Scottish National Sheep Dog Trials

August 3-5 this year the Scottish coastal town of Dunbar hosted the Scottish National Sheep Dog Trials, so we attended! We took the train up to Dunbar from Durham, not far, a little over an hour (although our British friends think we’re crazy for going that far for a day).

Dunbar is a pretty small train station…….

From there, we had to get a taxi to the Trials. This was more complicated than you might think, given that the address was literally someone’s farm out in the middle of nowhere.

But it was a beautiful location with rolling hills.

The run starts with the dog near the handler, who releases the dog to go get the sheep and push them through or around various obstacles. In the end, they have to get them into a small pen. A good run seemed to take about 10-15 minutes, but there is a time limit, so not everyone finished. Time is signaled by someone in the field waving the Scottish flag!

Once the run is over, another group of working dogs has the task of getting the group of sheep back into a control pen so they can eventually be used for another run later on.

We spent some time near this area – it was great to see how closely the dogs controlled the sheep.

It was a festive event needing appropriate attire and libation.

These dogs are fast and smart!

All in all, we had a great time at the Sheep Dog Trials!