In the Company of Dogs
Early mornings, enduring friendships, and a Wirehair with his own chair—the life behind the familiar voice of "Pure Dog Talk".
Laura Reeves likes to arrive early. Long before the first dog enters the ring, she wants the essentials settled: the setup arranged, the dogs comfortable, the day’s schedule understood. During her handling years, arriving first became something of a friendly competition. Who could beat Laura to the show?
There was usually plenty of coffee involved.
For listeners of the popular Pure Dog Talk podcast, her voice is familiar company. It accompanies drives, chores, and the quieter hours of a day spent with dogs. In conversation, that same candor and curiosity come through easily. Laura has opinions, certainly, but she also has stories—and one of her favorites concerns a dog who preferred a chair to an exercise pen.
A Chair for Henry
Henry came from the first litter Laura bred on her own. The puppies were named after microbrew beers, an early suggestion that life with dogs could accommodate both serious ambition and a sense of fun.
He became a champion and a master hunter. Laura remembers him as a handsome dog, though she is quick to say he was not the best she ever bred.
His place in her life was more personal than that.
“He was like my whole soul,” Laura recollects.
At shows, Henry had his own chair in her setup. While Laura tended to other dogs, managed the day’s work, or stopped to visit, he would sit and watch the world around him. He became known as the chair-sitting Wirehair.
Occasionally, he decided that she had been away long enough.
Henry would leave his chair and go looking for her. People knew him well enough to understand the errand: Laura had been talking too long, and Henry had come to collect her.
It is a small, affectionate memory of the kind that stays with a dog person. The titles mattered, but so did the familiar presence waiting among the equipment and the dogs—the companion who knew where he belonged.
“He was with me through an awful lot,” she says.
Let that detail lead naturally into the moment dogs became a lasting part of your subject’s life. This is a portrait of a person: the early influence, the unexpected turn, the relationship that changed everything.
The thing about judges…pay more attention. Don't dismiss someone just because your dog didn't place. There's a lot more to life at the dog show than [perfection]. Every single judge that you will encounter in the ring has some picture of what they think the correct dog is. Your job is to figure out what that picture is for your breed.
— Laura Reeves
Finding Her Way Back to Dogs
Laura’s introduction to showing began in childhood, through 4-H and her family’s dogs. After college, she took a job outside the dog world, then decided corporate life was not for her.
She started a freelance writing and public relations business. A prolonged illness interrupted that work, leaving her unable to keep up with her clients. As she recovered, she had her own dogs and her first litter to occupy her attention.
She began showing them. Before long, handling was bringing in more money than freelance writing.
“Girl's gotta pay the bills,” she says.
The decision had a practical foundation, but it also brought together interests that would continue to shape her life: dogs, communication, and the ability to make a living through work she cared about.
Those threads remain visible in Pure Dog Talk. Through conversations with breeders, handlers, judges, and others in the community, Laura gives listeners access to experience they might otherwise never encounter. She also offers something particularly valuable in a world where impressions can form quickly: the opportunity to hear someone explain what matters to them.
The Pleasure of a Good Day
Ask Laura what makes her smile in the ring, and the answer is immediate.
“The dogs.”
She recalls a recent Ibizan Hound national specialty in St. Louis as her idea of a perfect day: wonderful dogs, happy temperaments, pleasant people, and exhibitors supporting one another.
There is considerable pleasure in that description. A good show day includes the atmosphere around the ring as well as the dogs within it. People contribute to it through their manners, their generosity, and their willingness to enjoy someone else’s success.
Laura also remembers an observation shared by Jim Reynolds during a podcast interview: for the brief time a dog is being judged, that dog belongs to the judge.
The thought stayed with her. It captures the attention and care owed to each animal, however short the encounter.
She understands, too, that affection can look different from one person to another. Some judges smile readily; others become intensely serious. A quiet expression may reflect concentration. An unfamiliar manner can be easy to misread.
For Laura, understanding begins with watching, listening, and allowing people the chance to be more than a first impression.
Dogs Belong in the World
Laura wants the public to meet well-bred, well-behaved purebred dogs—to see them beyond the boundaries of a showground.
Their presence matters. A pleasant encounter gives someone the opportunity to appreciate a breed’s character, ask questions, and discover the people who care for it. For owners, these outings are also part of the pleasure of sharing a life with dogs.
Temperament is central to that life.
“No matter what, the dogs have to go live in somebody’s home,” she says.
It is a direct reminder of where every carefully considered breeding decision eventually leads: a household, a routine, and people who will love the dog in front of them.
Laura’s own family memories include Wally, a Basset Hound her mother had when she was a child. On one occasion, he followed her mother onto the public land behind their home during a deer-hunting outing.
When he found her, he was delighted with himself, wagging and announcing his success. Concerned for his safety, she sent him home.
Laura still remembers his expression of heartbreak, and the backward glance that seemed to ask whether she really meant it.
Decades later, the personality in that moment remains vivid.
Living History
Laura rarely shows or breeds now, but her commitment to purebred dogs continues.
“I do this because it matters to me.”
When asked what she would leave with the next generation, she describes purebred dogs as living history. Their qualities connect today’s households to work, landscapes, and traditions that reach back hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years.
That continuity depends on people willing to learn, to breed thoughtfully, and to care about the lives their dogs will lead.
For Laura, the larger purpose and the personal attachment sit comfortably together. There is the history of a breed, and there is Henry in his chair. There is the knowledge shared through a microphone, and there is the pleasure of a happy dog entering the ring.
Both belong to the same life.
Last Sip
Coffee or tea?
Coffee, dark roast.
Favorite breed silhouette?
The Spinone, whose distinctive outline appeals to her precisely because it is unconventional.
A thought for the next generation?
Purebred dogs are living history—and their future needs good breeders.
Always in your travel bag?
When I was handling, I would never leave the house without Great Bait.