The Big Decision: Buying the Right Duck Dog

Sometimes it seems unfair that there are no guarantees your next retriever is going to be a great waterfowl dog. After all, you’re thinking, “I’m prepared to open my wallet as wide as necessary to buy the best. And that pedigree the breeder showed me—oh my gosh, look at all the titles! How can I go wrong?"

The good news is, being willing to spend what can seem like an absurd amount of money for a pup whose ancestors’ accomplishments read like an alphabet soup of hunt test and field trial titles can torque the odds in your favor. But getting the dog that suits you, your personality, training abilities and hunting goals requires serious research and contemplation.

I recently asked for some insider information from a few breeders who I hold in high regard. They have sturdy reputations in the retriever world and check all the “trustworthy” boxes when it comes to breeding, training, testing, competing, and hunting.

Before we delve into the keys to finding and then developing a great dog, understand that they apply to every breed. If you have your heart set on a fox red Lab because they’re “cool looking,” or a Chessie because they’re “tough,” or a pointing Lab because they’re “versatile,” or if you want to import a Finnish Aqualung Spelunkerdoodle because you want something different than everyone else at your retriever club, that’s fine. Like the kids say, “you do you.”

But (and this is a big one), every reputable breeder agrees: Proof of performance trumps everything else.

“Yeah, but I can’t see proof of anything in a 7-week-old puppy,” you’re thinking.

True, mostly, but learning what to look for sure increases the odds of getting the dog that fits you.

What Exactly Do You Want?

Regardless of the breed you’re fixated on, it’s important that you clearly explain your wants and needs to the breeder. A good breeder will tell you if he or she doesn’t believe a given litter will produce what you’re expecting. Good breeders who are routinely sold out before a litter is even born are the most likely to be truthful about whether they can send you home with the type of puppy you’re expecting.

Whitney and Josh Miller own and operate River Stone Kennels in New Richmond, Wisconsin, where they’ve built a reputation for turning out excellent British Labs. Whitney will be the first to tell you that no matter if you’re attracted to the idea of a “calm” Lab or a “high-energy” Lab, she’s going to interview her prospective buyers to make sure she’s selling a good fit.

“This comes up a lot,” she says. “I’ll have a client who says he wants a really hard-charging dog. I’ll tell him that sounds good, but how many days do you hunt? Sometimes the answer is 10 days a year. That’s when I have to remind him that your dog is a family member 365 days a year. Let’s focus on how this dog is going to compliment your family while still being able to engage the ‘on’ switch when you want it on.

“So I tell them, I need to know the hunting that you want to do and how much training you plan to do, but I also need to know your everyday plans. What else will you be doing with this dog? Do you have kids? Will it go hiking with your family? Are you going to go camping with it? Let’s look at how this dog fits your family as an everyday companion.”

About that Pedigree

The pedigree, the document that shows the lineage of your prospective puppy, tells you a lot, but it doesn’t tell you everything. Do your research and learn how to read a pedigree and what the various titles mean (MH = AKC Master Hunter, etc.). Then, when you’re comfortable with your knowledge, follow the advice of Charlie Jurney: “Know the dog, not the pedigree.”

Jurney, owner and operator of Beaverdam Kennels in Terrell, North Carolina, has trained thousands of dogs and has been involved in AKC, UHC and NAHRA events as a handler and judge. He cautions that a pedigree can be as much about promotion and advertising as it is about the quality of dogs on the page. Why? Because it’s possible that a dog that has only mediocre natural ability but is trained and handled by an expert can achieve those titles. On other other hand, that same dog might have been a disappointment to someone not well-versed in training.

“The pedigree isn’t a bad place to start, but don’t use it to beat your chest and say ‘lookey-lookey what I’ve got.’ You can make out of pedigrees what you want to see there,” Jurney says. “Now, if I’m shopping for a dog and I see a pedigree that has five generations of Grand Hunting Retriever Champions (a title the United Kennel Club offers in its Hunting Retriever Club group) back to back to back, chances are I know most of those dogs. So I’m thinking about those dogs’ individual traits and abilities; I’m not just looking at their titles.”

Jurney notes that he can point to numerous examples of dogs he’s been hired to train at his kennel that had impeccable pedigrees but you’d never know it when it came time to train them.

