Great Lakes Hunting Retrievers specializes in the breeding of premium Hunting Golden Retriever pedigrees. Inspired by the book, “Where the Red Fern Grows,” and wanting to get into bird hunting; I purchased my first Golden Retriever (Molly) when I was 15 years old with the money I earned from refereeing in the local youth football league. Molly and I were inseparable; I shot my first pheasants, duc
ks and geese over her. Due to all the good times I had hunting, fishing and growing up with Molly, she inspired me to help restore the Golden Retriever breed back to their primary purpose of hunting. The Golden Retriever originated in Britain somewhere during the mid and late 1800’s by a Scotsman, Sir Dudley Majoribanks, later known as Lord Tweedmouth. The Golden Retriever was bred as a sporting pedigree by crossing the Wavy-Coat Retriever with a Yellow-Colored Tweed Water Spaniel (a breed that is now extinct) and then later cross bred with the Red Setter and Sandy-Colored Bloodhounds. Hunting was the original intent of the bloodline especially when being introduced to Canada and America in the 1920’s. Since then, the Golden Retriever has been bred with other purposes in mind, and not all breeders have used the most ethical practices, thus creating unhealthy bloodlines. Our intent is to help restore this breed back to their original purpose as a healthy pedigree that is known as an all purpose bird dog. My two current dogs, R***r and Daisy, both come from some of the healthiest and best hunting pedigrees in the Golden Retriever community and will produce a great bloodline of their own. We plan on starting this kennel with R***r and Daisy, but with the intention of acquiring more Golden Retrievers that match our purpose and can add value to our mission.