Placing Retired Show Dogs
by Kathy Lorentzen



All of us involved in showing and breeding dogs love our animals dearly. We wouldn’t have them if we didn’t. Our dogs bring us great joy, not only when they win something in the ring, but also through their constant companionship, unending devotion, and complete trust. To a true dog lover, the wins in the ring are the icing on the cake; it is the constant presence of our dogs that makes our lives whole.

As breeders we are constantly striving to breed the dog that fills our eye-the one that, when we stand back and look at it, truly represents our interpretation of the breed standard come to life. Producing such a dog is an arduous task, and the journey is often long and fraught with heartache and disappointment. Dog breeding is not for sissies. Just when we think we have success in our sights, we stumble and fall and that elusive, perfect dog slips through our grasp yet again.

During this process of successes and failures, we are constantly learning more and more about what it takes to produce dogs that come closer to our ideal. The dogs we use in our programs must have a great deal more than just physical conformance to a written breed standard. To be useful in a breeding program, a dog must be robustly healthy, completely sound, free of any temperamental issues, and also have an almost indescribable spark that draws our eye to it again and again.

We sort our litters on the basis of the above requirements, but it’s a long shot at best to hope that the puppy we choose to retain from any breeding, no matter how thoughtfully planned, will end up fulfilling our expectations. Often, puppies fail to meet the mark for one reason or another, and are neutered and sold to companion homes during their adolescence. This is a constant part of the dog breeding process and nobody who has been involved in show dog breeding for very long gives a thought to parting with an older pup, provided we are content in knowing that it is going to a wonderful, forever home. Virtually all of us are limited by time and money constraints and we realize that we have to keep our dogs to a manageable number, though that number certainly varies between individuals.

When I was actively breeding English Springer Spaniels there was always a magic number of dogs that I could comfortably house, and whenever I went past that number I would almost immediately feel overwhelmed. My ‘set point’ number was eight. My dogs lived in my house, albeit they did not all have the run of the house. I had a kennel room off the back of the house where the dogs slept in crates at night, and three large, partially covered patio block pens off that room, with a half acre grass paddock that each smaller pen opened into. I’m not sure why eight was my comfort zone number, but when I got to ten (and I often did) I would start looking around the kennel room with the realization that a couple of dogs needed to move on.

We all have dogs that we would never part with. These are the ones that meld so seamlessly into our lives; they become practically an extension of our own being, regardless of their show ring glories or their impact as a producer. These dogs live and die with us and we mourn their losses and grieve for them like lost family members.

But let’s face it, those ‘heart dogs’ don’t come along every day. I’ve had five, and I feel fortunate to have had that many. While those special dogs have been constants in my life, dozens of others have come and gone. Many of those who have gone on to other homes are dogs that have given me wonderful wins in the show ring and excellent progeny in the whelping box. They were frequently five or six or seven years old when I was having one of my ‘walkabouts’ in the dog room with an eye to which ones were going to be packing their bags and heading down the road.

There are people who simply cannot comprehend parting with a dog that has been a part of your household for half a dozen years. I have often counseled new show dog enthusiasts on the danger of letting their dog numbers get out of hand, and the answer I invariably get is that they could never part with a dog that had been with them for any length of time. Ten years later, I always smile to myself as those very people are telling me about the five year old dog they placed last week.

The first one is the hardest to let go. After the pain of separation fades, and the realization sets in that absolutely everybody is better off, especially the dog, it gets easier every time one walks out the door. When we hear the stories of the wonderful companionship these older dogs bring to their new families, and we see the bliss on the faces of the dogs as they revel in their new found top dog status, we come to realize that we are doing the dogs an enormous service by finding them a private home of their own. We are also doing ourselves a service by keeping our dog numbers down so that the ones we have get the attention they deserve. We should never ‘stock pile’ dogs that we are no longer showing or breeding just because we think we can’t bear to part with them (or because we think the general public will find us heartless because we are looking for a home for them.) Stockpiling dogs is a dangerous situation and the most well meaning breeders can find themselves in way over their heads in numbers. Dogs can easily end up suffering from lack of attention, even if their basic maintenance requirements are being met.

There are some basic considerations to placing older dogs that breeders have to keep in mind. You cannot take a grown dog that has been living in a kennel situation all its life and hand it to a family as a housedog and think there won’t be trouble. At the very least, older dogs must be house trained, crate trained, and have basic manners before they go to new homes. It goes without saying that no dog should ever leave your premises without being neutered, undergo a complete physical exam, and current on all vaccinations.

Each dog is an individual and finding the family that works for that dog is our responsibility. My daughter had a Ch. German Wire Haired Pointer who was a big, strong, tough dog in a multi-dog situation. He just wasn’t suited to life at her place with the Springers (much less the cats and the pet goats). She found him a home with a young, active couple who spend a great deal of time outdoors. They take the dog jogging, biking and hiking on a regular basis and he’s as happy and content as can be. Placing that same dog with a family that wanted a dog that would just hang around the house would have been a disaster.

I also never advise placing older dogs in family situations with young children if the dog wasn’t raised with children. Even the best tempered dog can be startled by, and have a bad reaction to, the actions of youngsters if they didn’t grow up with them.

Sometimes it can be frustrating trying to make people looking for a new dog understand the advantages of starting with an adult as opposed to a puppy. Everybody wants a cuddly puppy, and they don’t often give much thought to the time, effort, and expense that go into making that ball of fluff a companionable, well mannered member of the family. But if you have an older dog that you think would fit the bill for a particular family, it is worth your time to try to explain that they could have a ready-made wonder dog that could move into their house with a minimum of disruption if they would stop to consider the benefits of adult vs. puppy.

I’ve placed a lot of adult dogs and regret not one single decision. Of course, I didn’t make any of those decisions lightly, and I made certain that every dog that left was going to a permanent home. I made it clear that the new owners understood that if they were ever in a position where they were not able to keep the dog, it had to come back. Not a single one of them ever has. I’ve kept the lines of communication open with everyone and watched some incredible relationships form, particularly between elderly people and older dogs that were a perfect fit for one another.

While it’s difficult to pick a favorite story, I think the best home I ever found for an adult dog was for Fanny. She was a three year old Champion Springer with all her health clearances and a marvelous temperament. Unfortunately, she also had two littermates with epilepsy and I had to make the difficult decision to not use her in my breeding program. So Fanny went off to live with the newly retired President of the Ford Motor Company and his wife. A few years later, as the family settled into two homes (one in Florida and the other on Cape Cod), I would get occasional updates and photos and hear stories about how Fanny had her own private chauffeur to drive her between their summer and winter homes, as they would never take the risk of flying her! As Fanny aged, her family stayed closer and closer to home so that they wouldn’t have to be away if she needed them. She spent the last couple of years of her life reclining on their bed, and would bark when she needed to be helped down to go outside. Fanny lived past her sixteenth birthday and I feel like I gave both she and the family that took her a remarkable gift when I put them together.

Perfect homes for our retired dogs are out there, and it is our responsibility to find them a family that is a great match and give them the life of individual love they deserve. When people ask me how I can bear to let an older dog go, or how I think the dog will adjust to a new home after all those years in mine, I just tell them that I’ve watched many sashay down the drive with their new owners, gazing at them with complete adoration, with nary a backward glance at me unless it is to briefly wave goodbye. If I’ve done my job, they know they are off to a better life.