When you can make a living off them basically. The best thing to do is keep records of your expenses and income and yes include dog showing hotel accommodation flights etc and this is part and parcel of promotion. Anything related to dogs basically goes into your expenses column. Each year its tallied and your either a profit or loss. If your a loss that loss is carried over to the next year and so forth. My former husband ran it as a business and after a couple of years the accountant advised us that we cannot keep putting in such big losses. In other words the ATO was going to reject it as a business as it was NOT profiting and there were 10 dogs permit on the property but there was no sign it could profit cause you cant control mother nature.
Remember your losses roll over year after year and your profits take your losses into account. You can only have 7 odd years of losses before you have to explain to them why you should keep your ABN.
So what I suggest is keep all records, receipts etc so if the ATO ever asks you can provide them with the details of your losses.
Now Centrelink on the other hand folks have laws that come from a different planet and which will see all hobbyist in jail for committing fraud. Thats another topic folks.
