Meet Cub, Scrappy the flying Icies

Mayeur moved to Alaska in 1992 after years of visiting for work. She had been living in Florida and working for UPS when repeated trips north—including weekend layovers—convinced her she wanted to stay. "I really just fell in love with the area and decided if I ever had the opportunity, I was going to move," she said. "And here I am." 

Today, Mayeur lives on a lake with her husband, who is also a pilot. Their airplanes can sit behind the house on floats in summer and skis in winter. They have a remote cabin near the Tazlina Glacier that can only be reached by air or, in winter, snow machine. They also fly to a fishing and hunting camp on the Alaska Peninsula.

Dogs became part of those trips years ago. Mayeur and her husband had a border collie named Piper. "He would always go hunting with us and hiking with us, and just on all of our adventures," Mayeur said.

After Piper died, Mayeur began looking for another breed that could keep up with their lifestyle. On a trip to Iceland, she had seen Icelandic sheepdogs and thought their size and temperament might work particularly well. "I need a dog that I can physically pick up and put in the airplane," Mayeur said.

Her first male was, as Mayeur put it, "a wonderful, wonderful pet," but not the right dog for breeding or showing. His breeder eventually sent her another male: Cub, who was different.

"I started showing him right away, and he's taken off, and he's done phenomenally," Mayeur said. "Better than we ever anticipated." Mayeur began showing her dogs partly as a way to introduce people to the uncommon breed, and Cub genuinely enjoyed it. "Cub is a ham," Mayeur said. His show-dog personality disappears quickly once he climbs into an airplane, where he'd rather nap than soak up attention.

On Cub's first flight in the Super Cub, Mayeur placed the puppy in the baggage area behind the second seat, secured in a small harness so that if something unexpected happened, he wouldn't get hurt. "He was just sleeping on top of my sleeping bag," she said. These days, the dogs usually ride in the back seat, where Cub continues to favor sleeping. Scrappy, however, is more attentive and likes to keep tabs on the pilot. "She seems to be more of a nervous Nelly when it comes to flying," Mayeur said. "She'll bump my neck to make sure I'm okay."

Cub rarely seems concerned. "He's never excited in the airplane," Mayeur said. "He just kind of hangs out and watches the world go by, and then he'll lay down and sleep." The dogs have also found an unusual way to combine their working instincts with their aviation household. Icelandic sheepdogs were historically used to help protect sheep and lambs from birds. Cub and Scrappy have apparently expanded the definition. "Our dogs have taken that one step further," Mayeur said. "They see an airplane, and they go running. They're running back and forth in the yard. They're trying to make sure it stays away."

For their own airplanes, the dogs are not allowed to approach until they are called. When Mayeur's husband flies in, she holds the dogs and has them sit until the propeller has completely stopped. Once he opens the door and calls them, they know it is okay to approach. There was no elaborate flight training program for Cub and Scrappy. Mayeur said repetition and basic obedience taught them the routine. She also tried a headset once. "It was chewed up in about 15 minutes," she said. Instead, Cub gets durable bones and blankets.

For pilots thinking about bringing a dog aboard for the first time, Mayeur recommends taking it slowly, particularly if the dog isn't naturally as relaxed as Cub. "Maybe start with not going by yourself, having somebody with you that can hang on to the dog, and maybe just taxi at first," she said. "Just so the dog can get used to the noise and the vibrations." Then she said, "start off with some short flights."

Long trips require another kind of planning. Mayeur's Super Cub has a range of about four hours, but with dogs aboard she generally starts looking for a stop after two to two and a half hours. She refuels, moves the airplane somewhere safe, gives the dogs water, and checks the weather before continuing.

For airline travel, Mayeur believes she has finally found something that can contain Cub. "Cub is an escape artist," she said. Her solution is a Ruff Land kennel. Over the Fourth of July weekend, Cub competed at the Icelandic Sheepdog National Specialty and won Select Dog, "which means he was number two dog out of all the Icies," Mayeur said. The result qualified him for Crufts in the United Kingdom, the world’s largest annual international dog show.

Getting a dog into the U.K. requires preparation. Not only will this be Cub's longest flight ever, Mayeur learned the paperwork has to be exact or an animal can face quarantine. For someone accustomed to navigating airplanes around the world, figuring out international travel with a dog presented a different challenge. "The first couple of days after I got the invite, it was just kind of sitting in shock, trying to figure out, how do we do this?" Mayeur said. "I mean, I'm a pilot. I've navigated the world, but how am I going to do it with a dog?"

Her solution was Across the Pond Pets in Olympia, Washington, a pet transport company that will help coordinate Cub's trip. The company will get him checked in with British Airways in Seattle, while another company will meet him after he arrives in London. There, Mayeur said, Cub will be taken to a dog lounge, given food and water, cleaned up, and examined by a veterinarian before being released to her. "It's nice to know, as soon as he hits the ground, somebody's going to be taking care of him." Finding the company changed Mayeur's outlook on the trip.

Crufts will be a very different kind of adventure from the fishing camps and glacier-filled flights Cub knows at home. Mayeur plans to leave the United States March 1, with Cub expected to enter the show ring March 4, 2027. She is looking forward to finding out what happens when her bush-plane companion steps into a ring with Icelandic sheepdogs from around the world. "We don't know how well he'll do," she said, "but it's going to be exciting."