Chambray Labradors Presents the Chambray Difference
The Chambray
Labradors Difference
2007
The Chambray Labradors Difference
Where do your start your search for a puppy?
How
do you know that the people you are dealing with are long established,
authentic representatives of
the breed they are perpetuating?
Research and do your homework become the operative words here. So where do you start?
Newspaper ads, dog magazines, bulletin boards are a thing of the past as
the Internet has brought the sellers
directly to the comfort of your own
home and onto your video screen and flipping from one advertiser to the
other is as simple as a key stroke or the moving of the mouse over the
mouse pad.
When
I first started with Labrador 40 years ago, it would be the newspaper
ads or the dog magazine ads that
linked sellers with buyers and even
community bulletin boards were used to advertise puppies for sale. Since
the advent of the Internet, this media has now become the place to go
for all your questions and in many cases,
shopping in the comfort of
your own home.
It
is no different with people looking for pets especially puppies.
Although the mass producers of puppies
still use newspaper ads and all
the dog magazines to advertise year round to sell the hundreds/thousands
of
puppies they produce, for me it has become the Internet as my tool to
educate those who are doing their
homework in searching out the best
possible source for this most important emotional and financial
investment.
With this comfort and ease come major risks as I will detail further along this essay.
You
are searching for a Labrador puppy, a puppy that you want to make part
of your family, a puppy that
will grow into a full grown dog in a matter
of a year, however one that will be an integral and contributing
family
member for at least 12 to 14 years.
The
www.chambraylabradors.com website has become
the destination point for 700 to 1000 visitors a day in
their search for
information on Labrador Retrievers and in particular their search for a
Labrador puppy.
Most of these visitors have been surfing the net and
probably have landed on dozens, if not hundreds of other
websites that
advertise their kennels on the Internet.
What
makes Chambray Labradors different than all those hundreds, in fact
thousands of pet market suppliers,
puppy brokers, puppy mills, backyard
dabblers, big time operations, hunt and field enthusiast and other
show
breeders?
What
sets Chambray Labradors apart from the run of the mill hobbyist or even
some of the better
known show kennels?
If
you do your homework, you will come to the inevitable conclusion that
the quality of the puppies
produced is 100% related to the quality and
integrity of the person behind the kennel name. How does
someone
searching for puppies decipher “who is who” amongst all those thousands
of neat sounding kennel
names, with spiffy looking website full of
gorgeous photos of puppies and dogs?
You
need to look a little deeper into the background of the people behind
the kennel names and the
colorful web presence. You need to look for
credentials, affiliations, accreditations, acknowledgement
from peers
and participation in dog related activities. You look for levels of
success in those endeavors;
accomplishments, awards and certifications
as these are great indicators of quality and success.
You
ask for referrals and you listen to word of mouth as those are
intangibles that money can not buy,
not even with thousands of dollars
in newspapers and magazine ads.
You
look for a following of satisfied clients because no one follows a loser
or returns to poor quality.
You look for an organization whose
foundations are rooted deeply with longevity and continuity and
is
serving the community with useful programs and services.
Once
you feel comfortable with all of the preceding about the proprietors,
you then look for temperament,
soundness and health of the dogs used in
the breeding program.
The
breeding stock must be 100% true to the breed in every aspect. In
Labrador Retrievers, temperament
is the hallmark of the breed. The
unique temperament of the Labrador Retriever is what makes them the
“universal” breed for just about all types of activities.
The
breeder/broker/purveyor should offer “warrantees” on temperament. They
should stand 100% behind
each and every puppy they make available to be
true to the breed standard’s requirements for temperament.
In other
words, if it is being offered as a Labrador Retriever, it should act
like a Labrador Retriever!
Health and soundness go hand in hand. Of course the puppies themselves
should be full of vim and vigor and
should have all their vaccinations
and wormings up to date before they are placed with the new owners,
however it is the parents of that puppy that should have had the proper
“clearances” to ensure that the puppies
will grow up as healthy and as
sound as possible.
