Tony Parsons grew up at Normanhurst on a hobby farm. He went to North Sydney High School and started writing articles for rural publications and short stories for newspapers at the age of sixteen. He has worked as a professional sheep and wool classer, an agricultural journalist, a news editor and rural commentator on radio, a consultant to major agricultural companies and an award-winning stud breeder. He established one of Australia's top kelpie studs in 1950. Parsons spent his early years in the sheep and wool business in the Liverpool Range region of New South Wales. In 1992 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for his contribution to the propagation of the Australian kelpie sheep dog. He has more recently lived in Queensland. Parsons has written two works on the kelpie dog, The Working Kelpie (1986) and Training the Working Kelpie (1990).
