Welcome to Hope Springs Farm's breeder page. We're located in the fabled Blue Ridge foothills in northern Fauquier County. We raise and train Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, a breed we've owned and loved since 1981. arm Our farm has 30 acres of pasture, woods and 3 ponds, plus we have access to hundreds more acres nearby for training. We're conveniently located 60 miles SW of Washington D.C. in the small village of Orlean, south of Marshall. Owner Julie Reardon has been an officer with the American Chesapeake Club and currently serves as Secretary/AKC Delegate of the Rappahannock River Retriever Club. We keep our eye on the big picture.

We breed primarily working gun dogs and for those that compete in AKC hunt tests. Our breeding program is aimed to produce a happy, healthy retriever with an excellent, stable disposition, high prey drive and trainability and with proper conformation according to the breed standard. Although showing isn't our primary goal, we do think our dogs are beautiful and when shown they have done very well against the big 'show dog' kennels which breed only for looks. Unlike those kennels, we do not warehouse dogs in kennels and we will not breed a pretty dog if it has a hyper, neurotic disposition nor if it shows any signs of aggression either to people or other dogs. We also will not breed one that won't retrieve, since the breed is the Chesapeake Bay RETRIEVER, not the Chesapeake Bay Show Dog or Pet. Such dogs may win ribbons at dog shows but they are difficult to live with. Aggression has been proven to be a heritable condition as have things like hyperactivity, extreme shyness or fearfulness that leads to fear biting, and submissive urination. We will not breed dogs that exhibit any of those traits. We don't enjoy living with them and we don't think our puppy buyers want that, either. You may have noticed the beautiful silver Chesapeakes in some of our photographs. We jokingly call them our "Silverfreaks" although the rare coloring is indeed perfectly acceptable and has always been present in the breed. It makes very good camoflage and is highly prized by hunters in the duck blind or marsh, and is a beautiful and distinctive Chesapeake color. Some of the big show kennels detest the ash color it and people started calling our dogs silverfreaks. We were amused, and the name stuck. Our satisfied owners and our dogs' performance records speak for themselves. We do not breed for color but instead for the whole dog, but we are proud of our rare ash dogs. And we are glad not everyone likes the same things, in dog colors, dog breeds and in life.

We offer puppies and occasionally started dogs for sale. At the present time we have a litter expected early fall, and two started gundogs for sale, a black Labrador male and a Chesapeake female. Shown above, is our foundation bitch CH Puffin II JH CD WDX; she's an example of the type of dog we like to produce.

All our breeding stock has been trained and evaluated for disposition, trainability and performance. We test for known genetic problems in the Chesapeake breed including hip and elbow dysplasia, premature blindness and other eye conditions as well as degenerative myelopathy (DM). All dogs have radiographs taken of their elbows and hips after 24 months of age that are evaluated by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals.

HOPE SPRINGS FARM P.O. Box 13, Orlean, Virginia 20128

Breeding quality dogs for over 27 years.

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