Price & terms
$2,800, for every puppy
The price is the same for every puppy in a litter, any color, either sex, hunting home or family home. We don't charge more for chocolate or for 'pick'.
It covers what you'd expect — vaccine, deworming, microchip, vet exam, papers — and the parts that don't show: two adults' worth of health testing every year (about $1,400 per dog), a stud fee or our own stud's travel, progesterone timing and ultrasound, eight weeks of someone sleeping near the whelping box, and a guarantee we actually pay. In a typical year our litters cover their costs and a little of the dogs' keep. That's the honest economics.
What the price includes
Every puppy goes home with
- AKC registration — full for hunting and competition homes; limited for family homes, changed to full at no charge once OFA finals and a CAER exam are done
- First DAPPv vaccine (Nobivac Canine 1-DAPPv), given September 30, 2026, with the record for your vet
- Dewormed at 2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks (pyrantel), plus 3 days of fenbendazole at week 6
- Microchip implanted October 5 and enrolled with AKC Reunite in your name
- Exam and health certificate from our vet in Hamilton on October 12
- Four-generation pedigree with titles and OFA numbers
- Copies of both parents' OFA, CAER and DNA results
- The Ridgeline Puppy Contract, with the 30-month hip, elbow and eye guarantee
- Puppy pack: 6 lb of the Pro Plan puppy food they're eating, a towel from the whelping box, a canvas puppy bumper, a pheasant wing in a zip bag, collar and slip lead
- Care binder: feeding, vaccine and deworming schedule, and our first-month training plan
- 30 days of AKC Pet Insurance (activate within a week)
- Lifetime phone support, the owners' Facebook group and the June reunion
Price and payment
$2,800 for every puppy, any color or sex, hunting home or family home. The $500 deposit is taken only after we've approved you, and it is credited to the price; the $2,300 balance is due at pickup by cashier's check, cash or card. We never take gift cards, crypto, or a wire to anyone but us.
The terms, one at a time
Deposit: $500
Taken only after we've talked and approved you — never through a form. Credited to the price. Fully refundable until the litter is born, or if we can't match you with a puppy. After birth it's non-refundable but can move once to another litter within 18 months.
Balance: $2,300
Due at pickup, by cashier's check, cash, or card (with the card fee). