Jim & The Program
Fifteen years of building a line of Labradors that work — on the water, in the field, and in the home. Twenty in dog breeding overall.
A working dog man.
Jim has been breeding dogs for twenty years and Labradors specifically for the last fifteen. He's a licensed Oregon hunting guide and has been one for over a decade. He lives on the Sprague River in Klamath County, where the dogs train every day — geese after breakfast, ducks at dusk, retrieves that most kennel dogs never see in a lifetime.
He doesn't run a kennel in the commercial sense. He keeps a small program: two breeding females at a time, two litters a year, max. Every puppy is raised in the house. Every buyer goes through a conversation, not a checkout cart.
Forty puppies placed across fifteen years on the Lab line. One came back. That's the program.
Three generations on one piece of land.
The program started with Shadow — a black female with OFA Good hips who became the foundation of everything Jim has built. Shadow's offspring stayed close, and her daughter Lisa Marie took the line further: OFA Excellent hips, Normal elbows, and a working drive that's earned her a reputation around the river.
Lisa is one of those dogs that comes along once in a generation. Jim tells the story of a hunt where Lisa watched a wounded duck on the water and waited — minutes — for the right moment to make her retrieve. Most dogs would have gone in green. Lisa picked her timing.
Lisa's daughter Willow is the third generation. Born on the same property in 2023, Willow inherited her mother's Excellent hips and her grandmother's quiet steadiness. She'll be part of the program for years to come.
Shadow → Lisa → Willow. Three generations. Each one healthier on paper than the last. All raised on the same land, by the same hands.
How we breed.
A short program done carefully, not a busy kennel done quickly.
Health clearances first
No female is bred before age two — that's when hip clearances can be properly done. Males wait until eighteen months minimum. Every breeding adult on this property has OFA hip and elbow clearances on file before they pass on a single gene.
LRC code of ethics
We follow the Labrador Retriever Club code of ethics: maximum of four to six litters per female across her lifetime, skip every other heat cycle minimum, retire by age seven or eight. The dogs are family first.
Raised indoors
Puppies are whelped and raised inside the house in a dedicated whelping setup. They grow up around the pack, around people coming and going, around the everyday noise that makes a confident dog.
Bred for temperament
Calm. Friendly. Non-aggressive. These are the things Jim selects for, generation after generation. The drive comes from the bloodline. The disposition comes from careful pairing.
Working lineage
Lisa is a hunting dog. Her sister-line traces back through pedigrees with hunt test titles. The current litter's sire is an AKC Best of Breed winner from Thornwood Labradors — an AKC Breeder of Merit kennel.
Eight weeks, no exceptions
Puppies stay with mom and littermates until they're eight weeks old. They leave with first shots, deworming complete, dewclaws removed, a vet check on record, and AKC registration papers in hand.
Why the Sprague River matters.
The Sprague River runs through Klamath County, Oregon — high desert giving way to wetlands and pine. It's not a backdrop. It's a training ground. The dogs grow up swimming it. They learn cold water young. They hear gunshots and connect the sound with work, not fear.
Jim has lived here long enough that the dogs are part of the rhythm of the place. Geese fly the river daily. The dogs retrieve. That's the routine. By the time a puppy from this program goes to your house, it's already a quarter-formed working dog, even if you never hunt a day in your life.
Want to know more?
The fastest way to get a sense of the program is to talk to Jim directly. Use the contact form or apply for one of the puppies in the current litter.