Although my husband and I grew up with animals during our childhood, we purchased our first dog together in 1987. "Cocoa" (a very original name for a chocolate!) was our first labrador and he got us hooked on the breed. To look at him he had a lot of flaws and would never have made a show dog, however, he had a true labrador tempermant and was a kind hearted soul. We had him for nearly 16 years and he was the dog that our children grew up with.
In 1988 we purchased a yellow female, Chelsey, whom we had hoped to breed. But she also, did not turn out to be the quality of what we hoped for as a foundation brood bitch. Then in 1990 my whole world changed. I answered an ad to be a puppy walker for The Guide Dog Foundation For The Blind and started puppy walking an adorable golden retriever pup named Sandy. This was something I just loved doing. It was great to take Sandy to work with me, to the diner, grocery shopping etc.
Then in 1991 the position of Puppy Supervisor became available. I applied and got the job. I was on cloud nine! Sandy was not accepted as a Guide Dog because she had hip dysplasia so we adopted her. So now we had three dogs....Cocoa, Chelsey and Sandy. But that wasn't enough. I made a lot of friends working at Guide Dog and one in particular, my good friend, Lisa Weiss-Nolechek who put me in touch with a breeder in Watertown, NY by the name of Tom Bradley III. Well we hit paydirt! Tom had a litter of black pups and we could have pick girl! My husband and I drove for hours up to Watertown and picked out our puppy. We named her Luftnase Woodloch's Hawley. Hawley became our foundation bitch and we were on our way. We have seven dogs now and all our girls are decendants of Hawley.
In 1994 we welcomed a new breed to our home.....a flat-coated retriever named "Grinner." This, again, was through my friendship with Lisa. We both admired the breed for a long time and decided to co-own a dog together that we would show and breed. Today Grinner lives with us and Lisa has her daughter, "Feather."
We are located in southern New Hampshire on 51 acres where the dogs and puppies are raised in a loving, well socialized environment and enjoy walks in the woods, retrieving, some do field training, or just lay by the fireplace.
Hope you enjoy browsing our website and would love to hear from you soon.
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