Dog team pirouette and skateboard

It is not every day you see a dog shooting hoops, dancing and washing its feet – but you can at this year’s Fieldays.

Chelsea Marriner and her Dogmatic Trick Team are performing every day at the Village Green.

Dogmatic are a 10 dog team of multi-talented working border collies.

“I have been working with dogs since I was two and a half years old when I took over Dad’s puppy that he bought home,” said Marriner,  “When I was four I saw Wonder Dogs on TV and decided that I’d love to teach my dog to do cool stuff like that. “

Not only do Dogmatic perform but they compete in agility (the handler directs the dog through an obstacle course race), flygility (an obstacle course race that involves a ball), canine freestyle (a choreographed performance organised with music) and occasionally in the Sheep Dog Trials.

“I like showing people the good side of dogs. What they can do if the time and effort is put in,” Marriner said.

Marriner begins training her dogs from eight-weeks-old with simple tricks such as beg, roll over and play dead.

The dogs then progress to harder tricks such as stacking their food bowls.

They are trained using positive reinforcement techniques with food and toys.

Marriner said the dogs love to perform.

“They love being the centre of attention – too much at times.”

Fieldays was the first performance for Rip, 3 months old, and Sprint, 14 months old.

Other highlights of Dogmatic’s performance include jumping through hoops, and skateboarding.