In a very short amount of time I had an ever growing puppy that I was shhhh....harboring in my apartment. It may of worked out if my land lord hadn't lived next door. I found Will a new family and vowed to one day bring another Lab into our lives.
That day came 12 years later with a yellow male Labrador/Shepherd mix we affectionately named Simba. We enjoyed Simba for 12 months and on his 1st yr birthday he died from a terrible accident.
After two months of grieving we decided to adopt a purebred labrador we named Rose. We enjoyed our Rose Bud as she was the first puppy that literally wore a HALO over her beautiful Head. She never chewed anything up except her bones. From the time she came to live with us at 10 weeks of age, we could leave her alone in our house with free access and come back hours later and find her sleeping on our sofa or waiting at the front door as our keys jingled. I was amazed whenever we'd come home and I'd do the search for puddles & piles or chewed up shoes, toilet paper rolls strewn about or teeth marks on furniture and find nothing had been disturbed. We'd open the door and she'd run out to the front yard and potty then come back inside wagging her thick otter tail as her HALO kept growing larger in our eyes !!
We did enjoy Rose for the first 5 yrs of her life when she was unexpectedly taken away from us. Rose suffered from a massive heart attack in my arms one night. Rosy as a young lady.
Anyone who has ever owned a Lab knows that it is similar to opening a bag of Potatoe Chips.....you can't eat just one...So we set out to adopt another Lab when Rose was 2 years old. By now I figured out that I wanted to try my hand at breeding Labradors. Rose was spayed as a youngster so she was not a candidate for my foundation.
We didn't have the internet yet and I had no idea how to go about finding a well bred dog so I did what I had done before and bought a Newspaper to scour the adds. We ended up buying a pretty yellow female from a local breeder who had been breeding the same lines for 45 years so I felt comfortable in my pick. I could hardly wait to get our new yellow baby girl home so I called the breeder up and begged him to please let me bring Ashley home a week early at the age of 7 weeks of age. Did I mention it was on Thanksgiving Day and I had to bake a Turkey and the fixings for all our company...WHAT WAS I THINKING???????????????
For those of you who decide to have a 2nd child because the first one was an absolute delight, this same principle also applies to raising puppies. From the minute Ashely came into our house she was a very Active Holy Terror who NEVER WORE A HALO except when she was sleeping. In Reality Ashley was just behaving like a normal, active puppy but we had been very spoiled with Rose. Ashley at her finest !
Remember that Thanksgiving Dinner ? I'm pretty sure that Dinner wasn't served on time and what was served was prepared by my patient husband (-:
While Ashley gave us 3 wonderful litters to learn on, I decided that I liked the looks of the English Labrador Lines and set out to find a Dual Purpose puppy bitch.
There is no way a novice breeder can anticipate the heartache that lies ahead when building a solid foundation for their breeding program. Since I originally began this web page with Ashley as my foundation bitch, I have since gone through 18 Foundation Bitches who didn't pass one clearance or another and had to be spayed.
The good news is, I learned something about myself and the Breed I have come to love so much. Labradors are indeed the most popular Breed World Wide which also propels over breeding. Increased Genetic Problems and Temperment Problems come with over breeding to keep up with the "Supply & Demand".
Please take the time to RESEARCH the Breeder, the Parents and Offspring of the litter you are considering before you purchase a Labrador puppy. Temperment and Sound Genetics should be at the top of your "Wish List" when buying a puppy.
Classictail Labrador breeding stock and the outside stud dogs I choose to use all have their Health Clearances which include OFA Hips and Elbows, Current Eye Cerf Report, Heart Screening.
I carefully research pedigrees and try my hardest to only bring the Healthiest of puppies into the world. We've only had 7 litters in the course of 12 years with 3 different foundation bitches so you can clearly see that I take my job as a breeder seriously, seeking out only the Soundest of Labradors.
Classictail Puppies are bred with the number one goal of Improving the Labrador Breed and not for profit. It is my goal to produce Versatile Labradors that are capeable of Hunting, Obedience, Agility, Guide Dog work, Therapy work, or simply as Loving Companions !!
Please visit the Nursery for a more detailed description of Classictail Breeding Program.
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