High House Labradors and Juniper Scar Labradors
Kennel Club Accredited Breeders
KC Registered Labrador Retriever Stud Dogs and Puppies
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Welcome to all of our regular site watchers. There's still lots of website updating to do ...
We are both retired Lake District Mountain Rescue Search Dog handlers. We breed registered pedigree black, yellow and chocolate labrador retrievers from very carefully selected field trial champion and working lines. We are far more interested in the health and temperament of a dog than its colour. Our puppies grow into intelligent, willing and athletic workers and also into loving, sensible family pets. We socialise them with dogs and people from a very early age, and give them problems to solve to maximise their intelligence. Vets, trainers and owners in our local area can tell when a dog is one of ours! Of the two pups selected in 2006 by the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, one went on to sniffer work at a year old as she is too enthusiastic, while the other did not quite make the guide dog grade, being too enthusiastic during the very final assessment.
Video of typical first training session
We joined the KC Accredited Breeder Scheme in its early days when we found that we far exceed the already high standards required for membership. We give very full support to our pups and their owners, including a health guarantee; lifetime backup and advice on all aspects of care and training by phone and email; home visits in some cases; puppy boarding at very low cost (when available); behavioural retraining for our puppies and their owners if needed; and much, much more.
We are delighted that a majority of owners still want to keep in touch for years after they collect their puppies. We take this as an endorsement of our breeding and our backup, and it has the added benefit of keeping us informed about the longterm health and personalities of the litters.
14th January was publication day of the Bateson Enquiry report: the Independent Inquiry into Dog Breeding. Having skim read the recommendations, we are very pleased and hope that it will make a real difference to the puppies of the future and their owners.
We are delighted to be able to say that having had the whole pack DNA tested for the four genetic defects that affect labradors and can be tested for, we guarantee that all of our puppies are safe from prcd PRA , EIC, CNM, also called HMLR, and narcolepsy for life. What they mean is explained below.
We are now planning this year's puppies. The links to their webpages will be below.
We still have one of our 2008 QC (quality control) pups: Bute. We kept two for ourselves last year as planned, and have also bought another, to join Bute in our permanent pack.
All last year's puppies seem to have settled in well and without problems EXCEPT for a poisoning incident, thankfully resolved by a fast trip to the veterinary hospital for a quality control check on the vet's bill insurance we send them all away with - do be careful everyone! Quite rightly the brand new owners rang us straight away for advice, which was to put the phone down on us and contact their vet immediately.
Willow has joined a family in the deep south of England, having had an epic journey. Her new owner travelled here on Wednesday afternoon. By the time we had done the full handover of Willow and her advice documentation on Thursday morning, the Cumbrian flood waters were rising fast. We escorted them to the M6 through the floods, towrope at the ready, only to have to use the landrover's wading capabilities to recross the overtopped bridge on the way home. We had 320mm of rain in 24 hours. Fortunately the whole pack have proper labrador webbed feet ...
Willow is a bitch from the June 2008 litter. CLICK HERE for Willow's full pedigree and health score background. One morning Bute found a dead blackbird in the hedge, so we all practiced retrieving with a bird instead of a dummy, including Willow.
Gillean, the oldest of the 2008 QC puppies, is firmly established in his new home (see below). Every year we keep a small number of puppies for "quality control" purposes, and as prospective permanent members of our pack. These are raised and trained to meet our house-dog standards (no mess, no fuss, no damage...), be sucessful members of the domestic and the canine pack, and to be ready for formal training. We also monitor their physical development in detail, to check that our programme of breeding for health is definitely benefitting the next generation. Many defects are genetic in origin, and even the most healthy adults may carry recessive genes. Once we are certain that the puppies are of the highest quality, we make a decision about their future in terms of whether they are available for selected homes.
One of 2008's puppies has had repeated digestive infections, leading to all sorts of health issues that seem to us to have their roots in nutrition. We advise all of our owners to continue with the top quality food we start them on, but also to be quite insistent with their vets to identify the cause of any problems irrespective of cost, which is another reason for keeping up the insurance after the policy we provide runs out.
Bute (formerly Buddy) was the strongest infant puppy of all of our 2008 youngsters, and with his excellent field trialling pedigree is now going to stay here. He knows that the house is a place for resting, not romping. He is very similar in appearance to his sire Vadis, but taller. He has been hip and elbow scored. His elbows are 0 as expected. We should be pleased that his hips are scored at an excellent 3/3, but having seen the Xrays we're disappointed with that . We thought they were even better, but we aren't vets! He has passed his first BVA eye test with perfect results, and is hereditarily Optigen clear (see below for what this means) and EIC, CNM and narcolepsy clear. CLICK HERE for Bute's full pedigree and health score background. Why have we changed his name? When we are calling instructions for just one of a group of dogs, "Buddy" sounds too similar to "Purdey" and it caused confusion for both of them. Bute is an island not far from Jura - which happens to be the kennel name of his sire, Vadis.
