Babbling Brook Farm's History

In 1984 Steve and I adopted a wonderful dog from the pound, Sebastian, who we were told was a Labrador retriever.  When Sebastian passed away, we decided to buy a purebred Labrador.  As she grew, I kept waiting and waiting for her hair to grow out – I finally asked my vet who said labs had short hair and golden retrievers had long hair – so apparently Sebastian was a golden retriever.  So it was purely luck (or ignorance) that started us down the path of Labrador retriever breeding.

In 1992, Steve decided that he wanted to get into search and rescue work so we went to the December shows in Boston to meet with some lab breeders.  Steve got talking to a gentleman named Paul MacLean from Ocean Spray Labradors and a 30 year friendship was born.  Paul referred us to a breeder who had used his stud, Ocean Spray Jonah, and we purchased our first search and rescue dog, Jake.  Over the course of the next 10 years, Steve and I trained and certified six of our Labradors to do wilderness search work as members of Search Dogs Northeast, helping on dozens of searches looking for lost persons in the woods. We advanced to team trainers and helped train many dogs during this period of time.

All of our personal dogs we used for search work were of Ocean Spray’s breeding and we have continued to use Ocean Spray as our breeders up to the current time. Besides search and rescue work, I have also competed and qualified in AKC obedience and rally shows.  I have found labs easy to work with, intelligent, willing to please and lovable goofballs at times in the rings. 

I can’t imagine not having Labradors in my life.