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what s the difference in Retire and Free Home? any benefits to one or the other? At what age are dogs useless to the kennel? When should one or the other be done?

When you retire a dog it stays in your kennel but doesn't count towards your numbers. You can no longer show it in regular shows or breed it. I believe you can do obedience though.

Forever Homing a dog is sending it to a pet home. It will be out of your kennel and no longer owned by you. Unnamed dogs will float around for like a month or so and then disappear. You will still be able to find any named dogs that are FH'ed.

Most of the time, you'll want to FH a dog. I like keeping around all my champions and grand champions and occasionally I'll keep a sire that did well for me just because I'm sentimental like that. Keeping your CHs and GCHs will get you a higher prestige and ranking in your respective breed(s).

It's up to you to decide when your dogs are "useless". If you're showing a dog, and it's no longer getting either CH points or GCH points, then you have the choice to either FH it or keep it in your breeding pool. As far as breeding stock, when a sire or brood isn't producing the current SOP anymore, you can probably FH them, unless you're breeding for color and then it's up to you.

In my kennels, if a brood doesn't throw any pups worth keeping on a first litter, I'll breed her one more time and if she still isn't producing up to par, I'll FH her. If she does give me some good pups the second time, I'll probably keep her for a third breeding. I usually don't get more than 3 litters out of a brood. Sires I have a tendency to keep around longer since they can be bred constantly. Once they've stopped giving me good SOPs, I'll most likely FH them.

Hope this was helpful.
Alexandria

Very well said. I have a tough time getting rid of the old timers. It's true we get attached to them. What I end up doing is putting my cursor on the FH button and closing my eyes, while saying 'goodbye xxxxx' and then pushing the button so I don't seem them actually leave. Once they are gone, it's easy to forget them.

How silly is that? LOL. It is easier to let them sit on the retirement couch for a while too. Usually I only keep dogs that have at least one Best in Show or some other impressive title.

^^^^ haha you're not the only one! I do exactly the same LOL

I mope around even when it's a girl who isn't doing anything in my kennel lol.

Alexandria

I too have serious letting-go issues but . . .

Having taken in two for real retiring showdogs now, I feel a lot better with the forever home. They are going to loving pet homes where they will be showered with attention and treats for the rest of their neverending lives. Its a perfect world in SD life (lol).