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Gillean is a dog from the February 2008 litter. By 9 months months old, he became a full junior member of the pack and (14/9/08) passed his first BVA test with perfect eyes. He was Xray hip scored as "very good": single figure total (5/4), but before he was a year old (the earliest this can be done officially). Again with super parental health scores, his working / trialling background and an exceptionally patient outlook, he has already become an excellent family dog. CLICK HERE for Gillean's full pedigree and health score background. He has been chosen by a family living near us, enjoying his new life while we continue to monitor his health and character for our quality control purposes. He has the added double bonus of a country home and an aga, numbers 2 and 3 on his wish list. A great outcome! He stays with us regularly during family holidays, as do others of our puppies, especially infants who join their new families before the school summer holidays.
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COMING SHORTLY, details of our 2009 puppies: Bidean, Blaze and Kit as they approach maturity.
There is a lot of worry about labradors with hereditary blindness caused by PRA prcd. A genetic test has become available for this. As you would expect of us, we tested every one of our labradors at New Year 2008 (at a cost to us of almost £1000). We are delighted with the results. (This test is becoming known as the Optigen test, after the firm who do the analysis).
At Christmas 2008 we spent another £1500, and had the pack DNA checked with the newly available tests for: exercise induced collapse (EIC), which is what it says; centro nuclear myopathy (CNM), also called hereditary myopathy of labrador retriever (HMLR), which is a horrible wasting disease; narcolepsy, which causes a dog to lose consciousness as a result of excitement. All of our adults came back with normal/normal (N/N or Clear) results for all of these tests, so based on this ...We guarantee that none of our puppies will ever suffer from PRA prcd blindness, CNM/HMLR, EIC or narcolepsy in their whole lifetimes.
Breeders: we are happy to advise on testing and to help you to preserve your bloodlines with our clear stud dogs of working and FTCh pedigree. We also offer the owners of carrier dogs the opportunity to use our clear bitches to breed litters so that their lines can become clear of genetic diseases (strict terms regarding the welfare of the puppies apply).
Our Stud Dogs.
Brimstone ("Dearg") (chocolate (bbEE)); hip 0/0, elbow 0, eyes clear, optigen clear of PRA prcd, CNM clear, EIC clear, narcolepsy clear)
and
Vadis ("Jura") (yellow (BBee)); hip 3/3; elbow 0, eyes clear, optigen clear of PRA prcd, CNM clear, EIC clear, narcolepsy clear)
and now
Eriboll ("Bute") (yellow (BBee or Bbee)); hip 3/3; elbow 0, eyes clear, optigen clear of PRA prcd, CNM clear, EIC clear, narcolepsy clear) (Photos to follow)
and newcomer
Blade ("Bowie") (yellow (bbee)); hip 1/2; elbow 0, eyes clear, optigen clear of PRA prcd, CNM clear, EIC clear, narcolepsy clear) (Photos to follow).
In April we will hip and elbow score our two dog puppies at a year old:
Nevada ("Bidean") (chocolate (bbEE or bbEe)); eyes clear, optigen clear of PRA prcd, CNM clear, EIC carrier, narcolepsy clear) (Photos to follow)
and
Dee ("Kit") (black (BbEe)); eyes clear, optigen clear of PRA prcd, CNM clear, EIC clear, narcolepsy clear) (Photos to follow).
Assuming that the hip and elbow scores are excellent (not just "good"), these puppies will stay here permanently and become part of our stud dog group. Bidean will sire a stud dog who is tested and clear of EIC as well as clear of the rest of the diseases we can test for. In the mean time he will be available to bitches who are tested and certified clear (N/N) of EIC.
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Fallowgrange Brimstone of Highhouse |
Treckers Vadis of Juniperscar |
Technical note to breeders on colour:
Brimstone's EE is deduced by his complete lack of yellow puppies from a bbEe bitch. Statisically 25% of the puppies would have been yellow if he were bbEe. He has to be bb by virtue of his chocolate colouring;
Vadis' BB is deduced by his complete lack of chocolate puppies from two BbEe bitches. Statistically 25% of the puppies would have been chocolate if he were Bbee. He has to be ee by virtue of his yellow coat;
Bute may or may not carry chocolate, which is why we give two possible colour genetic makeups. His dam is black-out-of-chocolate so is Bb, which gives Bute a 50:50 chance of carrying chocolate.
