"Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one is a life diminished" 

My love for golden retrievers started at a young age with my family purchasing our first golden, Nala, from an ad in the newspaper when I was six years old. We were inseparable. I remember parading around the house with her, both of us dressed in skirts and tiaras. We spent every summer swimming in our pool and hosting lemonade stands. I was hooked on goldens. My family adopted another golden, Tink, from a golden retriever rescue. She was a handful, but that made me love her even more. A few short years later, Nala developed a brain tumor that significantly impacted her quality of life and our time with her came to an end. Heartbroken, it took eight years until I considered getting another dog. 

Jon grew up with a vizsla named Lucy. She came home at a few months old and lived 14 wonderful years with his family. Each day after school, Jon would come home to Lucy excitedly waiting for him on his bed and when he sat down, she immediately curled up in his lap. To this day- Jon's favorite thing about a dog is whether or not they're willing to cuddle. Always ready to chase a ball in the backyard or hang out on the couch watching TV, Lucy's easy going yet energetic personality is what made Jon fall in love with the sporting dog temperament. 

When Jon and I started dating in 2017, he met Tink and immediately knew he wanted a golden of his own one day. Later that same year, I developed a chronic illness and began looking into service dogs to help me live life independently. I knew from the heartbreak I endured from losing Nala, that moving forward, I only wanted dogs that lived long and healthy lives, that were intelligent and had wonderful dispositions. That is how I came to learn of well-bred dogs. I got on a waitlist for my very own golden and on May 5, 2018, Cali came home and changed our world forever. We started with her in dog sports such as dock diving and barn hunt, but it wasn't until 2021 when Koa came into our lives that we became involved in the conformation ring. 

We decided to take the plunge of owner-handling Koa in the AKC conformation ring, and had no idea what we were walking into. I loved watching the national dog show on Thanksgiving and had been to one dog show before. Jon on the other hand, had never even seen a show before heading to our first. We got to the fairgrounds in West Friendship, MD as ready as we could be for our first show. We searched for the elusive day grooming spots before giving up and setting up our grooming table outside in 40 degree weather to do last minute touchups. I remember being so stressed trying to figure out how to pick up Koa's number or how we would know which class was in and when it was her turn to go. Somehow our little 9 month old puppy won her 9-12 class both days and we were hooked ever since. After about two years of showing intermittently and hundreds of hours of learning, training, and grooming, we finished Koa's championship completely owner handled and achieved more than we ever could have imagined. Just as beautiful as she is smart, we knew she would be the perfect foundation bitch for our breeding program. 

I spent years trying to come up with a kennel name I loved and I had two criteria: 1) the name had to have meaning behind it and 2) it had to contain "cal". I created a list of hundreds of words that included "cal"- magical, radical, focal, caliber, caliente. Nothing felt right until I saw the word Caldera: a beautiful geographic feature that is formed after the eruption of a volcano. It felt like it embodied so much of what I have been through, beauty built from difficult times. Including "cal" was the most important to me though in honor of my heart dog Cali. Though she isn't the physical foundation bitch of our kennel, she is my foundation in golden retrievers. And so Caldera Golden Retrievers was born, a representation of all the struggles we have been through and a nod to my heart girl.

At Caldera Golden Retrievers, our mission is to breed healthy, intelligent, structurally correct, and versatile golden retrievers that excel in whatever is asked of them. From conformation to performance sports, therapy work, family pets or anything in between, our dogs are bred to honor the golden retriever standard: "a symmetrical, powerful, active dog, sound and well put together, not clumsy nor long in the leg, displaying a kindly expression and possessing a personality that is eager, alert and self-confident." All of our breeding dogs have OFA hip, elbow, cardiac, and annual eye clearances and meet all standards as outlined by the Golden Retriever Club of America's Code of Ethics. We only have one, and on occasion two, litters per year. Our dogs are our beloved pets and members of our family first and foremost. They live in our house, sleep on our bed, and are loved immensely. We encourage you to browse our website to get to know our dogs, learn how we raise puppies, and read over general resources on owning a golden retriever.

We are proud members in good standing of the Golden Retriever Club of America, Yankee Golden Retriever Club, and Autumn Valley Golden Retriever Club.