About Us

Kippenhill Retrievers

Marlene, Brooksville Shows - November 2006

News Flash!! Marlene won back to back majors crossed from the dogs at the Brooksville shows weekend! I couldn't be more proud of my girl!!

Marlene finished her championship in style at the "Southern Skies Flat Coated Retriever Club" supported entry in december, 2007! All points (including 3 majors) were from the b

Updated pages:

4-18-08 New addition to our dog family..check out Zuzu's page

11-15-06 New photos on Marlene & Django's pages.

8-14-06 New photos on Marlene & Brandon's pages.

7-1-06 New photos of Brandon

5-27-06 Many new photos on several pages....check them all out!

About Donna & Bill...

We live in Florida where it's hot and humid here most of the time. Even though Donna is a native Floridian, we hope to move to a cooler climate someday. Bill is a transplant of "The Empire State" (New York) and misses the change of seasons. We have a teenaged son who graduated from the local High School after 9 years of being homeschooled and will begin his university life in the fall of '07.

Donna's family contains several generations of animal trainers, from dogs & horses to lions & tigers. There have always been animals in our lives so having a house full of dogs feels very natural.

Our dogs are a big part of our lives. We show them in conformation and train them for field work & tracking. We do some agility with Duncan. Obedience training has been the basis of all the dogs' training as well.

Longtime Flat Coat owner, Claire Koshar introduced us to the breed in 1993. We were training our Border Collies at her Dog School and met her lovely dogs Will & Kara there. It was love at first sight and we knew right away that this breed would be a perfect fit for our family.

Natural health and long lives is our goal for our dogs. We have done a lot of research on dog health & nutrition. We feed our dogs a mixed diet of high quality, naturally preserved kibble and raw foods such as meat, bones, vegetables and a few whole grains. While we feel that puppies need a series of vaccines to establish immunity to devastating diseases, we do annual titer testing rather than automatically vaccinating each year.

Temperament and health are of utmost importance to us in choosing our dogs. We believe if you have a healthy dog with a sensible temperament you can do almost anything with them. They will be easy to live with, you will create strong relationships with them and they will be willing to learn. All of our dogs live in the house together with us. They all get along and really enjoy each other. We feel that no matter what dog sport is your passion, the most important thing is having a dog you enjoy coming home to.

Our breedings are selected with the whole dog in mind. We carefully match sound dogs who we feel will complement each other in type, structure and temperament, as well as maintain retrieving instinct. Even though we may not "title" our dogs in field, we ensure that they have a solid, retrieving instinct before breeding. Our puppies are born & raised in the house and are underfoot, getting lots of attention and socialization.

We are members in good standing of the Flat Coated Retriever Society of America. Donna is a board member of the state club, Southern Skies Flat Coated Retriever Club and also on the board of the Flat Coated Retriever Foundation, as Rescue Liaison.

Donna is a veterinary technician at a small, one vet, holistically minded clinic. Spare time not spent with the dogs (not much of that) is filled with several hobbies including quilting, fiber arts & gardening.

Bill is a musician by trade & enjoys scouring music shops for vintage guitars and reading about the Civil War.

We hope you enjoy our site & come back often. We try to update the site regularly. It is a labor of love & pride to honor our Flat Coats.

All the best,

Donna & Bill Chocianowski

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