Currently we only have one breeding female. We would love to have more dogs some day but we are in no rush as we are very particular about the dogs we add to our family. My family and training business will continue to be our focus for the time being. That being said breeding has been a dream and goal of mine for over 15 years. Previously life didn’t allow me to breed and raise the pups the way I would have wanted to so I didn’t. But we are excited to finally go on this adventure with our Oakley girl, and add some amazing little labradors to the world.
Meet our sweet girl Oakley, our do everything with gusto and heart girl. As you can see by her name, we have had some fun together. She lives to retrieve and loves to work and is about as sweet as they come.
There really isn’t much I don’t like about this girl, and I am picky.
She is not only a family dog, happily lounging around the house while my kids run and scream past her soaking up every ounce of loving she can, but she also has an amazing work ethic. She is a huge asset to my training business. She has a great head on her and knows when dogs need some space, but will happily engage with clients when requested. And she has a great ability to be neutral in very stimulating environments as well. In the home she is calm, sweet (she would love to be a lap dog), and quiet, but is game on when we take her outside. The perfect balance, and everything I think a lab should be.
Oakley sailed through her Junior Hunter (JH) title with 4 straight passes. Despite getting there by cramming for a month and having a novice owner/handler. We are working toward our Senior title and hope to run those tests in 2023 and hopefully some HRC (UKC) as well.
We have always enjoy finding deer sheds, and trained our last lab to find them casually. But Oakley is the first of our dogs that we have competed in UKC Elite Shed Dog trials with. This is a timed event where dogs find planted deer antlers on a course.
She has passed every course, and is 2 passes away from her Working Shed Dog title. We plan to wrap that up this season if puppies and location allow. Most of the trials are 4+ hours away so it’s been hard to compete her as much as we would like. During the last event she even pulled off Second Place in her class, running a 2:20. And she is happy to run the youth course alone with my 6 year old daughter too, nearly coming in 4th Place their 3rd run.
It’s no surprise Oakley loves Dock Diving too. She went from a first jump of 2 feet straight into Senior distances. She earned her Senior Dock title in 2 or 3 weekends, jumping 17+ feet. We hope to get into the Air retrieve and Speed retrieve this next year.
This past summer we decided we would give Fast Cat a go. We found out a club runs events 20 minutes from us so why not? It’s rare to find any dog sports that close to us, let alone ones I can get in and out of in 30 minutes. Well she got her BCAT title in six straight runs, her fastest time is 7.43 seconds putting her around 27.4mph and ranks her around 25th for labs.
There will be many more adventures with her as time allows, we are just getting started.