The kids ignoring the rides to help run the Melbourne Royal Show

While other kids gorged on fairy floss and got tossed around on rides at the Melbourne Royal Show, teenager Chelsea Berlyn was wrangling 11 spirited miniature pinschers in the dog pavilion.

As she brushed their coats and kept them out of trouble, Chelsea deftly answered questions from passersby, such as “Is that a chihuahua?” and “do they catch rats and mice?”

While most young showgoers might drink slurpees and binge on showbags, Chelsea, 17, of Ballarat, is among a normally overlooked group of young ones at the show exhibiting, competing or working.

On Sunday, Chelsea and her mother, Kimberly Berlyn, showed their miniature pinschers, with their dog Jagger winning best of breed.

They will be back during the week with their schipperke, Sir Tristan, for judging.

And for the rest of the dog show, which runs until Saturday, Chelsea is in demand as a handler, leading breeds from whippets to bullmastiffs around the ring for other owners.

Chelsea, who first showed dogs at the show aged four, says they can be long days, but working with dogs is her passion and she’s willing to give the rides a miss.

“It’s always about the competition side for me instead of the showbags and the candy and the rides,” she said.

“I find this – the dogs and the dog competitions – way more exciting than anything else going on in the showgrounds.”

Over in the horse pavilions, Scott sisters Eva, 17, Amy, 15, and Pippa, 12, have been tending their Clydesdale horse Beth and showing her off in competitions held in the livestock pavilion.

The bulk of their show efforts aren’t glamorous. They’re up at dawn to tend to 800-kilogram Beth – whose show name is Murroka Bethany – by brushing, feeding, exercising, washing and shovelling manure.

But they’re old hands, having brought various horses to the show with their mother, Louise Scott, and her cousin, Barbara Ford, since they were little. They sleep in stalls on the grounds.

They get the odd few hours to head into the carnival with friends, but the girls, from Emu Creek near Bendigo, also loved to catch up with fellow horse exhibitors, many of them friends, from all over Australia.

Eva said: “We definitely spend lots more time down here in the horse livestock area. We love it down here. We’d rather be down here with the horses than up there [at the carnival].”

On sideshow alley, Alexander Elford, 13, was spruiking for customers with a microphone, handing out tickets and presenting stuffed toys at his mother Jessica Harris’s stall, Joylands Lucky Numbers.

Alexander, who has come from Sydney for the show, said he enjoys talking to people, being with his mum and hanging out with cousin Dametrey, also 13.

Harris said Alexander is a good spruiker who works a couple of hours a day for pocket money, and it’s given him confidence, people skills, and money handling and work experience.

“I’m very proud of him,” she said.

Melbourne Royal Show runs until Sunday, October 5.

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