MEET THE BREEDERS

MEET THE BREEDERS

Hello and thank you for visiting our site.  We hope you enjoying browsing our site and meeting our dogs.  We love our dogs very much and each and every one of them holds a special place in our hearts.

My name is Bonnie Hansen.  I have been breeding and training Labrador Retrievers since 1998. My husband Matt and our two children, Kyle and Emilee, are very involved in this dog breeding hobby as well.  Kyle and Emilee have both been actively showing our dogs in 4-H dog projects for 8 years as well as out in the field hunting upland game birds.

In addition to our dogs, we have many other hobbies.  We all enjoy horseback riding and horse show competitions, participating in the swine project in 4-H, archery and rifle competitions, hunting, snow skiing and water sports.  We also keep busy with all those school related sports such as Basketball, Football, Volleyball, Track and Tennis.   We live in Northern California, in the heart of olive and almond country, with all of the outdoor things we love, right at our fingertips.

HOW WE GOT OUR NAME

Many people ask us how we got our name Japatul (HAP-A-TOOL) and what does it mean.  Both my husband and I were raised in the east mountains of San Diego County, in small towns called Descanso and Alpine.  Just after we got married, we purchased an 8 acre parcel of land on a road called Japatul Valley in Alpine, CA.   It is there we built our first home, started a family and began our Labrador breeding hobby, thus becoming know as Japatul Labradors.

I am not 100% sure of the meaning of Japatul but have been told by many elders of that area that it is an Indian term meaning "water basket".  At one time, Japatul Valley was a beautiful, lush place with a creek running right through the heart of the Valley.  With years and years of drought and too many people building homes in the area, it is no longer the lush place it once was.  Wells have gone dry, ours did too, and it is looking more and more desert like.  There are a lot of indian artifacts near and around the creek area which tells me it was paradise for those people.  It is still a lovely place to live but not quite paradise.

In 2001, my husband and I decided to start searching for properties in areas with more water and more space.  So we set out to Northern California in search for the perfect piece of property.  We found 22 lovely acres on a private ranch estates in the valley of Corning Ca.  Sorrounded by snow capped mountains in the winter and lakes in every direction, we thought it would be a great place to finish raising our kids.  In 2005, we packed up the family, our 10 dogs, 4 horses, 1 cat and all of our stuff and headed up North.  We rented a small house, and I mean small,  for two long years while we built our dream home and barn.  We are living in our new house now, which is still and always will be, a work in progress. 

Below are some pictures of our life.  Thank you for viewing and hope you come to visit sometime.  We would love to meet you.

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