Dogs are not our whole lives, but they make our lives whole... Roger Caras
It's Time to Meet the Family
Welcome to As You Wish Retrievers! Our team at As You Wish Retrievers is made up of Debbie, husband, Matt, and daughter, Kristen Beattie. We are a family owned kennel located in Harrisville, Michigan. Our family has raised many waterfowl and upland retrievers that love what they do.
Our journey into the pointing labrador retriever world began when we became empty nesters, and Matt and Debbie decided it was time to get back into the fun and games of owning a lab. We were looking at smaller bred labs which led our search to pointing labs. What we thought was our new hobby quickly became a lifestyle and we created As You Wish Retrievers. Our kennel currently consists of four female pointing labs that hunt and run to the highest level of APLA, AKC, and HRC hunt tests.
You may recognize the phrase “as you wish” from the movie “The Princess Bride”, a family favorite in the Beattie household. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this classic film, we recommend stopping what you are doing and gathering the family for a movie night, but I will provide you a little backstory on the connection between that phrase and our labs. In “The Princess Bride” the farm boy, Westley, would answer Princess Buttercup’s requests with the same phrase “as you wish” every time, regardless of the nature of the request. As lab owners know we ask a A LOT of our dogs. From climbing over logs and thru deep muck in a pothole to retrieve a downed wood duck, chasing roosters thru thick cattails in the cold, harsh winter days in South Dakota, to running down a cripple goose in the field, carrying it back biting the dog’s ear, and our dogs do this happily for us day in and day out. We believe every time we step to the line to send our dog for a mark or get the dog out of the car to start hunting a field, our labs here at As You Wish Retrievers are saying to us in their own way “as you wish”.
In June 2021, we were presented with the opportunity to purchase the former Dockside Kennels in Harrisville, Michigan and we jumped at the opportunity to expand and move our business north. Together our goal is to help you find and train the best hunting partners and family members for your home.
We hope to see you soon!
The Beattie Family
Kristen, Debbie and Matt are joined by Cricket, Puck and Goose.
Our family practices what we learn and teach and takes every opportunity to get out in the real world to test the skills we all train so hard to perfect.