Our Story

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I, Susan Claggett, have lived with a Doberman Pinscher since 1984 when I was introduced to the breed through my brother’s fiancé. They moved to Ft. Lauderdale near where my Mother and I were living. It was the tourist season and they could not find an apartment that would allow them to have a Doberman. We offered to help them by taking care of their Sadie until they could locate a home. My father had passed the year before and Mom and I moved in together. At that point in my life my Mom had also become my best friend. I already had my two rescue mutts Trouble and Tara so a third dog would not make that much of a difference…right? Well it changed my life and I will forever be grateful for Dobermans coming into my world. Mom and I were like most people that had never been up close and personal with a Doberman. We both had been lifetime dog lovers but we really were nervous and intimidated by Sadie at first. However, within a few days we were in awe of the breed, their intelligence and beauty. Sadie was the most amazing dog I had ever met and Mom and I just knew we had to get one of our own. About a year after she came to live with us Sadie had a reoccurrence of breast cancer and they told us it had spread internally and to keep her as comfortable as possible. She was almost 11 at that point and she had bonded deeply with my Mom and me. When I was at work she was my Mom’s constant companion. Yes, even following her to the bathroom. Of course we did not know this was a breed trait at that point. My Mom had a rare disease called Scleroderma and Sadie was very sensitive to how my Mom was feeling. Sadie became almost like my Mom’s service dog without any actual training. The year before my brother and his fiancé felt it was best that Sadie continue to live with us, but they visited often during her final months. My Mom gave her wonderful care until she told us it was time to let her go. Mom and I bought a house in Boca Raton together with a big yard and we planned on getting our Doberman once we got settled in and finished the renovation. A few months later my Mom passed due to complications of the disease she had fought most of her life. It was unexpected and shocking and I was in a terrible depression and other than my mixed breed dogs Tara and Trouble I could find little joy in my life. I knew they depended on me and that is why I got up each day to go to work. I lost my Mom, Dad and both of my maternal grandparents in a 3 year period. All of my elders who I loved were gone and I was just 25 years of age. I decided it was time to get my own Doberman and to stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with life.

I did not know how to find a breeder except for looking in the classified ads. This was back before the internet. I found my puppy that I named for her namesake Sadie. It’s a Dutch tradition but it does get confusing at times. Six weeks old and was uncropped when I brought her home. My vet discouraged me from cropping her ears (even back then), but I wanted her to look just like my first Sadie. I was afraid to put her through the surgery but finally did so at 11 weeks of age. My vet did a horrible cookie cutter crop and she had ears about two inches tall, but at least they stood quickly and she did look like a Doberman instead of a hound. During and just after my high school years I had dated my husband Charles “Brian” Claggett for a couple of years but we went our separate ways. My parents had always felt Brian was perfect for me and really adored him. Brian heard about my Mom having passed away and he contacted me. We got together to “catch up” and that was that! We have now been married for 23 years. Brian met my Sadie when she was about 4 months old and he also had the same reaction of being nervous by the presence of a Doberman. Except this was only a baby and he is a 6’3” tall guy. I still tease him about that to this day. Looking back it was serendipitous the way the Doberman Pinscher breed just came into my life and became a major part of our lives as a couple.

