THE Mackay family brought some special guests to this year's Mount Isa Show.
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Sparkie, Freya and Lassie are specially trained dogs, whose ability to do tricks and routines amazes the crowds.
The four young female handlers, Jasmine, Jessica, Chantel and Chana have finely tuned their act since 2010 and are now booked for shows throughout the whole of Queensland.
"In 2010 I read about it with a girl who was doing tricks with her dog and we started training our guys to do tricks," Jasmine said.
"We picked up a few more dogs and we did our first show performance in May 2011 at the Goomeri Pumpkin Festival and we kind of went from there," Jasmine said.
Jasmine said they were very diligent with their training and never missed a day.
"When we get a new new puppy we train them maybe for five to 10 minutes every couple of hours to get them to the level that all the other guys are at and when they know the basics it will be maybe one hour of training every day," she said.
"They get rewarded with treats sometimes, it helps them learn faster."
The dogs perform tricks including crawling, skateboarding, spinning, playing dead and bowing.
The Mackay family dogs start training as soon as they are bought into the family, but Jasmine said that one of the dogs was nearly two before she started.
"You really can teach an old dog new tricks," she said.