About Us

Welcome!

Thank you for checking up on us!  This document is a long read but we felt it wise to lay ourselves bare so that you can get a good idea where your puppies are coming from.  There are WAY too many puppy mills and irresponsible back yard breeders out there and we firmly believe that buying puppies that came from those environments is a REALLY bad thing for the breed, and for you.  We welcome questions about us and encourage you to ONLY buy from responsible breeders.

First, the basic stuff:

• Bryan and Terri Curry
• Married in June of 1979
• Live in a 2700 sq’ home on 3 acres of wooded property in the small Central Texas community of Bulverde
• Six Golden Retrievers currently (Harley, Emma, Ryder, Skye, Zoey and ZuZu.)
• Deer…  Lots and lots of deer

Our Philosophy

Terri and I are proud to truthfully say that we are a responsible, small breeder of Golden Retrievers that love and care for our dogs as pets.  They live with us inside our home, snuggle with us on the couch, go with us to the beach and enjoy a positive, healthy and loving life.  We take our Golden Retrievers with us every chance we get on both short and long trips and they absolutely LOVE it!  We have had dogs all of our lives and all, without exception, have lived long, healthy and happy lives.  We don’t dump our dogs when they get old nor put them down when it becomes inconvenient; we continue to nurse them and love them all the way to the end.  This bit is the hardest thing any pet owner can do but it’s the right thing to do for family.  Our last puppy lived for 17 years 7 months.  In return for all of this, our puppies give us the unquestioning love and loyalty which only truly comes from that sort of treatment.

About Bryan and Terri

 

 

We met and fell in love with each other in 1977 at the age of 17 at Tuloso Midway High School in Corpus Christi, TX.  We were married by age 19, and by age 24 had three beautiful children (Brad, Jennifer, Brent).   Since that time our daughter blessed us with two grandsons (Ethan and Carter) and our oldest son’s better half Julie blessed us with  granddaughter Claire and grandson Cameron.  Terri and I have been married 41 years as of this writing.

Our history with dogs

We both had dogs continuously growing up but our first dog as adults was Gandalf; a German Shepherd mix that was 6 months old and starving outside the school cafeteria at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas in 1979.  We took him in and nursed him back to health in the dorms even though the Vet told us he would not survive.  He not only survived, he thrived for 16.5 years and was a WONDERFUL, intelligent and loyal dog.  He has since been the gold standard that we compare all other dogs to.

After Gandalf  and 6 lonely months without dogs we adopted two Australian Shepherd / Blue Healer mix puppies from a rancher’s accidental litter that we named Digger and Napoleon. 

Digger’s name had obvious reasons but Napoleon was the runt and had a Napoleon Complex; because he was the smallest he always tried to prove himself to the others.  Both were lovely dogs that had very different personalities and were a joy.

Two years later we adopted an Australian Shepherd mix that we named Lexi.  We now had three dogs, two cats and three children. 

Lexi grew up to be beautiful, fiercely loyal, and loved us and our children and was absolutely the alpha of the three dogs (and the bane of salespeople).

Napoleon left us at age 12 on Thanksgiving day of congestive heart failure.  He was never as healthy as the rest due to being the runt but he had a long and happy life.  Digger left us at age 14 due to cancer.  Lexi left us at age 17 years, 7 months due to old age in late summer 2017.

We knew Lexi’s passing was coming years in advance so we began our research early on and brought Harley and River into our home in October 2016.  We actually believe the puppies made Lexi live longer.  The puppies knew she was sick and were loving to her and often refused to leave her side even when she was snippy.  We researched very carefully for quite some time before deciding on Golden Retrievers.  We wanted dogs that everyone would love, especially our grandchildren. 

We were not interested in a guard dog but instead wanted a puppy that was amazingly beautiful, a joy to be around, play and snuggle with, good with other animals, people and children that would always be excited to be with us.  We had always taken rescues in the past and applaud that practice but this time we wanted to have a clue what the puppy might be like when grown and could now afford it so we opted to go for a pure bred dog.  After months of research, asking questions and meeting different breeds and breeders we settled on the Golden Retriever and have never been happier.

We’ve enjoyed them so much we added a third, fourth, fifth and sixth lovely Golden Retriever to the pack. 

We received  Emma  directly from Europe in late 2018.  She is an Creme colored Golden Retriever (referred to as an “English Creme” Golden Retriever). 

She is beautiful, smart, healthy and happy. She has an amazing pedigree and conformation but most importantly, she is gorgeous, athletic, smart, funny, loving, soft, loves playing with puppies and is a complete snuggle buddy for us. 

 

Dexter came to us from upstate New York in late 2018 from a lovely breeder and is a very dark colored, healthy and happy puppy.  He is an amazingly beautiful dog.  He currently lives with and is loved and cared for by our grandsons as their lovely pet.  We hoped to use him as a sire but to our great disappointment, he is sterile.  It is important you know that this is not us “re-homing” him.  We planned all along for him to live with our daughters family as they needed a dog and we wanted a safe, loving place for him to stay.  We saw him living with our grandsons as “win-win” and still do.

Why do we want to be a breeder?