We have met many long time friends through Dobes and I really believe it was a blessing from above. Our kennel name of Van Orman Dobermans is a tribute to my parents Harold and Jeanne. Van Orman is my maiden name. Brian and I wanted to keep their memory going and he actually suggested we help to do so by using Van Orman Dobermans. Before we bred our first litter we had the good fortune to meet Tammy Rabold. She was an area supervisor for Pet Supermarket and she happened to be at the store that I usually went to for our dog food purchases. As I was checking out she asked me what breed of dogs I had and I said a Doberman Pinscher and two mixed breed dogs. She got out her wallet and showed me several photos of her Dobes. We chatted for quite some time. At the time Tammy was the vice president of the Doberman Pinscher Club of Florida and she invited us to attend their next club meeting and then she said there was a specialty show that her Dobe club was putting on and two all breed shows this coming weekend and suggested we try to come to the show and to bring Sadie. I had gone to many shows as young child because my parents and grandparents showed Boxers and English Springer Spaniels. I felt so at home that weekend at the dog show and we got to see several top Dobermans of the day and meet many wonderful Doberman breeders and owners. I was becoming hooked fast and I kept saying to Brian this really makes me happy. Brian and I became active members in the DPCF and helped to put on shows, matches, WAE’s, etc. Those couple of years before we bred our first litter in 1990 I was like a sponge seeking as much information about Dobes as I could find. I became a student of the breed and devoured pedigrees. Luckily many longtime Doberman breeders were members of our club and they would let me take their files of handwritten or typed pedigrees and win photos to work so I could make copies for my own files. Tammy let me borrow her collection of Doberman Quarterly, Dobes in Review and Top Dobe magazines in increments of about 10 magazines at a time. Her collection took me back to the 1970s. Each monthly club meeting I would trade them back in for a new set to peruse.

In 1989 on TV I watched the great Indy (Ch. Royal Tudor’s Wild as the Wind) win Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club. I was mesmerized by her and I then knew what my goal was to be as a breeder. We bred our Sadie to Tammy Rabold’s Ch. Bar-lock’s Star Blazer son Kirby. This was a distant line breeding on BIS Am/Can Ch. Highland Satan’s Image. We ended up with 9 puppies and kept a black male Van Orman’s Phantom (Phantom was our first show dog) and a bitch named Lucy. Phantom was the very first puppy I ever whelped in my hands and he was with us until he was just over 16 years old. His Mom Sadie lived until almost 15 years. I so adored them both. They had ideal temperaments and excellent health.

Phantom was a competitive puppy and was originally trained and shown for us by Tammy. He quickly gathered points from the puppy classes and a major from American Bred but he was straight in the upper arm and lacked depth of brisket which was becoming more obvious. The term “shoved forward” I came to loath because I heard it too many times from the handlers or longtime breeders who had become our friends. I was showing Phantom myself and points were few and far between. My beautiful boy began to fall apart before my eyes as my knowledge grew and he matured. I could finally visualize the standard and realized we needed to buy a well bred foundation bitch to carry our program forward. At a show in West Palm there was a bunch of chatter going around that Gwen De Milta had flown in with her new young special Josh (Ch. Platinum’s Back in Black) who was an Indy son. My heart pounded and I was so excited to be able to watch him in person with his infamous handler. Josh won the breed and I went over to congratulate Gwen, introduced myself and asked her if I could meet Josh. He was so wonderful, with an excellent temperament and I fell in love with him in those few minutes. Although he was still a young male his beauty was striking. I told Gwen about my special love for his dam Indy and Gwen told me that Josh had been bred for the first time and that I should contact the litter owner Maureen Byrne of Patriot Dobermans to see if she had a bitch available for me.

