Labrador Breeders in Pennsylvania: Bowery Run Labradors

Bowery Run Labradors is a hobby breeder of chocolate and black English and Field Labrador Retrievers situated on 18 beautiful dog-romping acres. Established in 2006, this breeder’s focus has been raising high-quality puppies in her home from four generations of health-certified dogs. Breeding pairs are AKC (American Kennel Club) registered with health clearances through OFA or PennHip and Paw Print Genetics.

Lori Lutz, the owner of Bowery Run Labradors, takes particular interest in the families who purchase her puppies by providing weekly Sunday morning emails with photos and/or video from the time puppies are born through eight weeks of age. Milestones of the puppies are noted as well as suggestions for toys to buy, food to feed, crate training, and housebreaking tips to help ensure that transition for home goes as smoothly as possible.

All puppies are sold vet checked with a health record, vaccinated, dewormed, and microchipped on a spay/neuter contract. Lori makes herself available to answer questions after the sale for as long as owners have their dogs. References are available upon request. This breeder does not ship puppies. Waitlists are formed ahead of each litter to ensure that the breeder knows where puppies are going and so that families have time to prepare for a puppy.

If you are interested in this breeder and their puppies, please visit their website.

Labrador Breeders in Pennsylvania: Briar Hill Labradors

Briar Hill Labradors is another Labrador Breeder in Pennsylvania. They have been working with Labradors for over 15 years. According to their website, this breeder focuses on producing beautiful Labradors with a calm personality, correct conformation, blocky heads and lush coats. They offer chocolate, black and yellow labs. According to their website, they have a selective breeding program, with all their Labs undergoing thorough health and genetic testing including OFA hips and elbows, EIC and PRA. This breeder is confident they can provide a lovely family companion as well as a talented dog that can succeed in various activities such as agility, hunting, showing, therapy and others. If you are interested in learning more about this breeder and their puppies, please visit their website.

Labrador Breeders in Pennsylvania: Lincoln Labradors

This Labrador breeder in Pennsylvania is located in Denver, PA.  According to their website, they are a family-based kennel striving to raise high-quality Labradors with excellent temperament, health and type. All their breeding dogs go through thorough health testing such as OFA, CNM, PRA, EIC, CERF/CAER and others, to ensure that the puppies are genetically sound and healthy.

If you are interested in finding out more about this breeder and their dogs, please visit their website.

Labrador Breeders in Pennsylvania: owner review (Tessa and her Lab Loki)

This is a Labrador Retriever breed review for anyone who is thinking of getting a Lab. I think I can share some really good sides of owning this breed as well as some less positive ones that you should know about.

I am not a very experienced dog owner. In fact, only two short years ago I didn’t even think of having a dog. I had a cat, was afraid of every dog I saw outside and generally didn’t really care too much about dogs.

All of that until our friends had to, unfortunately, give up on their Lab puppy due to a family situation. We took Loki in temporarily, or so we thought. But a few months later, while we were still looking for a new owner, we got so used to him that we simply couldn’t think of giving him away. This is how we came to own Loki,  a now two-year-old Labrador Retriever.

When we first got Loki, he was just over 5 months old. Still a baby! To say we had a rough few months is to say nothing really. Of course, puppies are never easy, so that’s not really Loki’s fault. He would eat earth from our house plants, as well as the plants themselves. He chewed up our slippers, shoes and socks – basically anything he could find. Loki would steal dish rags and kitchen towels and chew them or hide them in his hidey spots. He would steal food off countertops and tables and eat it. He’d steal the cat’s food from his bowl (still does, really.) He would bounce off the walls at inordinate times of the day (in the middle of the night!). He chewed up several leashes and also some cables in the house.

All in all, he was trouble and quite a bit of it. Apart from just trying to control his behavior and teach him “good from bad”, we also had to learn how to take care of his health and well-being. For example, although we tried to be very careful and watch out of tricks, Loki got piroplasmosis twice! The first time we were able to take him to the vet very quickly and he was just fine. The second time it was actually winter and we didn’t think it was even possible for a dog to be bitten by a tick in winter. (It gets quite cold here!) We didn’t take him to the vet clinic right away and the situation got quite dire until we actually got help for him. Thankfully he is a fighter and everything turned out fine. But that was a very good lesson for us. Research everything, any possible dangers to your puppy. Listen to what your breeder tells you. Don’t just think that everything will always be fine. And take your dog to the vet right away if you notice something wrong with them! Don’t wait!

Some of the things that I really enjoy about having a Labrador Retriever.

This is the kindest, most loving and affectionate dog in the world. He has never bitten anyone or even growled at anyone. He has never expressed any aggression towards anyone. The downside of that, of course, is that Loki will never be a good guard dog. In fact, I think if I ever got threatened by a stranger, Loki would just give the stranger lots of slobbery dog kisses and ask for pets instead of protecting me. Oh well!

Loki loves kids. He is very gentle with them and very eager to play, even when the games become a little rough. Maybe especially then! He is very much like a child himself so I guess that explains it.

Loki is allergic to chicken and some grains such as buckwheat, but other than that we had no issues with his feeding and nutrition. The only thing is, as far as we heard,  Labradors are quite prone to gain weight. Judging by Loki’s voracious appetite, I think those rumors might be true! So we have to always watch how much he actually eats and limit treats as much as we can. He did gain quite a bit of extra weight during the time when we fed him dry kibble. He lost that weight again once we started giving him wet food again.

We have never taken Loki to puppy classes or hired a professional dog trainer or anything like that. Honestly, we didn’t see any need in that. He is not the most obedient dog in the world, but we are just fine with him and love him the way he is. We don’t feel the need for him to know fifty different commands or anything like that. He understands most of what we say to him anyway, and sometimes even what we feel but not say. He is very intuitive that way.

Loki is also very curious. He needs to know everything, be everywhere, participate in everything we do.

We are very happy to have Loki in our lives. He has been a great joy and love and we still talk a lot about how lucky we got when our friends gave him to us. He was one of the biggest gifts my husband and I ever received.