately back to SC.
It’s a ton of moving parts and this crazy, beautiful trip could not be done without the tremendous support of friends, family and the sheepdog community. A few have generously asked about donations to help our dogs get to Scotland
—from me, Alasdair, Moss, Nite, Bute and Cym, we are extremely grateful; Thank You so much!!