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Keeshond breeders

About the Keeshond The Keeshond is a medium-sized spitz breed in the Royal Kennel Club (RKC) Utility group.

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Advertise your Keeshond puppies, litters and stud dogs

Are you a Keeshond breeder?

List your kennel on caninebreeder.co.uk so that people looking for Keeshond puppies for sale can find you by breed and location. Your free profile shows your kennel name, website, social media, location and categories, and you can advertise Keeshond puppies for sale or a Keeshond stud dog at no cost. A Premium profile adds a showcase for your services, health results and past litters. Add your listing, see pricing or read how we verify breeders.

No breeders are listed here yet, so the first profiles get the page to themselves.

  • Free basic profile: your breeder or company name, website, social media, location, breeds and industries.
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Is it free to advertise here?

Yes. A breeder profile and your litter and stud dog adverts are free. Premium profiles, featured placement and sponsored articles are optional paid extras; see pricing.

Do I need a licence to advertise puppies?

In England you need a dog breeding licence from your council if you breed three or more litters in 12 months or breed and sell dogs as a business, and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own schemes. Licensed breeders show their licence number and issuing council on every advert. Puppies must be at least eight weeks old before they go to new homes.

Is my listing already here?

We add licensed breeders from councils' public registers. Search for your kennel name; if it is listed you can claim it and edit everything.

About the Keeshond

About the Keeshond

The Keeshond is a medium-sized spitz breed in the Royal Kennel Club (RKC) Utility group. In Holland it worked as a watchdog on barges, and when the first dogs reached Britain it became known as the "Dutch Barge Dog".

In the 18th century the breed served as the Dutch Patriots' Party mascot because Cornelius "Kees" de Gyselaer, one of its leading figures, owned one, so it came to be called Kees' dog. After the party's defeat in 1787 the breed lost favour and numbers fell sharply, until a few breeders rebuilt it from the best dogs that remained. According to the RKC, the UK's first Keeshonds arrived in 1905 and its first breed club was formed in 1925, the year The Keeshond Club was founded. Interest from British breeders helped revive the breed in the Netherlands, where the Dutch Kennel Club had recognised it by 1933.

Size and build

The RKC breed standard describes a sturdy, short-backed dog with a fox-like head, a large ruff and a plumed tail that curls tightly over the back. The ideal height is 46 cm (18 in) for dogs and 43 cm (17 in) for bitches.

Coat and grooming

The outer coat is harsh and straight and stands off the body, over a soft, thick and pale undercoat. The colour is a mixture of grey and black, with well-defined shoulder markings and cream forelegs and hocks; the RKC's registration colours for the breed are grey, silver grey, and silver grey and black. The standard rules out a silky, wavy or woolly coat and penalises any trimming that changes the natural outline, apart from light tidying of the feet and pasterns. The RKC lists grooming as an every-day job and notes that the breed sheds.

Exercise and home life

The RKC suggests up to an hour of exercise a day and says a Keeshond can suit a small house with a small to medium garden, in town or country, and gives its lifespan as over 10 years.

Temperament

The standard describes a confident, alert and friendly dog, intelligent and adaptable, and a good watchdog that is quick to raise the alarm. That instinct is worth weighing up if you live close to neighbours. Compare it with other Utility breeds such as the Japanese Spitz, Eurasier and German Spitz (Mittel), or browse all Utility group breeders.

Keeshond health tests

Keeshond health and testing

The RKC health standard sorts pre-breeding tests into two tiers. Good Practice is the minimum the RKC strongly recommends before breeding; Best Practice adds tests for conditions that still matter but may be less common or more recently identified. For the Keeshond, Good Practice covers genetic diversity, hips and elbows, and Best Practice adds eye examinations and a DNA test for primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT).

PHPT happens when too much parathyroid hormone is released, pushing blood calcium above normal. The RKC describes it as autosomal dominant, so a single copy of the variant is enough to affect a dog, and signs usually appear later in life, at around 10 to 11 years. Since April 2025 the RKC has run an official DNA testing scheme for PHPT in the breed, recording results as clear, single affected or double affected. In 2023 the RKC described the condition as rare in the UK Keeshond population. Keeshond Health Matters, a health site shared by the two UK breed clubs, also highlights epilepsy and skin and coat problems.

The breed is in Breed Watch Category 2, with an excessively profuse coat listed as the point of concern for show judges. The RKC has no additional breed-specific breeding restrictions for the Keeshond.

Choosing a Keeshond breeder

Choosing a Keeshond breeder

A careful Keeshond breeder should be able to show you both parents' hip and elbow results from the BVA/RKC schemes, their eye examination certificates and their PHPT DNA results, and explain what those results mean for the litter. PHPT is inherited as a dominant condition, so ask how the parents' results shaped the choice of mate. You can look up any RKC-registered dog's recorded results on the Health Test Results Finder.

Expect frank answers about daily grooming, shedding and the breed's readiness to sound the alarm. A good breeder will ask about your home and routine, let you see the puppies with their mother, and offer to take a dog back if your circumstances change. The Keeshond Club says it can put puppy buyers in touch with its secretary for details of current litters, and the North of England Keeshond Club is another source of breed advice. Read our buyer safety guide before you pay a deposit.

  • Can I see both parents' hip scores, elbow grades, eye certificates and PHPT DNA results?
  • What is the coefficient of inbreeding for this mating, and how does it compare with the breed average?
  • Can I meet the mother, and the father if he is available?
  • How do you groom your adult dogs, and what coat care will the puppy need at home?
  • Will you take the dog back at any age if I can no longer keep it?

More for Keeshond owners and breeders

Official sources