About Us & Saddle Creek

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Golden Retrievers have been apart of my life since the 1950’s, when my family got our beautiful Golden/lab mix, “Matches”. In the early 60’s, I was training puppies, as a 4-H project for Guide Dogs for the Blind, with “Kiva”, our family’s first purebred. Sadly, she had hip dysphasia, and due to this, at eight months, it was necessary to return her to ‘Guide Dogs for the Blind’. This was such a terrible blow to my family, Kiva was such a beautiful, smart Golden.

After my marriage in the late 60’s, I was eager to find a home that would allow us to have a dog, specifically we wanted a Golden Retriever. It was three years before we able to achieve that goal. That was when Kim came into our lives, later followed by Sony, and then Sir. It seems that Goldens are addictive and one can’t have one dog without having three. We did showings in conformation and obedience and even some field work, had a few litters and loved our dogs. In the late 70’s a disease known as Parvo came along and we decided to not have pups until the disease was under control. Then along came the children, and all those responsibilities…. In the early 80’s, we moved to our ranch home on nearly 15 acres. Our Goldens were getting on in age and then, there was just one. Our home was broken into shortly after our move and I’m sure that “Sir” our only Golden at the time, offered to help the thieves. We then wanted to get a dog for protection and I got into Rottweilers. I bred “marshmallow rotts” for a time and we obviously had no problems with people coming onto our property. I loved the Rottweilers; mine were like Goldens in disguise. However, when my beloved male, Tucker, died I lost interest and did not want to continue to breed the Rottweilers, as I was unable to find animals with the right temperament and look.

Meanwhile the family was pestering me to bring home a Golden. Not a hard choice and we once again had that happy Golden smile greeting us daily!!! Of course, one is never enough and we soon had two. Our foundation bitch, Saddlecreek Farm’s Maxine, was a true Golden, ready to go or do anything, athletic, loving and a great personality. When we did her clearances she was OFA Excellent on her hips and we were thrilled. Max had a litter and her pups were so popular that we often had people want a pup from her after having met one of her puppies. It was at this time we began to see and hear from folks of all the problems within our beloved Golden breed. There has always been issues with Hip Dysplasia as we found in the 60’s, but now in the late 90’s we were hearing about elbow dysplasia,  serious heart problems, and even cataracts, and epilepsy, this is not even addressing the health issues of allergies and cancer. Then the ultimate problem of temperament! We heard from so many people who either lost their dogs or were trying to cope with serious health issues of their pets, I felt that I wanted to begin looking at a solution. In looking over the pedigrees of many of these dogs, it appeared that the same lines would show up on both sides of the pedigree over and over. I felt we were seeing the result of too much line breeding and inbreeding. Overuse of a small gene pool could contribute to these kinds of problems.

I began researching various kennels all over the world with the intent of importing new bloodlines. To this end I began importing dogs from the UK, Canada and Romania. My Canadian import from the famous Kyon Kennels in Canada was Canadian Champion Kyon’s Flaming Fire and Ice (California Davey), who was OFA Excellent just like his sire. A beautiful male with great drive, and a loving personality. Then I brought in from the renowned Xanthos Kennel in the UK, Canadian Champion Xanthos Glastonbury (Tristan), who was OFA Good and an absolute love and a female Xanthos Swanee, who was OFA Excellent. I also brought in Risedale Jubilee Jennifer (Tori) out of the famous Ch Xanthos Black Thorn, she was OFA Good.  I also had my English import, Xanthos Caravaggio, “Gio”, who is Hips OFA Good.  My Canadian import, Kyon’s Burning Ring of Fire, “Cash”, who is Hips OFA Excellent, now retired and the latest is my Romanian import, Raising the Bar of Clear Passion, “Cho”, who is Hips OFA Excellent as well.   These lovely boys are now all retired. I currently have TBCG’S Hoss Romancing the Moon, better known as Desi who has a combination of Swedish,  Serbian and a bit of Russian. Desi is OFA Hips Excellent, OFA Elbows clear, OFA Heart and and OFA Eyes  All of the dogs used in my breeding program have hip, elbow, heart and eye clearances. I have some American and American/Swedish crosses that are really wonderful. We had Canadian Champion Sandar ScFarms Sets the Pace (Pace) OFA Good, who was a great representative of the breed. Our program is to produce a Golden with that wonderful Golden temperament and good health, all wrapped up in a Beautiful package. To that end we have occasional litters of pups and I usually keep one or two to check how I am doing. I am a member of the Golden Retriever Club of America as well as the Golden Retriever Club of Greater Los Angeles, abiding by the guidelines of our club to give you the best Golden I can.