KountryKozy Golden Retrievers

Subtitle

Icewinds Northern Aurora

Born April 17, 2015. Aurora is English Cream. She has a great personality and just loves everybody. Has the nicest, softest brown eyes and a great playfulness, especially with the kids and stuffed animals. She has matured in to the calmest girl and is such a great mom to her puppies.

Icewinds Zeldas Realm

Born on April 24, 2015. Zelda is also an English Cream Golden and is such a smart little girl. She has a small, gentle face that is full of so many expressions. Zelda is a little princess who hates being in any trouble. She loves to please everyone and is such a gentle soul. 

Icewinds Berenayr Beau

Beau was born on Jan 20, 2017. He is an English Cream Golden and has a lot of spunk. He loves everybody and everything, especially all his people and stuffies. He is a very quick learner and is always eager for playtime with the girls and the puppies. 

KountryKozy Casey's Crush

Casey is our newest addition. She was born on April 24, 2017. She is super sweet and has a very mild temperament like her mom Aurora. She loves to be at your feet and loves to play with all the other animals. Her and Beau are the best of buddies. She is 3/4 English cream as Aurora is her mom and Rebel (who is 1/2 English cream) is her dad. She has the most beautiful coat with some really nice light gold highlights in with a cream undercoat and it is so soft.


Back to Back Breeding


At KountryKozy we have changed our breeding policy and now breed back to back. While we do breed every heat, we never breed first heat and sometimes not on second heat either depending on the age in which they have their second heat.

Recently at an AKC Dog Breeding Discussion held at Michigan State University with key note speaker Dr. Claudia Orlandi Ph.D. (AKC’s breeder of the year and author of The ABC’s of Dog Breeding) shocked many breeders when it was disclosed that there have been scientific studies to show that it is detrimental for dams to skip heat cycles. It was shared that once you have begun to mate a dam that you should NOT skip any heat cycles until she is completely finished breeding. A dam is said to be “finished” breeding when her litter size is drastically decreased. The study involved following females that were bred every heat cycle and females that were bred every other heat cycle. After they were “finished” breeding, the dams were spayed and their uterus dissected.

Those showing most stress, and damage of the uterus were the females that were bred “every other” heat cycle. Part of the rational that skipping heat cycles is harmful stems from the fact that with consecutive heat cycles there is no “flushing action” of the uterus, which normally occurs by having a litter of puppies. The female will go through Estrus no matter if she is bred or not and by breeding a healthy dam back to back, can lessen the chances of the female experiencing pyometra, infections and false pregnancy. The choice to breed or not, should be contingent upon the goals the breeder has and for sure the mental and physical health of the female, above all else.


I pulled a few interesting points from the following:

Revisiting back to back breeding

February 5, 2011

By Dr Kate Schoeffel

It is frequently claimed that breeding dogs on every heat or “back to back breeding” is bad for a bitch’s long term health and well being. However the research in canine reproduction shows that not breeding a dog when it comes into heat can in fact be bad for its health. Scientist have shown that pseudopregnancy [‘phantom pregnancy’] increases the risk of mammary cancers which are the second most common cancer in dogs after skin tumors and are 3-5 times more common than breast cancers in women

Skipping cycles in breeding has been linked to mammary cancer. Pregnancy protects against life threatening uterine diseases. The most common uterine disease in the bitch is cystic endometrial hyperplasia. It is linked to several serious uterine diseases including the potentially life threatening disease “pyometra”(literally – a uterus full of pus) which affects nearly one quarter of dogs under 10 years old which are not desexed.


Visitation Policy


We have updated our visitation policy. This might contradict what you may read about finding a breeder since so many ‘what to do when buying a dog’ websites advocate for visiting the breeder and meeting the puppies and the pup’s parents first before deciding to reserve a puppy. The problem with these sites is that their priority is the buyer, not the breeders’ or the health and safety of the puppies and the other dogs. Below are the reasons we don’t allow visits with the dogs and puppies until you are a confirmed client on the reservation list.

SAFETY OF THE PUPS:
1. Pups immune systems are very immature. Visitors can bring disease (parvovirus, distemper, etc) onto the property without knowing it as it can be on their clothing or shoes. The result of which can be the death of the entire litter.
2. I don’t ‘own’ the pups. All the pups are sold to families. I am simply the guardian. However, I have been entrusted with the care of these pups for the first critical weeks of their lives. As guardian of other peoples’ dogs, I must do everything I can to protect them. If one of the pups was yours, I’m certain you would expect me to do that for your pup.

SAFETY OF MY DOGS AND FAMILY
1. People that email me are strangers. I don’t know anything about many of the people other than the basic information sent or collected (which may or may not be true) about yourself and your family. I am inviting you, a stranger, into my home. This creates a threat to the safety of my dogs. There has been such a huge increase in the theft of dogs and litters that it just can’t be any other way.
2. We have multiple requests from families to come and visit the dogs and/or puppies with many saying they need to see if this is the right breed for them or need to meet the parents first. We post lots of pictures and there is a tonne of Information on the internet about golden retrievers that we just really need to limit the visiting to confirmed puppy parents and let the unsure families research and decide on their own. There are lots of dog parks with a variety of breeds visiting at any given time. It’s always a good opportunity to go to one and see if a golden is right for you and ask questions to the owners of not only a golden, but many other breeds as well.