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Update: October, 2026
It has been six months since John Contini passed unexpectedly in his sleep. He hadn’t been sick and worked with his dogs at the kennel until his death. John was the driving force of Sky Pond Chesapeakes. He had achieved what he set out to do when he retired and started Sky Pond about ten years ago- developing dogs with excellent show and hunt test abilities.
After John passed, I had to make the difficult decision to find homes for most of our adult dogs and so for four months following John’s passing, I worked to place them. All of the dogs now have outstanding families to enjoy hunting, showing and being loved and cared for. I retained part ownership in Mae, and we plan to breed her when she comes into her next heat cycle. When Mae has a litter, I will be taking care of marketing the puppies and Chelsea, co-owner, will take care of whelping and caring for the litter. We are committed to continuing to produce quality dogs with excellent bloodlines, just on a smaller scale than in the past. Thank you for your interest in our dogs. ~Dorthy
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Welcome to Sky Pond Chesapeakes! We raise Chesapeake Bay Retrievers from show quality dogs that have the instinct and drive to be superb hunting / hunt test dogs. The ribbons in the picture below attest to our successes. To quote our friend, James Layne, “Life is too short to hunt with an ugly dog”.
We are located in the heart of the Bluegrass area of Kentucky. Our experience with Chesapeake Bay Retrievers goes back over 40 years to when John lived in the Bootheel of Missouri and hunted almost every day of waterfowl season with his first Chesapeake, Chopper.
We encourage you to visit us on Facebook for updates on Sky Pond activities.
History of Sky Pond: When Sky Pond Chesapeakes was established, there were three of us. In November 2019, our friend, Ray Cornish, passed away. Since establishment, my son, Clay, has had an increase in his work responsibilities and he and his wife had their first child. So, Clay has little time to devote to the kennel. That leaves me, John, with the help of my wife, Dorthy, to operate Sky Pond Chesapeakes. My eyesight limits my driving ability. Therefore, we rely on Stephanie Hentschel, DarRight Kennels, who trains and handles our dogs for Conformation Competition and on Jeremy Ries, MoCo Bottom’s Labs, who trains and handles our dogs for hunt tests.