Silver Lake Retrievers

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT US

I’m living on the farm that I grew up on and in the house that my parents built when I was about 10 years old. My parents and grandparents bought this farm in 1944 during World War II. The previous owner had run a very progressive dairy but he lost the farm during the Great Depression. Dad had the barn build in 1948.

So much of life growing up on the farm involved animals. My parents had a typical farm for that day and age. They milked 12 dairy cows, had 20 beef cows, raised some pigs and had over 300 chickens. My siblings and I were expected to help with whatever we could do. Fido was the farm dog at that time and it seemed that back then, dogs didn't get people names like Maggie and Ellie, but rather Fido, Rover, and Lassie.

I bought a Golden Retriever (Rusty) when I moved on the farm in 1998. A couple of friends had golden retrievers and I thought they were so friendly. Rusty lived up to this high standard but she would not retrieve anything. In 2014, I purchased Maggie from Thunderstruck Retrievers in Lowry, MN. I had done some research and concluded that Thunderstruck raised some of the best hunting Golden Retrievers. The drive to hunt and retrieve was bred into the dogs from Thunderstruck; it was genetic. Ellie is a pup from Maggie’s first litter and is the same way. These dogs live to hunt and retrieve. They spend plenty of time outside on the farm. When these dogs see me or someone else, the first thing they do is look for something like a stick and bring it to whoever is there, hoping that I or someone else will throw it and they can retrieve. In nicer weather, I take the dogs to the cattails and do retrieval practice.

Sometimes I think about how much technology we work with today. And then, I look at these dogs and although breeding selection has been done to improve them, they still do what they always have done. They want to hunt peasants, ducks, etc., and bring back the bird that was shot all while being their owner’s best friend. These puppies will be very affectionate and good companions.