About Us

Intro: We are a small hobby kennel located in picturesque Palmer, Alaska.  We breed conformation, aka 'English style' Labrador retrievers, which we prefer due to their excellent temperaments, long history of health testing in the lines, and biddable natures.  Our love of Labs began many years ago, when a fluffy ball of chocolate fur joined our family. We named him Kayo's Texas Tradition (predictably, "Tex" for short); you may guess that Tex quickly won our hearts and became a cherished member of our family.  We loved his blocky bench line looks and mellow personality, and knew early on that we wanted to breed Labs someday... but as a military family, moving around the world at a moments' notice, that dream was a long way off as we gallivanted about the globe.  Fast forward to the present.... We got stationed in Alaska in 2008, settled in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, and started planning for retirement from the Air Force.  We lost our beloved Tex in 2010, just as we were beginning to make our dreams of Arctic Texan Labs come true.  He lived a great life with us though, traveled the world, and is watching over us as we strive to produce puppies that would make him proud!

Please read the following in its entirety, as it may answer a lot of questions you may have about our breeding and puppy rearing practices, as well as our expectations for our clients.

Our goals: We are looking for like-minded families for our puppies; people interested in natural rearing, positive reinforcement training, raw feeding, a non-toxic lifestyle, and holistic wellness.  We encourage interested buyers to fill out our questionnaire and contact us for a visit to meet us, and get a feel for our adult dogs’ personalities, as well as the puppies’ individual temperaments.  

We are happy to refer those whose interests and philosophies differ from ours, to other ethical breeders in the area whose goals may align more closely.  

Our lines: Our puppies are from AKC/UKC champion bloodlines; parents with wonderfully calm, affectionate temperaments, and of course excellent health, conformation, and intelligence.

These are NOT the type of Labs you often hear people complaining about, with high-strung temperaments and needing tons of exercise and training.  A friend has a Lab puppy bred for hunting and field that she calls her "crack puppy"-- it's just too energetic for her household and lifestyle (non-outdoorsy homebodies).  I keep telling her it WILL get better-- Labs with such temperaments usually calm down and become excellent family pets at about age 3-5...  In the meantime they require training, patience, exercise, and consistency, in equal measure.

Arctic Texan Labradors are "English" style Labs (a misnomer really, since they're not all necessarily bred from true English-imported stock), also known as "bench bred", "conformation", or "show lines"; bred specifically for breed conformation, temperament, intelligence and biddability as hunting and field companions, as well as your faithful fireplace fur-mat.  "English" Labs have a blockier, squarer head, a stockier build, and thicker tails (known as an "otter tail") compared to their American/hunting/field-bred counterparts, although there are moderately-featured Labs of both varieties. Their excellent off switch allows them to play tirelessly in the yard, fetching sticks and balls, or run all day chasing down birds and game, but just as easily melt at your feet while you watch a movie as a family.  They DO require training and exercise, whether "English" or "American" —all dogs do— and toys/activities to prevent boredom (which often leads to undesirable behaviors).  But comparatively, conformation bred Labs require less intensive effort to become the sweet, docile, cherished family pet everyone imagines on the day they bring their brand-new Lab puppy home.

Raising our puppies: Our puppies are raised in our home, well-socialized with our children/grandchildren, our other dogs, and cats.  They are also handled daily according to the Bio-Sensor method (aka: Early Neurological Stimulation/ENS, or the “Super Dog” program) during their early weeks, to enhance adaptability and reactions to stress, as well as intelligence.  More about this can be easily found in our Links section; we would be happy to provide more information on this method for those interested.  We rear our puppies with the Puppy Culture protocol and philosophy, using positive reinforcement to shape the behavior of the puppies from their earliest social development onward, and highly recommend this program for our buyers to continue raising their pups with these methods.  We introduce our puppies to a wide variety of noise stimuli using sound habituation throughout their time with us.  Our puppies are fed a raw diet and leave us raw fed.  We ask for a commitment to continue a raw diet through puppyhood at minimum.

Our shipping policy: We do not sell puppies sight unseen to strangers over the internet.  Our puppies are generally sold to local families, or families within the state of Alaska who are able to travel to us.  Any interested families who are not local to us are encouraged to contact us well in advance of the timeframe you expect to purchase a puppy, so we have plenty of time to get to know one another and figure out alternatives to our typical approval process.  

Our spay/neuter expectations:  The benefit : risk ratio of spaying/neutering vs. remaining intact, as well as spaying/neutering at varying ages of development, can include individual family concerns as well as documented health considerations.  Therefore we have a wide window of opportunity in our contract for spay/neuter to take place, between 9 months and 2 years of age.  This eliminates the period of greatest risk and least benefit - pediatric spay/neuter, and also allows for dogs to reach their full growth potential and for bone plate growth to reach completion, as well as for the hormones of adolescence to fulfill their vital functions in maturation.  

Our health guarantees and return policy: Our puppies come with a general health guarantee covering their first week away from us, a 2 year health guarantee for hips, elbows, and eyes, a genetic health guarantee, and a lifetime of support in raising your new family member.  Arctic Texan Labradors will accept the return of your puppy or adult dog, for the life of your dog; because we are the reason they were brought into this world, we feel we are responsible to our puppies from birth until death.  Our contract is crafted with the understanding that buyers intend to provide a “forever home” for their puppy, but also acknowledges that, in some cases, circumstances can make this ideal impossible to achieve.  Therefore, puppies are required to return to us for rehoming under a new contract, or for the owners to coordinate with us so that we may place the dog under a new contract with the new owners.  We cannot continue to improve our lines or the breed if our puppies are passed around from home to home with no further access to information on their lifelong health, and we cannot morally write each puppy off as "none of our concern" once money passes hands; this allows for the potential for our pups to end up perishing in a kill shelter, or used for unethical breeding purposes, even to fall into the hands of dog-fighting rings to be used as bait dogs.  To add a puppy from Arctic Texan Labradors to your family, is to join our extended family, and help us continue our heritage of excellence by staying in touch occasionally, so we are able to know of any health issues, successes, temperament/behavior issues, etc. that may affect our breeding choices in the future.