“There’s no other way to say this, but several of them were terrible dogs in both temperament and ability. Good breeding is much more than just randomly putting two dogs together because they have great titles,” he explains.

A good breeder, Jurney adds, accentuates the positives while striving to not pass on negative traits. “If two dogs have outstanding eyes and they mark well and they’ve got a good temperament, those are the two I want to put together. But if one of them shows a tendency to bite and the other one has a malformation on a couple teeth, I’m not going to breed those two dogs no matter how good they perform. You’d be accentuating negatives. You don’t get to see any of that just by looking at the paper.”

Parents and References

While it’s nice to see accomplishments going back generations on a pedigree, it’s the parents that matter most when trying to predict what abilities your pup will have. Jurney likes to hedge his bet even further. “Great parents, great starting point,” he says, “but I’d advise looking for a repeat breeding. Go meet the owners and see the dogs from the first breeding. If you see and hear good things, that’s encouraging because the likelihood of a repeat breeding turning out like the first litter is very good.”

Whitney Miller concurs with a “meet the parents” approach, and emphasizes the importance of references. “A breeder can tell you everything you want to hear. But the people you really want to know are the breeder’s clients,” she says.

“I tell people, I can sell you a puppy, but I want you to hear from my puppy owners. Ask for a reference list going three years back,” she advises. “And don’t settle for five people. Get 50 people, different clients with dogs from different breedings from different years so you get a feel for the whole breeding program.”

How Much to Spend?

When a hunter is shopping for a pup and asks WILDFOWL Retrievers columnist Tom Dokken for advice on how much to spend, his answer is unwavering: “Spend as much as you can on your hunting dog. You’re going to be buying food and paying vet bills for the next 10-plus years. Total it up and you’ll quickly realize the price of the puppy was the cheap part of your investment. When you buy the best, you only cry once.”

Jessie Richards, owner of Full Throttle Kennel in Campbellsport, Wisconsin, says that if you have confidence in what you’re buying, it shouldn’t be hard to justify the price.

“When a prospective customer balks at a higher priced puppy, that can be a red flag to me because it tells me that perhaps they haven’t done their research into why dogs from a good breeding program cost what they do,” Richards says. “For example, there are so many new health clearances to keep up with that go beyond the ones more commonly known: hips, eyes and elbows.

“We now know that a tendency toward ACL injuries can be hereditary. And they now advise an ECG before breeding. There are things like hereditary nasal problems. So the tests alone require a huge commitment from the breeder in time, planning and expense. If you sense that a breeder is selling puppies because they think it’s an easy way to make a lot of money with little effort, that’s a breeder you should steer clear of."

Richards adds the importance of understanding the guarantee that comes with your pup. Even in the best-bred litters there can be an outlier, a dog that develops a health problem even though there’s no history in the lineage and the littermates are healthy. What happens if

you get a bad roll of the dice and your young retriever is diagnosed with hip dysplasia? Ask before you buy. A good breeder will guarantee in writing that he or she will make another puppy available to you in such a situation. 

Putting in the Work

While Richards is happy to sell you a puppy, she doesn’t mince words about something that’s out of the breeder’s control the second you head home with your new hunting companion: “Dropping big money doesn’t guarantee anything if you don’t put in the work.”

What you’re really buying with your hard-earned money is potential. What you do with that potential is up to you. Richards shared one story that drives home that point.

“A family bought a pup from me and then they came back and said that during his first hunting season he’d swim out but wouldn’t pick up a duck. I said, ‘Let’s back up and figure out the problem.’ So I asked how it went during training with real birds, and the father told me the dog had never actually retrieved a real bird before they went hunting.

“Buying from a good breeding should give you an advantage in trainability, but you still have to go through all the steps of building a good dog,” Richards adds. “I have people bring dogs to my kennel for boarding that won’t even come when called. They won’t even accept being on a leash. None of that is the dog’s fault. Nothing is automatic. If your dog won’t retrieve, that’s your fault and no one else’s.”

Before you make an investment in your next retriever, write out the performance goals that are most important to you. Then be honest with yourself about whether that certain breed, color or physical characteristic that you’ve been focused on aligns with those goals.

The bottom line: Enjoy researching, shopping for and ultimately bringing home your next duck dog, no matter what the breed. As long as you focus on looking for proven performance, you’ll be stacking the odds of building the ultimate duck dog in your favor.

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