Jorgen Gronlund and Deborah Sommer

ATI Aussie Featured Family

March/April

Jorgen Gronlund and Deborah Sommer 

We’ve had Australian Terriers for 20 years now and we’ve been involved with the breed for around 23 years. 

Our first contact with the Australian Terrier came when we accompanied a friend of ours who was going to visit Betty Bryde in order to get his first Aussie puppie.  Betty taught Jorgen how to groom an Aussie. He started trimming his friend’s dog and showed it as well. 

The first show was the World Dog Show in Denmark in 1989. Eventually we got our own Australian Terriers, a male and female. 

There is no doubt that what we fell for in connection with the Aussie was the sharp alertness and affectionate nature of the breed. It is wonderful that the dogs can be amazingly curious, lively and playful one moment and able to lie on their backs and relax serenely the next. They are always engaged in and anxious to be involved in everything we do whether it is a walk or jog in the woods or we are just relaxing. It is like having a very cheerful, delighted shadow following you around where ever you go. 

Aussie’s are very good to have with our children because of their size. Most of our children’s friends don’t get frightened by them because the Aussie has the same elated energy as many children have. They love to play together.     We enjoy the fact that the Aussie is an independent dog even though it also wants to please; maybe that is what makes the breed so appealing. 

Jorgen used to do a lot of agility with our first Aussie, Sammy (Tatong’s Arrow of Silver), but nowadays we mostly find our obstacles in the woods. Louis (Kisamba’s Bluey Louis) is getting  to be an expert at climbing stacks of logs and balancing on tree trunks over creeks. 

We also love to bring our dogs with us on holidays. Our camping trip to Southern France when Luna was 4 months old was quite challenging for her: hours and hours in a car with frequent stops, sleeping in a tent, walking around in small towns in hot weather and sailing on a river in a canoe that tipped. She’s a good swimmer. 

The last couple of years we’ve taken up breeding again. We all enjoy the very important job of …the puppies, not least our sons who really learn from that experience.

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us!  

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