~Breeders of Champion Labrador Retrievers~
WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF MOVING TO BRANCHBURG, NEW JERSEY! PLEASE CHECK BACK FOR UPDATES AND PICS OF THE NEW PLACE! WE'RE REAL EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVE, AND LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING ALL THE FURKIDS SETTLED IN RIGHT AWAY IN THEIR NEW HOME! THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! TOM & LORI AND ALL THE TL'S FURKIDS!
Thanks for stopping in to visit! Our home and kennel are located in the Boerne Texas area, northwest of San Antonio and southwest of Austin. This area is known as "the Hill Country" here in Texas, and is a beautiful area to visit and live in. We have a small kennel and training facility that we maintain ourselves although most of our "kids" have the run of the house! We currently have 12 Labradors, and two rescued mix breeds that I rehab'ed and could not part with. Some of our Labs are just youngsters still, and they are training and some are competing, while we wait to see if they "make the grade" to become a part of our very selective breeding program. To learn more please refer to the links at the lower half of this page.
We currently have two males standing at stud at TL's. This is a photo of TL's Lord Byron, our more "senior" stud dog. Byron has given us some wonderful puppies, and is a great hunter and member of our family. He was sired by FC AFC Candlewood's Captain Kid, the record holder for All Age Open Points for a Yellow Labrador in AKC Field Trials. Byron's impeccable pedigree along with Nigel's... TL's Big River Nigel James, our big black bundle of fetching fur, who has produced more Certifed Narcotics Dogs than I can count and only out of two litters...on the View Our Crew page.
We have only 3 of the females here with us who are a part of our breeding program. We co-own a few boys and girls that either are or may be part of our program with folks who wanted a wonderful pet and/or hunting companion. In this way, we feel it's the best of all worlds for everyone, and that makes us happiest, even if it is difficult to place them away from us. Our "furkids" have a wonderful home and family to love and be loved by, and we still have them available to us if they become a part of our program. At the same time, that gives us the opportunity to keep our number down here at home so that everyone does get all the love and attention that they need and deserve. The girls may come visit for maternity duty, or the boys may have a girlfriend come to visit. The nicest part of this arrangement is that we make wonderful new friends with our co-owners, and quite often they do end up getting the bug too, and start training and/or competing with their dog(s). Perhaps that's why most of our titled TL's Labs don't even live here!
Then, of course, we do have our few Special Labs that either didn't "make it" when it came to being an active part of our breeding program or are "getting up there" and prefer to spend their time being couch potatoes and great foot warmers and cuddlers! They are here with us because they own us, not the other way around. Of course, that's usually how it ends up whenever you bring a Labrador into your home!
Our love for the breed comes from their versatility, their outstanding sweet lovable and devoted temperament and their exceptional human orientation. We strive to produce multi-purpose dogs that are not only physically and mentally sound, but also exhibit the traits that the Labrador Retriever is so well known and loved for. We have dogs throughout the US and other countries in pet homes, and hunting homes; as service, therapy, narcotics and SAR dogs; in show homes, field trial, hunt test and obedience homes. We take great pride in producing the kind of dog who can go out and do it all with style and then come home to be a wonderful family member as well. To us that is what a Labrador Retriever should be.
My name is Lori Dodd, and I am a Professional Trainer. I work with our Labs along with my husband, as well as teach obedience, and I also train dogs for K9 units and narcotics work for law enforcement agencies. My specialty is problem behavior solving. If you have a problem with your dog's behavior...such as aggression, submission, fear biting, or phobias...please feel free to contact me, and I'll be happy to give you any input I can on your problem and hopefully steer you in the right direction toward some reading material or a professional in your area that can help you if you aren't anywhere nearby.
I particularly enjoy training dogs for work in Law Enforcement, both for the challenges it presents me, and because I am an advocate of K9 Units both for reactive and proactive law enforcement. There's a lot of misinformation is out there about how these dogs are trained for this kind of work. The methods that I have been taught and am a teacher of, do not abuse the dogs in any way whatsoever. The biggest myth I'd like to put past to is that the narcotics dogs are addicted to these drugs. That is blatantly false. They never even come into contact with the substances at all. To allow that would be foolhardy, because just a tiny amount of most of the illegal substances that they are trained to locate would kill them. Many trainers have now switched to training with synthetics these days too, which cuts down on the risk of any accidents during training, that's how carefully these dogs are trained.
