Oh dear, I hope you get it sorted! Fingers crossed for you.

I really want one, and it's almost set in stone that I'll get one. Just after the summer holidays I will have lost my job I have somebody that will want me to work as a labour worker i.e casual work, but then I'm not 100% sure I'll get money every month to pay the insurance, dog food etc.

So that's kinda upset me alot really I'm not sure if my dad would help with the expenses or not :/

I'll just have to start asking around if places have vacancies. I have a few places listed down to ask, but as I cannot drive and the bus costs alot I'm really only looking for something close to home. Ah well, hopefully all will work out well.

Well fingers crossed you will find a job, it isn't nice at the moment with all the doom and gloom about the economy.

And I know what you mean about the expenses, it isn't cheap owning dogs, and its good that you're thinking about that. You should get six weeks free insurance with the breeder, either via the KC or somewhere like Petplan. And its worth asking the breeder now about which food they wean the pups on to, so you can shop around and find the best place to buy it from.

You don't need to spend a fortune on toys, leads, collars, etc, although it can be tempting. The toys mine like are old burst footballs, chewed old leather rigger gloves, and then there are the gundog training dummies.

Oh well Lucca *already got a name for him * won't be for gundog use, mainly a family pet/possible show dog.

Zeus has burst footballs now, and a lil blue elephant that a friend of mine fixed as he chewed it open took some fluff out and a ear, so now it has some other fluff in there and a reindeers antler on it lol. He loves it all the same.

Also a big thing for the puppies we've had here are socks

The other thing is, I found out Zeus wasn't micro-chipped as my mum didn't want him to be as she says it can sometimes go wrong, so now I want him micro-chipped so that'll cost me about £30+ and also to get him neutered too.

Then also get the puppy neutered and micro-chipped *unless the breeder already has the puppy chipped*

Cheapest insurance I've found at the moment for Zeus at 6years old and Lucca at 3 years old is £16.15. So hopefully that has worked out how much I'll be paying once the puppy is fully grown and that will lead to Zeus being 6.

I think I may have found my perfect Labrador breeder to buy from

They are expecting a litter on the 12th of June from a girl they own.
She has 6/11 hips, 0/0 elbows and a current clear eye certificate.

So in total her hips are 17, is this okay, or abit steep?

They really seem like a good, caring breeder. They want to remain contact with the puppy buyers, which is what I like to see And also some of their dogs have served for HM Prison Service, and also have been successfully trained for drug detection.

They are not far from where I live aswell.

All the dogs they breed undergo these tests Kennel Club/BVA health tests including Hips, Elbows, Eye Tests and more recently the new Optigen DNA test for GPRA.

So any very knowledgable labrador owners, I can PM you the link for you to take a look, and tell me your views.

17 is above the Breed Mean Score, so a little high, but not a bad score and I wouldn't let it put me off if it were the right litter. The only thing that I would say is that they are a little uneven, with one hip being almost double the score of the other. You mention the GPRA test, but not the result; there is also a test for CNM in Labs, would be worth asking if they've had this done as well.

The other important score is of course the stud dog they have used? And his other health tests?

I don't count myself as hugely knowledgeable, I might have heard of the breeder, but am unlikely to know much about them. I would say though that any responsible breeder would want to keep in touch with puppy owners, so it is a good thing, but not unusual.

I just rang the lady and I think she said the sire's hip score was 2/2 but I have sent a long email asking the questions about the sire and also asking how much the puppies will likely be, and if it's possible to be put on the waiting list for a yellow boy.

She did tell me there's already a waiting list for the puppies So chances are looking slim, depending on how many people are on the waiting list and depending on how many puppies the dam has.

The breeders name is Willokin, I'll send you a link to their website.

I've just responded to your pm

Good luck with the waiting list - I'd be interested in knowing the sire, there are usually a few relatives floating about and there are a couple in the pedigree of the bitch to my two girls.