About Us

        Welcome to Dunham Lake Australian Terriers!

About us

We live in beautiful Northwestern Wisconsin. We have 7 dogs that live with us,  5 of them are Australian Terriers, 2 Australian Shepherds, 3 cats, 4 horses, even some chickens and ducks. We also co-own 4 Australian Terriers, that don't live with us. All of our dogs and cats are our companions and live in our home.Having owned dogs and cats for over 40 years, including having hand-reared Cockatiels, we decided to research a dog breed that fit our family that we could show and eventually breed. In 2005, we discovered the Australian Terrier and fell in love with this charming little dog.

Our personal journey into this breed was unnecessarily difficult for us in many ways. At the time we lived in Minnesota where their aren't any Australian Terrier Breeders.  So we looked for a breeder in the Midwest, which we discovered a few in Wisconsin.  We actually met two of those breeders from Wisconsin.

One breeder had deplorable conditions and the other is an extremely unethical breeder whose dogs live their lives in crates in her basement and is even a member of an Australian Terrier Club in the USA! Both are very unfortunate for any breed. You should know that breed clubs do not make a site inspection, nor do they endorse any breeder. Always make a site visit and get credible references! 

The Australian Terrier is a fairly rare breed and is not easy to locate in many areas of the country.

In 2007 we fulfilled our dream to show and eventually raise healthy, well socialized Australian Terriers. We located a long-time breeder anxious to sell us our first two Aussie puppies, Dakota and Kaih. We are grateful to our breeder for providing us with our first show dogs! 

We hope to be a helpful resource for others interested in the Australian Terrier Breed because there was very limited information available to us when we discovered them.

Certainly, we do not have all the answers, we are learning every day! However, we share what we have learned and offer our experiences to help others new to this wonderful breed. Such information can be found in Aussie Talk. Now there are excellent resources available which can be found at Australian Terrier International, (established January 2010). I am proud to be a founding member and webmaster for ATI a world-wide organization dedicated to the Australian Terrier.

Our two younger daughters have worked with a very experienced trainer twice a week, teaching our dogs both conformation and obedience.  We actively show our dogs in local AKC dog shows, in both conformation and Junior Showmanship.

Our Australian Terriers are AKC Grand Champions, Champions, Muti-Group Winners or are Champions in training!  It's a wonderful family activity that we enjoy as often as possible.  Junior's has helped develop our girls confidence.  Working with their dogs is a great way to teach responsiblity, patience and good sportsmanship. It's a wonderful program. I also enjoy stewarding ringside, volunteering when I can, it's been a great learning experience seeing how things work from the inside out. The girls enjoy working at our club, assisting where needed at dog show events. 

While we enjoy showing our dogs, and I believe, as a reputable breeder, it's good to know how your dogs compare to the standard in the show ring, they are first and foremost our companions and members of our family. They sleep in bed with our kids and have the run of the house.  Our dogs get to do what dogs like to do, run around and play with our kids on 40 acres in the country.  All of our Aussies are great with the elderly and young alike. We take our Aussie's to visit at our local nursing home, they are always a welcomed sight.     

Dunham Lake Aussies and our family was featured in the AKC Gazette and the Finnish Aussie Magazine.  What an honor!

Giving Back

We give back by helping our clubs and with Aussie Rescue  and have placed Aussies needing a new home. If you know of an Aussie in need, please let us know how we can help you or direct you to someone else that can.

Memberships and Afflilates