Megan the sheepdog is moving to the US after being sold for £18,900 (Picture: North News)

Megan the sheepdog is moving to the US after being sold for £18,900.

She was sold at Skipton Auction Mart last week, easily breaking the previous world record of £14,805 paid for a male dog from Northern Ireland in 2016.

Megan, who is two-and-a-half years old, impressed so much on the field at Skipton she attracted attention from a number of bidders, before selling over the phone to a farmer in Oklahoma.

Former owner and shepherdess Emma Gray, who farms the National Trust owned Fallowlees Farm at Harwood Forest, Northumberland, raised Megan since she was a puppy.


Mrs Gray, 34, who is married to 41-year-old fireman Ewan Irvine and a mum to ten-month-old Len, said: ‘I was hoping Megan would sell well, but I didn’t expect her to go for quite so much.



‘I am just really happy that her skill has been recognised and all her hard work has paid off.

‘She really deserves it. I have been training her since she was a puppy, every day.

‘Right from the start, I knew she was going to be talented, but the road to success was not always smooth.

‘Training any dog is a lot of hard work.’

Shepherdess Emma Gray, 34, from Northumberland, with Megan (Picture: North News)

Mrs Gray added: ‘All the dogs have their own personalities and will go through a teenage phase. They are learning so much all the time. Forming a strong emotional bond with them is very important.

‘Megan is just a workaholic. She absolutely loves to work.

‘She could never be a pet, she’s a working dog.’

Mrs Gray wrote a memoir about her experiences as a shepherdess called One Girl and her Dogs.

She became the UK’s youngest solo shepherdess when she took over 150-acre Fallowlees Farm aged 23.

Megan impressed so much on the field at Skipton Picture: North News)

Mrs Gray, who currently has 12 sheepdogs and says she will be pumping the money back into the farm, said: ‘She’s going to be doing the same work over there, but in much warmer weather. I am jealous!

‘I will be really sad to see her go, but I have known we would have to part ways since I first started training her.

‘I am just very pleased that people have recognised her talent. It is an amazing achievement.

‘To put it in context, the average sheepdog will sell for between two and three thousand pounds.’

Mrs Gray began working with dogs at the age of 13, and later became the first woman to win the prestigious Northumberland Sheepdog Trials League in the contest’s four-decade history.