About Us

Welcome to Rosewood Kooikerhondjes, home of Hamlet, Lady Elsinore, Yorick and Bianca

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Rosewood Kooikers, 2010

Hamlet is the original Rosewood kooikerhondje, joining Rose’s family in 2001. His travels brought him from Aarhus, Denmark to Iowa City, Iowa. He then moved with us to to Virginia, ending up in the little town of Harrisonburg in the Shenandoah Valley. He loves hiking and swimming, and will fetch almost anything you throw into the water for him. Here he is fetching a hot dog bun out of Slate Lick Lake in the summer of 2008.

Lady Elsinore was the second addition to Rosewood, arriving about half a year after Hamlet. She lived with us in the Mid West for four years, and then decided that New England suited her just as well. She lives with Rose’s sister Joyce and her family in Boston, Massachusetts.  You can find out more about Elsie and her puppies by clicking on her picture.

One of Elsie’s daughters from her second litter, Bianca, is the third Rosewood kooikerhondje featured on this web site. While Elsie enjoys the cold snows of the North, Bianca is a Southern girl, and lives with her favorite human, Jorrie, in Statesboro Georgia.

Yorick is our fourth dog, and he lives with Hamlet and a pack of humans in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He’s a Dutch born dog from Altforst, The Netherlands. If he turns out to be the wonderful creature that we expect, he will be available as a stud dog when he turns two in 2011! In the meantime, he’s finding his place among the children, chickens, horses, dogs, and humans that make up his world!

Rosewood’s Beginnings, 2000

The dogs were Rose’s idea, and were the result of years of research to find The Perfect Dog. Rose had a list of criteria for The Perfect Dog: small, smart, easy to train, doesn’t bark too much, doesn’t shed all over the place, has a good health record, gets along well with children, is polite and obedient, and most of all, is beautiful and unique–not something you would find on every block.

She soon discovered that the type of dog she was looking for does not exist–unless it is found framed and hanging over a mantelpiece! However, a little-known breed that is gaining popularity in Europe captured her eyes and heart. She waded through web page after web page in English, Dutch, Danish, and Finnish. She wrote emails and called breeders and discovered that this sprightly little breed promised to meet most, if not all, of the above criteria.

The family was planning a trip to Germany in the summer of 2001 and it didn’t take much to convince everyone to take a weekend detour to visit Kennel Taga’s near Arhus, Denmark. Ann and Alan Skødt were warm, knowledgeable, and clearly devoted to their many dogs as well as to their exotic parrots and tropical birds. They had two new litters with available males, and we spent quite a bit of time looking at one darkly-colored pup, just a week old.

Because the pup was from Denmark (and because Rose taught Shakespeare), we wanted to name him Hamlet; however, the litter’s assigned letter was Q, so we came up with Quarto-Hamlet, a diminutive Prince of Denmark.

Hamlet came home via Chicago on Saturday, August 25, 2001. He was everything we had hoped for–beautiful, confident, energetic, and brilliantly happy to be part of a new pack.

He picked up English quickly and learned readily. He rarely barked. He was quite easy to house-train, was a quick study in puppy kindergarten, and was a neighborhood kid-magnet.

It didn’t take long to decide to try for another one. While in Denmark we had met a promising young couple, Mowgli and Chiquita, whom the Skødt’s were planning to breed provided Chiquita gained her championship.

She did, and they did, and we put in a request for a female puppy, Lady Elsinore. (We couldn’t name her Ophelia, could we?)

She was born on Halloween.

When she saw her betrothed at the cargo bay on January 2, 2002, she jumped and barked at him–he retreated–and she has been in charge ever since.

The lovely Lady Elsinore, while beautiful, was not the easy dog to raise that Hamlet was. Comparatively, Elsie was more nervous and excitable than her companion. She chewed voraciously as a puppy, destroying books, woodwork, and the living room sofa. Twice! Elsie was difficult to house train; or it could be that she was on par with the average dog, but paled in comparison to Hamlet’s precociousness in that area!

By the following Halloween when Elsie was a year old, she was well on her way to becoming the fine dog worth all the effort we took to bring her up well. Although not always demure, she was–and is–quite the lady!

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We hope we’ve given you an honest introduction to our dogs, relating both our satisfactions and our frustrations. Hamlet and Elsinore illustrate the fact that all dogs are individuals, and there can be some variation within a given breed, even though that breed has been shaped for generations for specific genetic traits that are generally consistent in both body and temperament.

Much of what you get in a finished dog is the result of the effort you put into raising, socializing, and training your companion. Dogs are much like children, and although we do not anthropomorphize our dogs, the similarities are obvious–dogs are at least half the trouble of kids, and both are living dependents that are our responsibility. Like our boys, our dogs are responsive, intelligent little learners, and rely on us exclusively to provide for their many needs. They are our creations, and we are ultimately responsible for the quality of their futures.

Bringing a dog into one’s life is much like any other commitment, and is not to be done without considerable forethought and planning. If we do our job well, we can expect many years of mutual respect and amiable companionship!

Rosewood’s Transitions, 2005 to the present

Rosewood Kooikerhondjes has gone through some transitions since acquiring our first dogs when were were a family of four in Iowa City. Rose and Reuben had two more sons, bringing the small folk in our family to four boys and two dogs. We moved everyone to Virginia in 2004. In the summer of 2005, Reuben was killed in a car accident, and the boys, dogs, and I moved to Harrisonburg, VA to be with extended family. Over the next few years, we slowly mended our lives in the beautiful Shendoah Valley. Elsie went to live with my sister Joyce in Boston, and Hamlet stayed here with us. In 2009, Yorick came to us from Dutch breeder Roel Steenhuis, from Kennel Altforsterhof in The Netherlands.  In 2010, Rose re-married, and Bruce entered the scene, making us a complete family once again.

Rosewood Kennels now consists of three breeding dogs, living with three families in three different states.

The lovely Lady Elsinore resides in Boston with Joyce.  Elsie will retire from her job as mother after her next litter, planned for the summer of 2010.

Elsie’s daughter, Bianca, lives with Jorrie in Statesborough, Georgia. She is a fine southern lady, with all her mother’s spunk! Her first litter of five went to their new homes in January of 2010.

Yorick, if he passes his health tests, will be available for stud when he is two years old in 2011. Yorick and Hamlet live on a hill in Harrisonburg, Virginia, overlooking the Shenandoah Valley.

The future, like the view, looks good!