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At Rockycreek we strive for excellence in health, temperament, trainability, willingness to please, and conformation. We do extensive health testing (there are links for each dog’s health clearances on our website.) We compete in conformation to attain Championship titles (to ensure our dogs are conformationally correct and conform to the AKC breed standard in Labrador type and certifies that our Labradors are excellent examples of the breed). We compete in Obedience, Rally, and Hunt Tests to prove our dog’s trainability, willingness to please and that they possess the hunting instincts – all the qualities that made the Labrador Retriever the most popular breed in the USA!
We do a variety of competitions because we are seriously committed to our dogs conforming to the highest standards in health, breed type, conformation, trainability, hunting instincts, and willingness to please.
We carefully analyze and choose the parents by researching health, conformation, breed type, willingness to please, trainability, along with home and work attitudes.
Once the puppies arrive they go through the early neurological stimulation exercises from day 3 to day 21, which stimulate their immune systems and learning capacities, and enable them to handle stress and new situations. The puppies then proceed through the puppy development exercises so that it teaches them how to learn, problem solve,helps teach them perseverance and optimizes their incentive to please.
We are also very selective about their new owners and about matching the new owners with the right puppy. We take into consideration the experience and lifestyle of the owner(s) and match and activity level with the personality of the puppy.
As breeders with over 30 years experience, we help our families choose their puppy. We will be watching the litter closely for 8 weeks, to match each puppy to its family, mostly by any special needs, and the personality and criteria indicated to us from your filling out our Potential Owner Questionnaire. We also will interview the family at which time you will meet the mother of the litter and several other adult Labradors so your family will know what to expect as to size, temperament, etc. Puppies are able to go to new homes around eight weeks of age. We usually send puppies home with their new owners over the weekend as most people’s schedules are more flexible at that time. We try to be as thorough as possible to ensure that each puppy or adult goes to a home that will treasure this puppy/dog and nurture it to become as wonderful a part of your life as our dogs have been to our lives.