Before ever considering breeding a dog, there are several procedures
that are available to breeders to identify
those dogs that are free of
genetic problems. Since those problems can be passed on to the
offspring, it is
imperative that the breeding stock is free of these
problems so that can we ensure and warrantee that the
offspring will be
free of them as well.
Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA for short) is one of the diseases that
can affect many breeds including
Labrador Retrievers.
An
AFFECTED dog will eventually go blind from this disorder. This disease
follows the dominant/recessive
mode of inheritance, so that a dog can be
A) Totally free of the disease (NORMAL/CLEAR)
B) Carry the disease in the recessive gene (CARRIER)
C) Be affected by the disease and go blind (AFFECTED)
The absolute best way to find out where a dog stands with PRA is through DNA testing!
The
worst way to find out about PRA is to have a dog go blind or to keep
breeding a dog that produces
blind puppies! If the breeding stock has
not been DNA tested, then there is NO GUARANTEE that the
puppies will
not go blind!!!!!
What
should a responsible breeder do to ensure the best results and to
protect the breed, not to mention to
protect his puppy buyers from ever
having to deal with PRA?
Simple, have all the dogs DNA tested for PRA!!!!!!!!
No
excuses, the test is available and can be submitted directly to the
testing organization without using a vet.
The price has dropped from
over $300 to less than $150 in the four years that it has become
available.
No excuses for not doing the test. NONE!
Hip
Dysplasia (CHD) is the broad term used for any anomaly or abnormality of
the hip joint. It encompasses
many conditions, including those caused by
genetic modes of inheritance and also by nutritional deficiencies
and
environmental situations, including accidents that also account for a
significant percentage of the numbers
of cases recorded.
There is no DNA test available to determine which dogs possess the CHD
genetic condition, so at this time
there is no way to determine the
cause or the culprit.
The
best that can be done at the present is to perform radiology an all dogs
used for breeding and then only
use those dogs that “seem” to be clear
of the disease. Since we do not have the ability to “look” beyond the
x-rays,
there is no way to determine if a dog carries CHD in a recessive
mode.
One
of the
organization that certifies x-rays is OFA and they have published
statistics that track the incident
rate of the disease. From sires and
dams with passing scores, there is a 90+% chance that the offspring
would
also pass, however there was also a 10% (plus or minus) that would
not pass the OFA’s stringent criteria for
passing.
Unfortunately, that’s as good as it gets for the present time of
research and development. As soon as a
DNA test is available for CHD,
all our dogs will be subjected to the test.
So,
what is the difference between all those thousands of breeders,
hobbyist, brokers, puppy mills and
Chambray Labradors?
RESEARCH on the Internet is at your finger tips. Ask questions about
credentials, accreditations,
achievements and involvement in the breed
and in dog related activities. Ask about the soundness and
health of the
sires and dams; also ask about warrantees and guarantees if the
unexpected were to happen.
Warrantees and Guarantees should be available in hard copies or on the website to download and print out.
All
of the clearances made on the sires and dams should be available for
verification, either with
certificates or viewable on the website or at
the appropriate certifying organizations.
Caveat Emptor…………………….Buyer Beware is the name of the game when
searching for your newest
addition to your family. However, we now have
the Internet as a research tool and used wisely it can become
a great
asset in the selection process for both buyer and seller.
Remember we are first Labrador Retriever lovers!!!! Our passion is first
and foremost this wonderful
breed of dog. Secondly we are breeders of
top notch conformation dogs, we are professional dog trainers
and
finally we are dog handlers. If it were not for our love of the breed,
we would not breed. We breed to
perpetuate the great qualities of the
breed. We train and offer training to provide a mentoring environment
for all of our puppies and finally we handle professionally because we
want to show off those great puppies
we have bred and we want to win
with them!!!
We
are professionals in everything we do! This is not a just on weekends,
backyard hobby thing, this is the real thing for us.
Chambray Labradors Inc.
Professional Canine Services Inc.
Chambray Dog Training Inc.
LabWell Products Inc.
All these companies are incorporated in Florida
for more info contact us at
Chambray Labradors
Florida's
top champion breeder of Labrador Retrievers