Later that night, with Brian’s blessing I called Maureen in Boston and we had an instant bond. She had the same rare disease, Scleroderma which my mother died from and unfortunately her disease was already quite advanced and she was only in her early 40s. She had been told she did not have long to live due to her having advanced dilated cardiomyopathy from the disease. Two of Maureen’s good friends helped her whelp and co-bred her first litter under her Patriot Dobermans kennel name. Maureen and I felt a special connection and we felt it was just meant to be. Her family had a condo in Hollywood Beach and I was able to meet her in person on few occasions and we spoke almost daily. During our first phone call I told her how I really wanted an excellent front on our puppy like the dam of the litter Finesse, Ch. Dabney’s Don’t You Dare Trump v. Aria, and I wanted an excellent temperament like Josh. I left the puppy choice to her and Gwen. Maureen told me our puppy had a sister that was going to live in Florida too who was being purchased by a woman returning to Dobes after a 10 year absence named Nanci Kelley. Our foundation bitch was Valor, Patriot’s Valor, and Nanci Kelley purchased Abby, Patriot’s Abigail Adams. We met Nanci and her Abby at a match in Tampa when the sisters were about 4 months old. The littermates had a blast playing together and we made another play date for them the next month at an upcoming dog show. Brian and I became fast friends with Nanci Kelley and we started camping together at the shows. We found that we had very similar interpretations of the standard and Nanci had been a longtime vet technician and was very knowledgeable about Dobermans from the 60s and 70s. She was a good friend of Ellen Hoffman of Elfred Dobermans and had owned a couple of Champions bred by her. Neither Abby nor Valor finished their championships but they both were excellent producers for us. Abby only needed one major to finish but could not seem to get it with the unknown handler Nanci had been using due to budget restrictions and Valor had a weak topline and it was agreed it would be difficult to finish her. Back at that time the entries were huge and very competitive. Nanci bred Abby to a nice son of Josh named TK (Ch. My-A-Mar’s TKO Sure Winds) and they produced a Best in Show winning DPCA Top 20 bitch Liz, BIS Ch. Patriot’s Black Pearls. Liz was Laura Pyles-Coomes first Best In Show winner and her first DPCA Top 20 Dobe. The two of them made a gorgeous team and Nanci shared the ride with us. We had several great years together at the shows. Nanci said it was the happiest time of her life and she was so glad we shared it together. Our dear friend Nanci Kelley passed away from cancer in 2003. She had become Aunt Nanci to our kids and it was very difficult to see them go through the loss at their young ages. Maureen Byrne had asked Nanci if she wanted to continue the Patriot Kennel name and Nanci was happy to be able to do so in her honor. With advice from Maureen Byrne, Nanci Kelley and Tammy Rabold we decided to breed Valor to Carol Kepler’s Morgan son Patrick, Ch. Carolon’s Whirlwind v. Pell. He was a very standard male with a super nice temperament who was 9 years old at the time of the breeding and looked about 4 and he went on to live to over 12 years. Patrick was from a litter of 6 and all of them finished their championship with Carol Kepler handling the majority of them. Carol was the DPCA breeder of the year from her outstanding Morgan/Angel litters. She did repeat the breeding and she ended up with a total of 11 champions out of 12 puppies. I remember hearing that one puppy had been sold out of the country and I believe that he did finish his championship overseas. A’Monde Dobermans foundation bitch is a Patrick daughter too. The quality was very strong in the cross of Morgan and Angel. Nine days before Valor whelped her litter my friend and Valor’s breeder Maureen Byrne passed away. It was very sad. She was so looking forward to our litter and we decided to tribute the litter to her and gave them a heaven theme. From this litter we kept a beautiful black male Zeppelin, Ch. Van Orman’s Stairway to Heaven. Zeppelin had everything we wanted for our breeding program. He had a beautiful front, balance, great movement, a short, firm back, a lot of bone and substance, a solid male head with good underjaw and a proper mouth and most importantly he had a fantastic temperament and loved to show. Zeppelin and his sister Annie, Ch. Van Orman’s Alchemy Bit-A-Heaven, became our first champions and I feel Zeppelin is a very significant force behind our breeding program even today. Zeppelin lived until a few days before his 12th birthday and he always lived his life to the fullest. He was only bred a few times as we had to neuter him due to prostate problems. We met Gabi Wentzel, Watauga Dobermans through Tammy Rabold and Sharon Pflueger of Gold Grove. Gabi bred her lovely Scotsbrae/Mistel line bitch Spirit to our Zeppelin. They had a nice litter and we ended up with a puppy bitch named Vega, WataugaVan Orman’s Sumrsky Vega, who became a top producer for us.

Around this same era Brian and I had started our family and we had four children in 5 years. We were blessed with Steven, Greg, Brandon and Ashlee from 1993 to 1998. We did not show Vega because she had an ear hematoma at about 5 months and we could not get it to stand. It became shriveled at the top half. Also it was very difficult to travel with 4 very young children and all of our Dobes. When we went to shows we traveled as a family in our motor home. We took a few years off and when we did breed Vega to continue our line we decided on using our friend Nanci Kelley’s male Opie, Ch. Patriot’s Opposites Attract. We had known Opie since he was born and loved him dearly. He was the sole puppy from her Top 20 bitch Liz’s breeding to Eddie. Nanci called him Opie Mon and he was her pocket pup and he adored her. Opie had the same outstanding temperament that we had come to know and love from the Josh and Eddie lines. Now that we had young children solid, trustworthy temperaments became even more important and I would have to say was the biggest priority for us along with good health and longevity and of course we hoped for nice, standard conformation in our puppies.

