Chelsea and her dog stars tour the North Island

The Chelsea and the Dog stars show is a family affair.

Chelsea Marriner’s boyfriend does “slave labour” helping her with the dogs and her mother does the commentary of the show.

Ms Marriner travels the North Island going to A&P shows with her dogs who are trained to do a variety of tricks.
She is performing at Fieldays with her five top trick dogs.

Most tricks take 10-15 minutes for the border collies to learn but sometimes it can take weeks. Ms Marriner said agility training takes the longest.

At the moment her shows don’t make much money but she thinks they could.

“People just said I should give it a go and see where it ends up. At the same time you don’t want to do it to the point that the dogs are over it.”

Ms Marriner has been working with dogs since she was a toddler.

“I stole dad’s pup when I was 2 ½ and then saw Wonder Dogs when I was four. It all went from there. I started competing when I was seven.”

But she does not see herself touring forever.

“Ideally I’d like to be on a farm chasing sheep around.  I live on a four acre lifestyle block with four sheep and 10 dogs which is a bit of an off ratio. We are working on that.”

Ms Marriner has published a book on dog training called Code of the Canine, that is for sale at her show.