About us and history
We are a small hobby kennel in Wiltshire regularly working and occasionally showing black and chocolate Labradors. We sometimes have puppies available as we only breed a litter when we want to keep a puppy to work and show. Our dogs all live in the house and are very much part of our family. We care very much about the breed and we aim to produce Labradors that conform to the breed standard, are capable of working and are healthy with superb temperaments. Temperament is very important, as our dogs are expected to squeeze together in a vehicle during the shoot season with other dogs week after week and not a grumble is heard from anyone. Looks are important too as you have to like what you look at every day and our dogs have typical Labrador heads with a good eye colour. The most important thing for us, is not how many awards or prize cards our dogs win but how easy they are to live with.
We bought our first Labrador (Lucy) in 2001 and she was the reason we fell in love with the breed. The Latin name for Lucy is Lightbringer and that is how we decided on the name for our kennel affix. We then decided to get a chocolate bitch and we bought Hazel, a daughter of INT CH Ole from Carriegame Labradors and everything we have today goes back to her. As well as showing Hazel, we started doing gundog training with her and it was lovely to see her working and she absolutely loved it! A few years later we kept a Chocolate dog called Bailey from one of our litters and after proving himself in the show ring, the shooting field and being fully health tested, we decided to stand him at stud. Bailey proved to be a useful sire and he has done the breed proud by passing on his superb temperament and good hip / elbow results to many of his offspring. He has progeny in the UK, France, Denmark and Sweden. Several of his offspring are shown and are Crufts qualified, one has a CC, while many others are steady, reliable working dogs. We are very proud that six of Bailey's offspring from different litters have gone to Canine Partners to be trained as assistance dogs, while another is a qualified diabetic alert dog and several others are Pets as Therapy dogs.
I have to Thank Gail Dodd (Carriegame Labradors) as without my foundation bitch and her stud dogs - we would not be where we are today. When I started showing, I was lucky enough to be introduced to two very influential Labrador breeders - Janice Pritchard (Charway) and Marjorie Satterthwaite (Lawnwoods) who are both now sadly missed. Their advice has been invaluable, especially when breeding Chocolate Labradors.
We bought our first Labrador (Lucy) in 2001 and she was the reason we fell in love with the breed. The Latin name for Lucy is Lightbringer and that is how we decided on the name for our kennel affix. We then decided to get a chocolate bitch and we bought Hazel, a daughter of INT CH Ole from Carriegame Labradors and everything we have today goes back to her. As well as showing Hazel, we started doing gundog training with her and it was lovely to see her working and she absolutely loved it! A few years later we kept a Chocolate dog called Bailey from one of our litters and after proving himself in the show ring, the shooting field and being fully health tested, we decided to stand him at stud. Bailey proved to be a useful sire and he has done the breed proud by passing on his superb temperament and good hip / elbow results to many of his offspring. He has progeny in the UK, France, Denmark and Sweden. Several of his offspring are shown and are Crufts qualified, one has a CC, while many others are steady, reliable working dogs. We are very proud that six of Bailey's offspring from different litters have gone to Canine Partners to be trained as assistance dogs, while another is a qualified diabetic alert dog and several others are Pets as Therapy dogs.
I have to Thank Gail Dodd (Carriegame Labradors) as without my foundation bitch and her stud dogs - we would not be where we are today. When I started showing, I was lucky enough to be introduced to two very influential Labrador breeders - Janice Pritchard (Charway) and Marjorie Satterthwaite (Lawnwoods) who are both now sadly missed. Their advice has been invaluable, especially when breeding Chocolate Labradors.
Working and showing
We show our dogs at open and championship shows and despite only showing lightly, we have had some good results at champ shows. At open shows we have had several first places and Best of Breed awards. We are proud to have qualified five homebred dogs for Crufts in the breed ring, four of which are qualified for life in the Labrador bitch working class and they also qualify each year to compete in the BASC gamekeepers ring at Crufts. Hazel, Bailey and Megan all have produced offspring that are Crufts qualified. Our dogs are slow to mature physically and don't often look their best until they are five or six years old and this can make showing in the younger classes hit and miss, so we concentrate more on gundog training until they have matured enough for the show ring. Although we enjoy showing, our main passion is working our dogs and we have been picking up with our dogs on various shoots for ten years. Most of our spare time and money goes on summer training to get our picking up team ready for each shoot season. Nothing beats the feeling of training a puppy from scratch to eventually taking it to work on a shoot and being congratulated for doing a good job. Most of my proudest moments with my dogs have been when out picking up. A very well respected Labrador breeder once said to me "Unless you test your dogs by using them for what they were bred for - you will never know if they are a truly sound working dog or just a pretty one". Bailey and Megan worked for six years and we now have Ebony, Rosie and Emma as our picking up team. We are very proud that Megan, Ebony, Rosie and Emma have all been awarded the Kennel Club Working Gundog Certificate on game after being assessed working on a shoot day and every dog we have bred and kept has worked on a shoot picking up. Our dogs have regular gundog training sessions and also attend specialist training days, including water training, walked up and shoot over days. Megan passed the Gundog Club Retriever test Grade one, scoring 86 out of 90 marks (a distinction) aged just nine months old. All our older dogs have passed the Kennel Club Good Citizen Dog Scheme - Bronze, Silver and Gold levels and the younger ones have passed the Bronze level. Megan and Lucy have also been Pets as Therapy dogs. When our dogs have retired from showing and working, they live here in comfort for the rest of their days.
