RedMark Retrievers Performance Retrievers Bred to Hunt Our love affair with Golden Retrievers started in 1995, after we lost our first hunting dog, Haley, of fifteen years, a Springer Spaniel of dubious lineage but a terrific hunting companion just the same.  While Haley did a terrific job in the field, she was never trained to any level of proficiency other than her natural ability to find pheasants. At about this same time we watched a demonstration put on by the Golden Retriever Club of Illinois and we were impressed.  Delivery to hand, blind retrieves, sitting until sent; all the things Haley didn’t do!  The search was on for a field bred Golden, but where to find a breeder whose focus was on field work rather than the show ring?  We were very lucky that another GRCI contact person pointed us to Mioak’s Retrievers, in southern Wisconsin.  It just so happened that they had a litter on the ground and we suddenly had a puppy named Chelsea in the house. Local puppy and obedience classes taught us how to teach Chelsea the basic obedience commands, but there wasn’t much in the way of field training information.  We bought several books and video tapes, but they all seemed to contradict themselves, or, in some cases, seemed down right silly.  Again, a call to the Golden Retriever Club of Illinois got us an invite to join a beginning field training group on Saturday mornings.  It didn’t take too long for Chelsea to become the “star” of the group.  Although she couldn’t yet handle like the big dogs in the group, she sure could mark and Rich was encouraged to enter her in a Junior Hunt Test.  Four passes in a row and Rich was hooked. While throwing birds and bumpers, Diane realized that Rich was having all the fun and she was doing all the dirty work; a situation that could easily be remedied by having another dog!  Well, fate intervened again and we were able to purchase another female with a superb pedigree.  Another drive to Wisconsin resulted in a return trip with Mioak’s Aspen Autumn Gold; little did we know just how talented this dog would become.  Diane started training with Rich on the weekends and also was invited to join several training groups during the week such that Diane was getting more experience than Rich; what a turnaround!  Both Chelsea and Aspen became Master hunters, and qualified to run the Master National, although time didn’t allow us to enter.  In the year 2000, we were encouraged to breed Aspen which resulted in a litter of seven puppies and, of course, we kept one male we named Mioak’s Torrid Texas Rendezvous (Tory).  Tory held up Aspen’s field ability as he too became a Master Hunter, ran in the 2004 Master National and has been a wonderful hunting companion even while his age is in the double digits. RedMark Retrievers was born out of our love for the breed and a desire to see the field abilities of Golden Retrievers alive and thriving.  We put field ability, temperament and health history as the primary attributes when pairing for a litter.