We live 8 hours drive north from Helsinki, the capital of Finland in the city called Oulu (over 130 000 inhabitants). Oulu is located in the Northern Finland, coast of the Bothnian Bay. Our home is about 8 km from centre to south, nice suburban area, next to forests and fields.

Mari's almost 20 years dream of Golden Retriever came true when Sara (Kokiksen Georgina) moved to live with us.
First memories of the breed are back to 80's. When we looked for our first golden we wanted golden with color of cream. Well, when we saw Sara for the first time she was the only gold colouring in the litter. And it was love at first sight.

Animals has always shown a part of our lives. In a little girl Mari took out neighbors' dogs without any charge. Mari spent her time also in horsestables and horsecompetitions. Before dogs Mari had cats, hamster and lizards. Antti had birds.

Before we even had a dog we were sure that we want to have a dog whom with can go in for different activities. We have gone in for dog shows with our both dogs. Sara has qualified in the field and she has also qualified in the character tests of Golden Ring and Finnish Kennel Club. We have also trained obedience with her. We are going to start later Gundog working trials and official obedience tests with her also.

When the second dog came thoughts we also thought ia Flatcoated Retrievers. But when the talks turned serious Golden Retriever was the only choice. Ida (Karvin Irish Heart) moved to live with us in Easter 2007.

It's important that our dogs can do things where the breed has refined at the beginning. Our dogs will also take a part of character tests.

We qualified in the breeder course in autumn 2007 and FCI announced us kennelname Alongside in spring 2008. We think "Alongside" depicts perfectly Golden Retrievers. They stays always alongside you being forever friends.

We are planning our first Alongside-litter in spring 2009. We aim at healty and good behavior Golden Retriever who has look but also natural ability to work actively. We hope puppies ends up to good and active families who appreciates Golden Retrievers' genome in fetching gundog. Golden Retrievers needs also good obedience training and in active breed they need activities in their life also later. We hope also that new puppyowners would train qualifing the field. It wouldn't be bad thing to see dogs bred by us in the dog shows also. When puppies have moved to their new homes we love to hear and get pictures from them also later on.

Different dog activities has bring us lots of good friends over the Finland. Great thank you for Sari and Heidi for all your advices and trust. Thank you for the fabilous dogs and offspring of your dogs! We want to thank you also Katja and Matti for Sara.
                                       
Mari Särkelä & Antti Hattunen
                                       
                                       
                                       
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