Minnesota Waterfowl Hunting

I have a three yr old lab currently and in spring of 2015 I am looking to buy another. Need help finding a good place or breeder. Looking for a great hunting dog but don't care about field trial blood lines just a healthy dog that will love to hunt and hunt hard. Want to stay around the 5-600$ mark

If you want a healthy dog I would suggest looking at spending $700-$900. People don't do a very good job on health clearances on litters selling less than that. Why you may ask? Because it is expensive. Also look at dogs with strong pedigrees. Titled dogs are easy to research health history. When we breed we look into hips, elbows, eyes, EIC, CNM, food allergies, allergies in general, ACL/CCL's, chronic ear infections, and general health. If I can't do that on 3-4 generations I won't use a sire/dam plain and simple. My most expensive dog to own was a $400 puppy out of "strong hunting lines". He had chronic ear infections, food allergies, and was really never able to hunt in water because of his ears.

I agree in theory but I have heard just as many health horror story's from 1500$ dogs as from 500$ dogs. But thank you for the heads up.

Really?? Any pedigrees that you would share info on? I would really like to here if you know. I keep detailed notes on pedigrees and any good info I would like to have. I have been doing this for over 15 years.

Do yourself a favor, make sure your pups breeder tests for EIC, CNM, Hips/Elbows from OFA, and Eyes through CERF or OFA. If you don't do these minor things you might as well grab one at the pound and take your chances. Like I said puppies with these minimum health clearances will start around $700-$900. You don't have to spend $1500.

Sounds good the biggest two I've heard of or seen are chronic ear problems and alergies. Nothing with hips eyes or anything like that.

Yup, I have a few on my list that have allergies and ear issues. I have owned around 25 labs and the only one with chronic ear infections came from "great hunting lines" and cost me $400. After thousands of dollars trying to fix the chronic ear infections we opted to put Ranger down because we felt bad for all his suffering year after year. If it got humid out he would get ear infections. Saddest dog day ever was the day we put him down.

You should see the list of questions I research when picking out stud dogs and picking puppies. I don't just ask the owners of the studs or breeders, I ask trainers, clients of pros who may know more, friends of owners, and I go back 2-3 generations. Knock on wood I will never have to deal with those kinds of issues again.

Known of a few dogs that passed the hip tests only to have their hips go bad early in life.

your mom...

No such thing as passing a hip test.

gimpfinger wrote:Known of a few dogs that passed the hip tests only to have their hips go bad early in life.

your mom...

More things go into bad hips than genetics. Fat dogs, dogs that are allowed to jump up and down from trucks, and dogs that are crated in small crates without good exercise get bad hips.

Geaux4me is right, excellent, good, fair, mild displastic, and displastic are the hip ratings.

So pass, pass, meh, fail, fail.

You know what I meant.

your mom...