Vega and Opie produced four champions for us from our “Back” litter; Sizzle, Ch. Van Orman’s Flash Back, is our multiple DPCA Top 20 conformation finalist; Brandee, Ch. Van Orman’s Back Talk; Cash, Ch. Van Orman’s The Thrill is Back, who has sired several nice champions and working dogs and Casey, Ch. Van Orman’s Casey V. Sarena UD, CGC, RE, ROM, who was also a DPCA Top 20 obedience finalists in 2007 and so was her littermate Tagi, Van Orman’s Backdraft UD, BH, WAC, CGC, RE, a Top 20 obedience finalist in 2006. We bred Vega for the second time to Opie’s sire Eddie, Ch. Cambria’s Cactus Cash, and we had another outstanding litter. From this litter we produced Tess, Ch. Van Orman’s Vixen of Morrowind, who was the 2005 DPCA Grand Prize Futurity winner, 2005 DPCA Reserve Winner’s Bitch, DPCA Best Puppy and was also the Reserve Winner’s Bitch at the Host club show given by the Austin Dobe Club which we are now members of since moving to Texas from Florida in 2007. Tess won all of these awards at only 6 ½ months of age. The following year her sister Rosie, Ch. Van Orman’s Vanity of Demira, was the 2006 DPCA Winner’s Bitch under Jane Kay (Kay-Hill Dobermans) and Best of Winner’s under Ray Carlisle (Cara Dobermans).The beautiful bitch we kept for ourselves from our Vega-Eddie breeding is Venus, Van Orman’s Venus Rising. Venus had an accident which broke her neck when she was 6 months old at her handler’s home just prior to the 2005 DPCA National and we were unable to show her since she should not have a lead around her neck. We are so grateful and feel so blessed that Venus survived the surgery to repair her neck which was quite risky due to the break being very high up and close to her brain stem (C2). Venus is very close with her family and she is probably the most intelligent and loving Doberman we have ever owned. She wins the most congenial award around here too with all of our Dobes and she adores puppies and takes them all under her care when their Moms wean them. Venus, now 8, and Sizzle, now 10 ½, are ¾ sisters and the very best of friends and our current breeding program descends from these two and Rosie’s daughter Velvet, Van Orman’s Black Velvet v. Demira.

A few months after we moved to Texas our daughter Ashlee turned 9 years of age and wanted to compete in Junior Showmanship. We could think of no better junior’s dog for her than our Sizzle. Sizzle has always loved her kids and takes great care of all of them. I can’t remember a time that we have been more proud of Sizzle than those days spent in the ring with Ashlee. Sizzle taught Ashlee how to show with style. If Ashlee set her wrong Sizzle fixed it and I swear she knew when the judge was not watching to restack herself. Sizzle always gave ears and tail to Ashlee and she was respectful of Ashlee’s small size and was very gentle with her and kept her safe. Ashlee won her three novice wins consecutively and the two of them became a beautiful team in junior showmanship. Many shows in Texas allow juniors to compete for free as a second entry and Ashlee wanted to show Sizzle in the “real” ring. So we got twice the bang for the entry fee. Even though Sizzle had recently had her litter and was hanging from having had puppies and several pounds overweight we thought why not? There was no better way for Ashlee to gain confidence and Ashlee had already told us she wanted to show Sizzle’s daughter Dixie, Van Orman’s Star of Dixie, herself since she co-bred her with us. Dixie was our keeper from Sizzle’s second litter that was sired by the only male in our Eddie-Vega litter Caesar, Van Orman’s Veni Vidi Vici. From Sizzle’s first litter that was sired by a nice DPCA Top 20 dog named Kaiser, Ch. Brachmar’s Magic Memory, we kept two to own and show, her son Scoop, Ch. Van Orman’s News Flash, and daughter Dazzle, Ch. Van Orman’s Flash N Dazzle. On to the next generation we bred Venus to Scoop and we had only two puppies; Keoni, Ch. Van Orman’s Victory Star, who is Ashlee’s first breeder-owner-handled champion. Brian and I think this is quite an accomplishment since Ashlee was just 14 years of age and also showed the bitch Nike,CH. Van Orman’s Vision of Victory, to her championship. We were pleased with our first litter sired by Scoop so the following year we bred him to our Rosie daughter Velvet. We had four puppies from this union (Queen songs them. We sold one male as a companion. Ashlee is handled the beautiful black bitch Glitzy, Ch. Van Orman’s C-Lebrity of Radiant, who is owned by our friend MaryAnn Byrns, Radiant Dobes, to her championship. Glitzy has amazing potential and is extremely showy. We kept the black male Chazz, BIS GCh. Van Orman’s I Want it All, here at home and Ashlee is also handling him to his Silver Grand Champion title while also showing Glitzy to her Grand Championship. The red brother Clifford, GCh. Van Orman’s Don’t Stop Me Now, is co-owned with our friend Nancy Troyer (Suntana Dobes)

