Julie Bedford, Croftsway Labradors: In Her Own Words
Since I was 12 years old, I’ve been actively involved in showing and breeding Labradors. It’s a passion that has shaped my entire life.
I recently moved to a beautiful two-acre property in North Waikato, about an hour from the Auckland CBD. It’s been a lot of hard work getting things set up, but the dogs and I are now really settled into our new lifestyle. Outside of dogs, I enjoy fishing, gardening and travel.
Where it all began
All my current breeding stock traces back to a lovely bitch born in 1976, who I imported from Australia in whelp to a recently imported dog from Wales. As time went on, I started getting enquiries for my dogs from overseas breeders. That’s actually how I ended up in the business of international pet transport – I didn’t like the idea of parting with my puppies and handing them over to total strangers before they left New Zealand, so I made sure I could stay part of the process myself.
I honestly couldn’t tell you how many Croftsway Labradors have left New Zealand shores over the years – as show dogs, breeding dogs, guide dogs, service dogs, and much-loved pets. During my travels around the world, it’s been an absolute delight to catch up with so many of these dogs and their owners.
Raising the bar on health testing
Since the 1970s, there have been huge advances in the health testing options available to breeders. In the early ’80s, I was very proactive in getting hip scoring introduced to New Zealand, and later, in the early 2000s, I organised clinics for PRA DNA testing.
Today’s breeders have a much wider range of health tests available to them. The NZ Kennel Club has also introduced Litter Registration Limitations, meaning all breeding stock must be health tested before breeding. The downside is that there are no upper limits written into the scheme – and that’s something I believe is a real shortcoming. It’s an issue I’ll keep chipping away at.
As a NZ Kennel Club member, I’m bound by their Code of Ethics, and I’m proud to be a Life Member of The Labrador Club too.
A judge’s-eye view of the breed
I started judging – awarding Challenge Certificates – back in 1986. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of judging throughout New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Russia (three times!), and the USA on numerous occasions. I’m also looking forward to judging in Denmark in 2028.
Judging overseas has given me a huge opportunity to look at prospective breeding stock and really assess them, both physically and mentally – it’s a perspective you simply can’t get any other way.
Still breeding, still learning
Day-to-day life at the kennel has changed a bit since I moved off the farm – I’ve reduced my dog numbers considerably. But every current breeding dog still traces back to that original imported bitch, Powder Puff. My breeding goals haven’t changed one bit: sound, good-looking dogs with great temperaments.
Before I got involved with Mobility Dogs, I’d already supplied a lot of puppies to NZ Guide Dogs, and to other guide dog schools in Australia, Hawaii and Japan. So the progression to Mobility Dogs wasn’t really unexpected – it felt like the natural next step. I really admire the commitment of their trainers, and their understanding of each dog’s individual behaviour and makeup. Like people, dogs come in a huge range of personalities, and the care that Mobility Dogs takes to match each dog with their new owner is really something special to witness.
What I’m breeding for
Deciding on good breeding combinations is essential to producing successful service dogs. Negative traits – suspicion, chasing cats, excessive barking, and so on – are all highly heritable, and they simply don’t belong in a breeding program. What I want is a confident, outgoing puppy (but not over the top), one that’s attentive and makes eye contact.
As a breeder, I expose all my puppies to as much stimulus as possible before they leave here at eight weeks old – loud noises, lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, radios, banging dog dishes, all of it. Any puppy that reacts badly to noise, or leans a little shy, simply isn’t going to make a good service dog. My job, as I see it, is to eliminate as many pitfalls as possible – physically and mentally – before I ever hand over a service dog puppy.
I’ve now had more than 30 dogs go through the Mobility Dogs programme, and that’s hugely satisfying – not just from a breeding perspective, but for the life-changing impact these dogs have on the people they go on to help.
The moment a litter of puppies graduates into fully trained Mobility Dogs is an incredibly proud one for me. I don’t think there’s any single moment that stands out more than the rest – it’s more the knowledge that it’s all come together, and the hope that the next generation of puppies will carry that on and continue to shine.
Playing the long game
One of the real advantages of breeding for as long as I have is being able to properly assess the temperament and trainability of your breeding stock over time. So many of the males I breed from now have long since passed – but I’ve kept frozen semen from them, and nearly every litter today is bred this way. I can even DNA test historical dogs now for conditions that simply weren’t known about 20, 30 or 40 years ago.
With time, the bigger picture becomes so much clearer. Little things – like a puppy’s instinct to pick up a dropped object, or to nudge open a gate or a door – are inherited traits, and they turn out to be genuinely useful in a service dog.
Not every Labrador is suited to service work, and like most breeders, I’m always chasing that elusive “perfect” dog. I’ve certainly come close – I’ve bred NZ Labrador breed record holders, All Breeds and Specialty Best in Show winners among them. But the show ring isn’t everything. Somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of my puppies go on to become pets or service dogs, not show dogs – and that alone tells you how much soundness, health and temperament really matter.
Why I keep going
The real highlight for me, as a breeder, is receiving the updates, the photos, the emails from happy puppy owners. Some of them are second-generation buyers – people who grew up with a Croftsway puppy of their own and now want that same experience for their children. Then there are the heartfelt letters that come through when a beloved pet has reached the end of its life, telling me it was simply the best dog they’ve ever owned. It’s this, and knowing the joy these dogs bring to their families, that keeps me going as a breeder.
If you, or someone you know, is thinking about supporting Mobility Dogs, I can genuinely vouch for their commitment and care.
From the planning of a breeding, to raising the litter, to the puppy raisers, to the trainers – every part of the process is worked through carefully and methodically.
The end results are literally life-changing.
Julie Bedford, Croftsway Labradors