Breeding and health testing
We only breed a litter when we want to keep a puppy which is usually once a year or every two years. All our dogs are fully health tested and as well as hip & elbow scoring and yearly eye testing, we also test for EIC, CNM, PRA, HNPK, SD2 and DM. We also now test our breeding bitches for Copper Toxicity. This ensures that our dogs and any puppies we breed will never be affected by these conditions - which are further explained on the health testing page. We choose stud dogs that compliment our bitches, producing offspring with typical Labrador heads, good conformation, working ability and super temperaments. We line breed our dogs wherever possible as this produces a consistent type but it is done with care and knowledge of lines going back multiple generations. Our stud dog Bailey was DNA tested not to carry the dilute gene, so we know he didn't ever produce silver or charcoal puppies, which are NOT recognised colours in the breed. Fifty of Baileys progeny have been hip scored and only three have hip scores above the breed average, with the rest below ten. We are now on our fifth generation and are proud that (so far) we have lowered or matched the hip score of the previous generation, with two scores of 0.0 and six being the highest hip score produced. Our puppies usually go to pet homes, although we are confident that they have the ability to do whatever is asked of them. We offer a lifetime of support to our puppy owners and we will always have a puppy or older dog back if anything changes in their circumstances. We have waiting lists for our puppies and several owners have come back to us for a second or third dog. We like to keep in touch with our puppy buyers and many of them have become lifelong friends. We have been members of the Kennel Club Assured Breeder scheme for over ten years and were successfully inspected in 2014. We have always gone above and beyond the requirements required by the KC but we decided to leave the scheme in 2016. We are experienced at handling stud dogs and we offer a fully comprehensive stud service, offering advice on all aspects of breeding, whelping and raising a litter. We consider it our responsibility to help find homes for any puppies sired by our boy(s) and we are happy to advertise any litters on this website.
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Pedigree research
I love researching pedigrees and reading about Labradors from the past and have many old books written by some of the greatest names in the breed. I have a database with over 55,000 Labrador pedigrees with health results and hundreds of photos of Labradors past and present. I can go back up to thirty generations in a pedigree and add photos of the dogs, giving me an idea of the type of offspring that may be produced and this is invaluable when planning a litter and choosing a sire. |
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About me
I am a member of: The Labrador Retriever Club, The Midland Counties Labrador Retriever Club, The Cotswold & Wyevern Labrador Retriever Club, The Labrador Retriever Club of Wales, The National Organisation of Beaters & Pickers up and several gundog clubs.
I am on the C-List with the Labrador Breed Council as a breed specialist judge and I judge Labradors at general open shows. I have been on the committee for the Cotswold & Wyevern Labrador Retriever Club for five years and have recently taken over as Assistant Secretary. I also help out each year with the working tests run by the Club. I completed my Kennel Club Hands on Assessment Certificate in 2006 (assessed by Mrs Carol Coode) and have attended many Breed specific judging and conformation seminars over the last fifteen years. I have previously been a temperament assessor and regional co-ordinator for the charity Pets as Therapy. I am qualified to assess dogs for the Kennel Club Working Gundog Certificate both on dummies and game.
I am a fully qualified dog trainer (ADTB) with over eighteen years experience (previously running pet dog training classes and the KC GCDS) and for the last eight years I have been offering gundog training for Labradors and other retriever breeds. Andrew and I are both qualified Microchip implanters and we offer a microchipping service for dogs and litters in the comfort of your own home. I have also completed a first aid course for dogs, specialising in treating working dogs in the field.
I am on the C-List with the Labrador Breed Council as a breed specialist judge and I judge Labradors at general open shows. I have been on the committee for the Cotswold & Wyevern Labrador Retriever Club for five years and have recently taken over as Assistant Secretary. I also help out each year with the working tests run by the Club. I completed my Kennel Club Hands on Assessment Certificate in 2006 (assessed by Mrs Carol Coode) and have attended many Breed specific judging and conformation seminars over the last fifteen years. I have previously been a temperament assessor and regional co-ordinator for the charity Pets as Therapy. I am qualified to assess dogs for the Kennel Club Working Gundog Certificate both on dummies and game.
I am a fully qualified dog trainer (ADTB) with over eighteen years experience (previously running pet dog training classes and the KC GCDS) and for the last eight years I have been offering gundog training for Labradors and other retriever breeds. Andrew and I are both qualified Microchip implanters and we offer a microchipping service for dogs and litters in the comfort of your own home. I have also completed a first aid course for dogs, specialising in treating working dogs in the field.
Tracey Parker
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