Over the years we have tried to breed for good health and longevity and have been conscientious about choosing pedigrees of long lived Dobes for our breeding program. We do the standard health testing including x-rays, echos, holters, Cerf, thyroid, DNA testing (or parentage) for vWD and PDK4. We also do a vet exam and full blood panel prior to breeding a bitch. Good, dependable temperaments remain a priority for us. When you live with a family pack as we do knowing its okay to leave the room without havoc breaking out is important to us. I am grateful we became involved in Dobermans when many of the significant Doberman breeders or handlers were still attending the dog shows. Over the years I was fortunate to have excellent conversations with Peggy Adamson, Jane Kay, Donna Blackburn, Tommie Jones, Carol Kepler, Frank Grover, Gene Haupt, Betty Koozer, Sharon Pflueger, Theresa Mullen, Grace Black, Judy Bingham, Judy and Pat Doniere, Vic Monteleon, Jim White, Jeff Brucker, Carol Petruzzo, Gwen DeMilta, George Rood, Carlos Rojas, Marj Brooks, Mary Rodgers, Helen Pell, Ted Link and so many more. They each gave me pieces of knowledge that I have reflected on when making plans for our own breeding program. We have not had many litters over the years but I do feel we have made a good contribution to the Doberman Pinscher gene pool and look forward to the future. I feel it is very important to have as much history and information about the Dobermans in your pedigree or the planned mating as you can find. I have made many phone calls to breeders or owners that I did not know personally to collect information about traits, causes of death, temperaments, etc. You would be surprised how willing most people are to share their information. I have used my intuition when selecting a stud dog and I want them to “do no harm” to what we already have accomplished in our line. Ideally they will strengthen our weak points and compliment our strong points. I feel the dam of the stud dog must be an excellent example of the breed. I’m a big believer that you will see a lot of the grandparents in a litter on the ground. I also like to line breed most of the time and only outcross when needed. Ashlee and I discuss possible future matings and then we run it by Brian when we get a good feeling. With our daughter Ashlee becoming a co-breeder with us and her now training and handling most of the Dobes we have bred, we have reached another level of enjoyment and satisfaction. All of our children have always been very involved in caring for our litters and loving and socializing the puppies. This truly is a family passion for the Claggett family. Ashlee has been studying pedigrees and the history of Dobermans for the past several years. She has a goal of becoming a top Doberman handler and has worked hard at perfecting her skills and I have no doubt with her innate ability and desire to succeed she will do just that! Ashlee has taken over handling all of our Dobermans and many of those who we have sold to show homes, as well as venturing out into other breeds. She has finished numerous champions and became the youngest Doberman AKC Breeder of Merit at only 15 years of age as well as the youngest Breeder/Owner/Handler to pilot a Doberman to an All-Breed Best in Show with her dog Chazz. Ashlee will be attending college in the Fall of 2016 and will continue to be an active part of Van Orman Dobermans as well as take on select clients as a professional handler. It pleases us to know that Van Orman Dobermans will be in her great hands for the next generations. Thank you for allowing me to tell our story.