Breeding Program
The goal of the breeding program at Tallgrass Kennels is to breed labrador retrievers out of the field trial gene pool that orignates in the United Kingdom that meet certain physical and psychological criteria, while maintaining the performance qualities for which they’re known.
In our breeding program, we take many factors into consideration. Psychological traits are strongly considered when planning our breedings or when bringing puppies into our kennel from outside breedings.
We are looking for soft, intelligent, amiable dogs who have the mental ability to settle when needed but have a high level of drive while they are working.
Performance is obviously a fixed variable. By performance, we mean a dog who is driven to work, whether that is finding a bumper during a drill or finding game in the field.
We are looking for a dog who is physically attractive to our eye. This is a very subjective variable of course, but we are breeding for dogs who have shorter, slick coats, straight otter tails (carried at or below the horizontal plane of the spine with good lateral action while working), nice skull conformation and many other factors too numerous to mention here.
Within the field trial gene pool found in Europe, at a given point in time, we believe there is a subset of dogs who possess not only the performance qualities we are seeking but also approach the physical characteristics for which we are breeding, and these are the dogs we are seeking out.
Like all breeding programs, ours is a continuum. It will always be a work in progress. As we seek to move closer and closer to what we feel is a fine example of a retriever, we can really enjoy the accomplishments represented in the dogs we presently cherish. Our dogs are not simply the representation of a mechanical breeding program; they are our pets, part of our family, and we love them.
If you have any questions regarding our breeding program, we would be happy to discuss them with you. Thanks for you support and interest in our kennel program. We look forward to working with you in the near future.
"A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast..." Proverbs 12:10a