Harley, River , Dexter, Skye, Ryder, Zoey, ZuZu, and  Emma have given us so much joy that it’s hard to describe.  Because we are so enamored with the breed and because there are not enough quality breeders of Golden Retrievers we decided to breed Harley and Emma  (and when old enough, Skye) in order to spread the joy to others.  We have done extensive research, talked to breeders that we respect and put together a plan to provide at least two litters per year ongoing if nature cooperates.  Eventually we hope to have as many as 4 breeding female Golden Retrievers (see below).

Yes, this is a business; we will charge for our puppies.  Any breeder that tries to tell you they are not in business is confused or lying and frankly, should be avoided.  We however do not plan to do it at a scale that would constitute “making a living” and will charge competitive rates for very high quality, beautiful, happy and healthy Golden Retriever puppies.  Breeding puppies is a very expensive and labor intensive thing to do if it’s done right and we plan to do it right so the amount of income will be small compared to the work and risk involved.  We also want to be able to afford 4 to 6 dogs and provide premium care and feeding into our retirement years.

Our current plan:

• Maximum 4 breeding eligible females in the house
  • We feel that we need to keep the total number of Golden Retrievers limited so that we can handle them all and still call them pets with free run of the home. 
  • Space out their ages by at least 2 years where we can
  • Carefully research and find females that are all colors, including one fully European Creme (Emma).
• Add sires as it makes sense
  • We added Ryder, an English Creme male puppy from amazing parents to the family.  He is proven with Emma and Harley and made gorgeous puppies.  He was a wonderful sire for us but due to a terrible ordeal after contracting a fungal disease, he had to be neutered.  He continues to give us joy as our much moved pet but can no longer breed.
  • We currently use well qualified Sires from reputable breeders that we’ve investigated and respect
    • All sires must be completely cleared (not even carriers) of the major genetic defects and have normal or better hips and elbows.
• Breeding span for our mamas will be roughly 2 to 6 years old.
  • AKC rules stipulate that a mama can breed from 8 months to 12 years old
    • The mama is not fully mature until roughly 2 years old.  In our (and many others) opinion, breeding earlier may not allow her to mature properly so we will wait in all cases until after her 2nd birthday.
      • We want our mama’s to enjoy puppyhood and have a comfortable retirement
      • OFA or Pennhip clearances for hips and elbows can only be done if the Golden Retriever is at least 2 years old and we will be testing ALL our breeding dogs.
    • Once retired after just a few years, the mama will be sterilized and live out the rest of her life in comfort and happiness playing with our other dogs and their litters of puppies without the work and responsibility.
• Breed each mama every heat once mature and cleared.
  • We originally planned to breed every second heat but there is some recent good quality research that says it’s better for mamma’s long term health to never skip a heat once breeding begins.  We will watch our girls very closely to assure continued great health and happiness and are prepared to skip a heat or retire her if at any time her health and happiness declines.
• Be selective on our buyers to assure a good home.
  • We will not be intrusive in the lives of those homes but we’ll not be afraid to say no if we don’t feel complete comfort with the potential buyer.  We’d rather keep the puppies than send them somewhere we are not comfortable with.
• Charge a fair prices but not as much as most comparable breeders.
  • We plan to deliver high quality, healthy, happy puppies at a fair price.
• Spare no expense or effort to ensure our mamas and puppies maintain best possible health and happiness.
• Test ALL of our mama’s to certify that they are completely clear of common genetic defects in Golden Retrievers
• Test ALL our Golden Retrievers at 2 years of age to evaluate their OFA eye, heart, hip and elbow scores.
  • 2 years of age is the soonest they can be certified
  • We will not breed a dog that has a score less than “normal”.  Note that “Excellent” OFA scores are incredibly rare.
• Provide a private Facebook group that is restricted to just us and owners of our puppies.
  • Great place to ask and give advice, share pictures of and stories about the puppies without fear of trolls.
• Provide a full featured, easy to navigate website with as much information as we can create or find (this will be ongoing).
• Allow (in fact; require) buyers to pick up their puppies at our home when the puppies are ready to go to their furever home.
  • We will not ship puppies
  • We want to meet the buyers in person
    • The buyer really should be interested in meeting us.  There is literally no other way for you to know for sure the environment that your puppies were born into.
  • Note: Visits to to our home to physically see and handle the puppies will be restricted for health reasons until they are ready to go to their forever homes.  We’ll provide tons of pictures and statistics as they grow so that you can see how they progress.  If desired we can also do a live video conference from our phone via Facetime or Duo once the puppies are old enough to be interesting.
• Provide a 26 month puppy guarantee
  • Most breeders offer shorter guarantees; a select few offer as little as 72 hours.  If you cannot get a comprehensive guarantee of at least a year you should completely avoid those breeders in our opinion but be advised that hip/elbow issues typically will not reveal themselves in less than 18 months and cannot be properly diagnosed in most cases until 2 years of age (thus the reason we give 26 months).
• Provide a properly executed puppy contract to protect the puppy, you and us.
• Provide ongoing communication and support for your puppy questions and concerns
  • Private Facebook Group Page
    • Share your concerns and questions with others so that all can help, learn and benefit
  • Email
    • texastlcgoldens@gmail.com
  • Phone when needed
• We hope to implement “Play Days” eventually where our past puppies can come and play with each other and our dogs.  This is still an idea in our heads but we’d like to make it happen eventually.

What Responsible Breeders Really Do

Courtesy Golden Retriever Club of America