About
WELCOME TO CB RETRIEVERS!
WHO WE ARE CB Retrievers, formerly Iron Spike Kennels, is a family business has been in operation for over ten years. We have supplied literally hundreds of successful hunting dogs to duck, goose, dove and upland game bird hunters, as well as many of their friends and family members whom they referred to us. WHO OUR CUSTOMERS ARE
A TRULY UNIQUE APPROACH TO GUN DOGS Being different isn't easy. Nor is it without its risks and its costs. We cannot please everybody, so we cater exclusively to our market niche. We dare to take a bold stance for not only what has proven to be successful for over a decade, but for what we believe is right and humane. CARE AND FEEDING Facilities Our dogs have the luxury of stretching their legs on a ranch with two creeks and two ponds. Several dogs are both field and family companions and stay in our home. Others have stick built sheds in large, outside pens, some 1/4 acre in size, letting our dogs live "the labby life" in a setting sporting dogs love. In addition to this, a large 90 x 110' barn with 5-bays, roll down bay doors and cement flooring is home to over 550 square feet of pro kennel accommodations as well as two 8' x 12' whelping/puppy pens and a K9 Kare facility. Diet I don't feed GMO food or grain to my family and I won't feed it to my dogs, either. When our family is gardening or berry picking, the dogs will come along and readily imbibe of nature's goodness. Dogs love fresh berries, fruit, squash, sweet potatoes and pecans or acorns that fall from our trees, putting to rest any contentions that canines eat meat exclusively. They don't, however, choose to ingest corn, millet and other grains we have on hand for our chickens. This only serves to further convince me that highly processed foods filled with grain are the burden on a dog's digestive system that science warns us it is. For this reason, we invest an additional $43/dog/month to provide nourishing, wholesome, non-grain, non-GMO feeds. Foods that are loaded with hard to digest fillers like corn, grain and soy don't have a place in our feed room. Instead, we invest in healthy food as part of our commitment to our dogs and our customers. BREEDING PRACTICES Unlike most kennels, we don't breed our bitches every heat cycle or even every year. Our dams get a minimum of 16 to 24 months between litters. We believe allowing the female's body time to replenish essential micro-nutrients is not only humane, but provides for hardy puppies. This requires us to feed, house and care for more mama dogs than most kennels - but quality has its price. We breed our own, known bloodlines. Unlike most kennels that repeatedly buy new breeding stock, we stay with bloodlines and genetics that we know well and which consistently produce the results we desire - hardy dogs that hunt hard and dial down nicely at home. By combining this practice with the strategic use of genetic infusions, we know what our crosses will produce, year after year, generation after generation. Due to this practice, we continually produce pups that are free of such maladies as EIC, CNM and orthopedic issues. When buyers want to see how a pup will turn out, they need only look to the parents, grand parents or other related stock on the premises. These dogs are still performing well and are free of health issues well beyond the two year testing age other breeders rely on to verify defects. While we do genetic screenings every other generation to provide laboratory based projections of health, the far better barometer to project whether a pup will develop a malady by age two is to look at it's 5-10 year old relatives who are still problem free. Applying a common sense approach in this realm is by far, the wiser route and has served our buyers well, over the years. We also choose complimentary parents. We take into consideration temperament, drive, intelligence, conformation, head and other factors. Our goal is to select parents whose genetics will balance the other's to produce pups that are the best of both. When a cross produces the desired outcome, we stick with that pairing. This enables us to tell buyers, with great accuracy, what to expect from certain crosses. WHELPING Our puppies have benefit of two spacious, 8 x 12 foot whelping pens. However, after all these years, I often opt for pups to whelp in my bathroom, instead. There, I can continually monitor mama and personally imprint every Iron Spike Pup as it arrives in this world. PUPPY CARE Our minimum puppy care is what one should expect from a responsible breeding operation - supplement mama's diet, provide plenty of clean water, maintain a hygienic environment, deworm and vaccinate on schedule and transition to a healthy diet. However, we do much more with our pups beyond the minimum:
TRAINING Without a doubt, what sets us apart from most American gun dog kennels is our training philosophy. The basis of our dog training program is pack mentality. Dogs are natural pack members, they instinctively hunt and they are genetically hard wired to serve the alpha. We simply:
**Not until we have taught the dog the vocabulary-behavior association, do we hold the dog accountable for an obedient response.** A dog can be taught to do almost anything through this method and we have proven this by training literally hundreds of puppies to hunt, before the age of six months - long before other breeders and trainers believed it was possible. Furthermore, most dog owners are comfortable with positive reinforcement, so this method facilitates an easy transition to a new home and enables buyers to take over the alpha role. In addition, this training method is simple for new dog owners to learn, making it much easier for first-time gun dog owners to have a high performing dog that is easy for them to handle. Beyond all of this, and of greatest importance to us, is that we produce highly-driven, confident, content and reliable hunting and family companions without having to break the dogs' spirit or resorting to heavy-handedness, harsh training tools or tactics or using pain, fear & intimidation to maintain compliance. WHO IS NOT A GOOD FIT FOR OUR KENNELS We neither apologize for, nor make excuses that we are not a run-of-the-mill gun dog kennel. We do what we do well and we don't attempt to be what we are not. There are many other kennels that serve the markets we don't fit:
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Thanks for dropping by!
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