Why don't they seem to go together? A dog that is perfect for dog sports gets no interest other than pet homes that may or may not be suitable.
Toy drive, play drive, tug drive. Handler focus and biddablility. Agile, quick. Good general focus. Pretty confident. Old enough to start right into everything; no waiting for growth plates to close, ect. Really no start to foundations or anything, so basically a clean slate as far as sports go.
Why? Is it because most sport people like to start puppies? Like to keep their dog intact? Like to know there isn't hip/elbow/all other types of health issues?
I'm seriously curious. Maybe I'm just not advertising correctly? There just seems to be no interest (other than BostonBanker, who is maxed out on dogs unfortunately).
There's definitely a very active rescue presence in dog sports. Competition obedience probably less so and flyball and disc probably more so, with agility somewhere in between. However, there's also a lot of rescue dogs to choose from and many sport people still have their breed preferences. So while someone might be very into the idea of having rescue sport dogs, those dogs are always only going to be their breed of choice and often, their breed of choice from a specific rescue.
IME most sport people don't prefer their dogs be intact but as people are becoming more informed about early altering, there's probably less people willing to take a rescue puppy that was altered at 8 weeks old as a sports prospect. It would be awesome if OSS and vasectomies become more common, so rescues could perform those at a young age then allow adopters to decide what to do once the dog is mature - fully alter or stick with a hormonally intact dog who can't reproduce. Another issue is that some sport people are involved in purebred dogs beyond sports, so they may have intact dogs and may even breed dogs. Some of these people would like to have a different breed then the one they are involved in and may be open to a rescue of that breed. However, I personally know a good number of people who were discouraged from trying to get a rescue by widespread blanket policies more and more rescues have about placing dogs in homes with intact dogs or with people who are active in breeding. For every one person who's involved in purebred dogs who has had that happen at least 20 people they know have heard their story and now feel they couldn't adopt from rescue. I honestly wouldn't even try to, unless I knew the rescue because I don't think there's anyway I'd be approved. Unless it was a rescue/shelter that didn't fact check, like the one we got Ziggy from (and we just took a chance there). So if I ever want to get another rescue it would likely be how I got Roo - through an ad on CL or some other, non-official placement where people aren't going to ask questions about if my dogs have balls or not and don't care if and when I plan to alter the dog I'm getting from them.
A lot of performance people do like to raise their own puppies but I think some of that depends on the sport too. In agility, I think you tend to see more people oriented towards getting a new puppy. In Flyball and Disc, I think you might find a better balance of people wanting puppies vs. people wanting an adult dog who shows the drive, athletic ability and temperament and who can start serious training right away.
I'm not sure health and concern over physical soundness is as big of an issue IRL vs. on the internet. I mean obviously, no one wants a performance dog who has structural issues but it's not like all people are pre-limming and OFAing their sport prospects from breeders to ensure they aren't dysplastic or what not. And in terms of things like HD or CCL injuries or what have you, it's sort of a crap shoot in breeds that are prone to it anyway. And sometimes well thought out puppies still grow up to be longer than ideal, or to have straighter angles than ideal or what have you. Most dogs I have known who are driven enough and don't have extreme (very large to giant size, extreme angluation one way or another, very heavy boned, etc) builds don't wash out do to structure. You can get a pretty good general idea about structure looking at even mixed breed puppies, at least as far as extremes go. A fine boned puppy isn't going to mature into a heavy boned adult. A moderately angulated puppy isn't going to suddenly develop a GSD rear. Size can be trickier though and can definitely be an issue with getting a puppy of unknown breeds for a specific sport.
I think the vast majority of people looking for a sport dog don't need a world championship level dog and that isn't what they are looking for. So most sport dogs, regardless of where they come from really are hobby sport dogs, even if their owner would like a more competitive dog. The handful of people wanting a world championship level dog are likely going to get one of a handful of breeds from one of a handful of breeders. So at that level you're unlikely to have someone even considering a rescue but again, that is like the top 1-5% of the people involved in dog sports.
I do think it's hard for people not connected in the dog sports world to get random mixed breed rescue dogs into sport homes. So you may not be doing anything wrong, maybe you just don't have the right connections. I know in working with the pound volunteers here, they're well meaning but pet people who've never done more than basic pet training. So whenever I got to them with someone looking for a sports potential dog (usually kids looking to get into Fkyball), they'll show me multiple dogs, some which I can say do have sports potential and some which are...well big straight legged Pei/GSD mixes or some such thing. A lot of sports people I think find it easier to just deal with sports oriented rescue people.