Specializing in Labradors with proper conformation, sound temperament, & a passion for retrieving.
(254) 444-7640
A LOOK INSIDE CACTUS ROSE LABRADORS
OUR FAMILY
The faces behind the scenes
Welcome to Cactus Rose Labradors! I am Olivia Laxson, and my husband, Kaden, and I are the faces behind Cactus Rose Labradors. We are a young couple that has been together since high school, so we were able to get an early start at building a life we love together. We have just relocated to a beautiful patch of land in Gainesville, TX. We are blessed with a beautiful daughter, Laynee, that is four years old, a son, Rylan, that is three years old, and another son, Bowen, that turned one November 2023. We are excited to have completed our family with the anticipated arrival of another sweet baby boy in May 2024, whom we named Weston Kade! And yes, you did read that correctly...we currently have four children four and under!
We enjoy spending our time doing anything that involves our dogs and the great outdoors. Anyone who knows us knows that you will often find us wearing crocs, covered in dog hair, and soaking up time together as a family. While our days often start very early in the morning and end late in the evening, we wouldn't have it any other way. We spend most of our time with our dogs, maintaining our home and property/dog facility, and raising our babies. We have decided to plant a wonderful garden this spring and are making dreams a reality by starting a small family homestead, thus allowing us to be as self sufficient in sourcing our food as possible. We strive to make every day better than the day before, and we are so blessed to have the life that we do.
OUR PROGRAM
What we value most
At Cactus Rose Labradors, we are very dedicated to bettering the Labrador Retriever breed. We strive to produce the best puppies possible, and in order to do so, you need strict breeding ethics and quality dogs from quality lineage. Below are some of our main focuses as breeders.
HEALTH
The health of the puppies we produce is our top priority. We are strong believers in preforming health testing on our breeding dogs, because we believe in order to produce healthier puppies, you must first start off with healthy parents. We carefully select our dogs from lineage that has generations of health testing results, which gives our puppies the best chance possible at a healthy life. We are proud to do above and beyond the testing that most other Labrador breeders do, and as new testing is made available, we are always eager to jump at the opportunity. It is very important to us that our puppies live long, healthy lives with their forever families!
TEMPERAMENT
The hallmark of the Labrador breed is their temperament. Whenever someone thinks of a Labrador, they think of a happy, friendly, devoted companion. Labs are loving and outgoing, and often know no stranger. There is a reason they were the number one breed for going on 30 consecutive years! As breeders, it is our duty to preserve the classic Labrador temperament and make sure the puppies we produce exhibit the proper personality traits that are true to the breed. By carefully selecting the parent dogs in our breeding program and following our tried and true puppy raising protocols, we are consistently producing well rounded, lovable, even tempered puppies.
CONFORMATION
Every breed has a written breed standard of what a true example of that breed possess, and we are dedicated to producing dogs that are conformationally correct. While not every puppy from a litter will be a show prospect, by breeding to the standard, we are consistently producing puppies that are conformationally correct. Even if you aren't looking for a show puppy, conformation is VERY important! Making sure a puppy is balanced and structurally sound is vital for the longevity and quality of a puppy's life. Puppies that are structurally sound grow up to be dogs with many benefits including healthier joints, increased athletic performance, and overall better lives. No good breeder disregards conformation when breeding, and we are dedicated to producing puppies that are sound not only mentally, but physically as well.
DRIVE
The Labrador is a sporting breed, therefore, a big staple of the breed is the desire to RETRIEVE! While the Labrador is not meant to be a fire-breathing dragon of a retriever, they are still expected to possess the ability and desire to retrieve game efficiently. That being said, we will NEVER keep a dog in our program that does not possess the drive to retrieve! We believe that a Labrador Retriever is not a true representation of their breed unless they do so. However, a good off switch in the house is something we believe is very important for a Labrador to possess, and we avidly breed for this quality in our program as well. We purposely select only dogs that show both drive in the field and a calm temperament in the house for our program, and this proves itself in the puppies we produce. You can expect a Cactus Rose puppy to have a blast in the field, and then cuddle up with you on the couch after the work is done.
VERSATILITY
The Labrador is the most popular dog breed for many reasons, but the main one is the versatility of the breed! Labs are known to have the ability to excel in many different venues, including (but not limited to), service work, therapy work, bomb/cadaver detection, police work, both upland and waterfowl hunting, shed hunting, dock diving, agility, etc...the list goes on!
OUR STORY
Becoming who we are today
Cactus Rose Labradors was first started in 2019, soon after my husband and I got married. We had previously been breeding the year before, but had decided to make some big changes to our program. Cactus Rose was our fresh start at this!
In our year breeding prior to becoming Cactus Rose, we learned many things. We saw first hand the issues that dilute (silver, charcoal, and champagne) Labrador Retrievers have and decided we did not want to be apart of producing dogs with these issues. We also learned first hand the importance of health testing our breeding dogs, and learned about issues such as dysplasia that are running rampant in some of the lines in this breed. With our new knowledge, we decided it was our goal to become responsible, ethical breeders.
When we started out, we did not have responsible mentors that were educating us and helping us along the way. It is because of this that we will always go out of our way to help new breeders learn more about how to breed the right way. We now feel a great responsibility to do our part at bettering the breed we all know and love, one litter at a time.