ALL BECAUSE OF THE LOVE FOR DOGS

How it Started

Ranger, the yellow, and Mack, the chocolate, were best buddies right from the start and proved to be pretty good hunters and companions. We knew little about how to properly train a hunting dog; but just like anything, it takes time.

We are the only kennel in the country to be home to four National Bird Dog Circuit World Champion Labrador Retrievers.

Sadly, in 2002, we lost Mack suddenly to cancer. Ranger was lost without him and in 2004 we got Ranger a new friend; a yellow male named Drake, who was sired by a Bird Dog Challenge World Champion. Ranger was getting older and slowing down and Drake became my new hunting partner,

As I started to work with Drake, his drive went unnoticed. He wasn’t hyper, but he had this desire to hunt and retrieve like no other Labrador Retriever I had ever hunted with. Little did we know, he was one of those once-in-a-lifetime types of dogs.

The first time I took him to train on live birds, he was a natural and the breeder said he may be competition material. Drake went to his first Bird Dog Challenge in January of 2005 at eight months old and qualified for the PHU Nationals to be held that March.

At the Nationals, Drake took third place in the puppy division (for dogs under 2 years of age) and we were hooked. I read as much as I could on training and Drake and I trained daily during the off-season. We decided now was the time to start our kennel and we purchased two more labs—Jake, a year old yellow male, and Reba, a black female pup.

When the 2005/2006 Pheasant Hunters Unlimited season rolled around, we were almost unbeatable in the Puppy Division and Jake did well in open classes. At the 2006 Nationals, Drake was the Puppy Division National Champion, Jake was the Singles Division National Champion, and Reba was named High Point Puppy of the Year. After that there was no turning back and now our Labradors have won 5 World Championships, 11 National Championships and 14 Dog of the Year titles. Drake was inducted into the National Bird Dog Circuit Hall of Fame in 2015 and Tilly in 2020.

Our dogs have also appeared on the Pursuit Channel's Bird Dog Challenge TV show. In 2011 we also started running dogs in AKC Hunt Tests and now have dogs working at every level, Juniors, Seniors and Masters. Our boys started helping with training and competing the dogs, which made us very proud.

We now have nine Labrador Retrievers living at our home and our kennel continues to grow and improve. We have brought in Labs from some of the top lines in the country and have Labrador pups living all over the United States and Canada.