Blade is yellow coated on a chocolate dog, so bbee.
Nevada is chocolate and may or may not carry yellow, so again two possible colour genetic makeups: bbee or bbEe.
Dee is black carrying chocolate and yellow, so BbEe.
We will shortly publish a guide to labrador colour genetics: HERE (but not yet...), and a table of puppy colours from bitches of different colour genetic makeup with our dogs: HERE (but not yet either!). We can quickly give an individual bitch's litter colours by email or phone in the meantime. Contact Us
Every year, some people have first choice from our litters having booked in advance. If you wish us to contact you with litter information when we have made our plans, please email us with the sex and colour you are interested in, and any other information you would like us to have.
Phone or email us for full information, including details of their upbringing and the backup we give you once they leave us.
We will put details here when we know we are expecting a litter, including pedigrees, parental photos and full health background information, in the same format as last year.
Litter 22/3/10, black and yellow, Vadis / Lavandula. A repeat mating. 1 yellow dog; 3 black dogs; 1 black bitch. All a good 400grams at birth.
Photos of 2008's puppies below with Huntress at seven weeks old (we don't know which they are in all of that lot, either!).
Our puppies:
Having spent their first four weeks in the heart of family life, the puppies leave the kitchen once they are strong enough, living in the stables and outside in the sunshine until homed or ready to start house training.
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In the wild, bitches cooperate by nursing each others' puppies. This increases the chance of some surviving even if a bitch dies. Domestic bitches will do the same if they live in a pack and whelp at approximately the same time, as happened in 2008. Tress is a compulsive puppy nurse, and can't help jumping into the puppy garden when she is supposed to have lost all interest ages ago!
We have kept photos and videos from previous years on the Picture and Video Gallery ...
We give you as much support as you need, including rehoming help in exceptional cases, as well as the guarantee. In the last seven years we have had three rehoming distress calls, two resulting in our urgent, active intervention rather than just advice:
Because of sudden family health problems, one of our 2006 puppies immediately needed a very carefully selected new home. We gave him a temporary home with our pack, and asked our many site-watchers: "If you can offer him a suitable home, please contact us immediately." We also emailed our entire owners list.
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Yellow dog; 15 months old; neutered; healthy; very well socialised; reliably house trained; loves children; friendly; obedient; much loved; family extremely upset to have to lose him; litter brother of the two trainee guide dogs; Vadis/Rhapsody 2006. We had had a steady stream of proud emails since he left us in June 2006.
Three weeks later, we had a happy ending. He now has a really good new home with a family who have one of his older half-brothers. Again, many thanks to all who contacted us with offers or suggestions of a new home following our email alert or having seen him on our webpage. You made his last owners feel much better in their unhappy time - and we still feel pretty good about your response, too.
This year we had a similar call, on 21st February, because of an owner's health problems. Again we put out an urgent request.
This is a 2008 yellow dog, litter brother to Bute (below). He was still in his family home, but we handled the rehoming. As a result of the owner's health problems he had become quite dominant, and needed a home with someone of good experience, a kind but firm approach, and time to give him the exercise, discipline and affection he needs.
Friday, 5th March. He is now in his new home, and can look forward to a happy, active life in the Lake District with an experienced, outdoor-loving owner. This time the new owner was a new enquirer, interested in visiting the horses but coincidentally looking for a new dog. Another great outcome! Many thanks to all of you who contacted us with offers of a new home for him. We will publish a few photos of him in his new environment when we receive some.
His new owners have access to our full advice and backup service.
It is extremely unusual for us to take a dog back (indeed for anyone to have to part with one!). In the rare cases where it goes wrong, we give as much help and advice as you need, bearing in mind that the welfare of your dog is your enduring responsibility. We do not just offer an easy way out for those who change their minds or lifestyle, and are careful in our choice of owners: when we meet you we will decide whether we trust you to have one of our puppies.
Why do we have two kennel club names? When we first applied we couldn't have Highhouse, and the crags (cliffs) behind the house are called Juniper Scar so we registered that. Later, we became allowed to use Highhouse, but we're very fond of our first name. Some of our dogs are registered as Highhouse, others as Juniperscar. Traditions matter, like loyalty.
Dom and Jan Atkinson
Seren Arabians , High House Labradors , Juniperscar Labradors
Upper High House, Over Staveley, Kendal, Cumbria. LA8 9QX, U.K.
Telephone (U.K.) 01 539 821 019
(International) +44 1 539 821 019
email: mail@arabianhorse.co.uk
www.arabianhorse.co.uk
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