Julie has worked with working Border Collies since 1982 and over the years, she has bred & trained a number of highly successful sheepdogs, both for farming and the trial field. 

She is a  well known and respected competitor at sheepdog trials. Julie has represented Scotland at both the International and World Sheepdog trials and made history in 1996 when she became the 1st, & currently only, woman to win the Supreme International Championship since this competition's inception over 100 years ago. Her other achievements include winning the Scottish National Championship, the Scottish National Brace Championship, the Scottish National Driving Championship and the Champion of Champions competition.

However, unlike many of the other top handlers, Julie does not come from a farming background. Instead, she has had to learn everything from scratch and her experiences have led her to develop an alternative approach to work with her dogs. She calls this method "the Natural Way".

Originally Julie started her shepherding days in East Anglia and her passion for the working border collie started her on a path to understand the language of the dog.

Her move to Scotland took Julie and her sheepdogs to some of the remotest, most rugged hill terrain in the UK where, as the sole shepherd, she single-handedly tended 1000 sheep grazing over 8000 acres.  This experience showed her the critical importance of having exceptionally good working sheepdogs and the limits of endurance both the shepherd and dog have to achieve in order to cope with everyday shepherding tasks.

Since November 2005, she has been a tenant farmer on the 239.5 Hectare (~600acre) Carcant Estate. 

A natural and gifted teacher with a qualification in canine communication, Julie has been teaching both individuals and groups around the world how to use the “pressure/release” methods she developed to train and handle her own Border Collies. In 2003, she published a book The Natural Way (ISBN 185829058) describing her experiences and training method.