Here is a picture of one of our dogs, Bubba and his handler. Bubba works as a Certified Narcotics Dog. Before he went to police work he was shown and stood at stud very briefly. I realized quite early on that he was a dog that needed to be on the street working. He is an exceptional example of a good Narc Dog and his record is something we are all very proud of indeed!
My husband Tom is the avid hunt trainer here at TL's. He enjoys training our dogs for competition in hunt tests and to be his companions and working dogs out in the field on his own hunting trips. Tom has also trained and/or handled dogs to titles or legs to those titles for other folks now and then, and we do offer hunt training here on a limited basis for all retrieving breeds as well as obedience training for all breeds.
This picture is of TL's Lady Rebecca Lakeside WC WCX JH CGC. We lost Becka on July 15, 1999 to a very serious upper respiratory infection. Her death was devastating to us and very unexpected, especially since she showed no symptoms of illness or even lack of energy or desire to play. She still played and hung out with us, our other Labradors, and most especially was still "teaching" her three 18 month old kids how to be a good Labrador Retriever in general, quite literally until the afternoon before we lost her. We thank our Veterinarians, Dr. Paul Morrison and Dr. Rick Rodenbeck, and Texas A & M University Veterinary School for all they tried to do to save Becka and all that they have done since to try to make sense of something so senseless. The only fortunate thing we've been able to ascertain is that it was not contagious or hereditary in any way. Other than that, there is no concrete explanation, and that is tough for us to deal with. Becka would have been five years old on August 19th, 1999, and she was working toward her Senior Hunter title before her death.
Becka was Tom's favorite girl to hunt over and compete with, and in her short time with us, she contributed so much to the future of our program through her two litters. Her first was by our boy TL's Lord Byron and Tom helped her deliver those babies all by himself. He wouldn't have it any other way because she was His Girl. I stayed nearby, "just in case", because Tom never pulls maternity duty, but Becka was His Girl. Becka's second litter was in March of 98, by Dickendall Dixie Voodoo WC JH CD CGC, owned by Keri Schooler of Copperstill Kennels, near Austin. We are fortunate to have three of those babies here with us.
We miss Becka every single day and loved her more than we could ever express in words, but fortunately we are able to take some comfort in seeing her kids doing so well in so many areas of life, as pets, as hunting companions, competitors winning in obedience, field, and the show ring, 2 certified Narcotics Dogs, a Wheelchair Assistance Dog, and a Search and Rescue Dog as well. Becka's kids from both Byron and Voodoo are prime examples of exactly what we strive to produce here at TL's. Versatile Labs that conform to the Breed Standard with wonderful temperament and loving hearts.
Through her children Becka will live on. She was everything a Labrador should be, and she was ALL HEART. We miss you Beekie Girl...and you shall never be forgotten by us, your human Mommy and Daddy, or by any of the people whose lives you've touched. Be at peace, at the Rainbow Bridge, and we will see you again someday. In that we have faith. We love you very much.
For more information about the Labrador Retriever Breed, comments on our page, or if you have questions about our Labradors, Litters Planned, our Training Programs, or if you are a Fellow Lab Lover and just want to say hello or exchange pictures of your furkids, (What parent doesn't like to share their "kid's" pictures?!) please drop us a line...we'd love to hear from you!
Thanks for stopping in! Please take time to visit the rest of our page and see some more of our crew! You can always reach us by email or at the address and phone listed below. PLEASE NOTE that our AREA CODE has changed to 830 from 210! If you don't catch us, leave a message and we'll get back to you!:
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ALL PHOTOS ON THESE PAGES ARE COPYRIGHTED AND ARE THE SOLE PROPERTY OF TL'S RIVERSIDE LABS. REPRODUCTION, ELECTRONIC OR OTHERWISE IS EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM TL'S RIVERSIDE LABS 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001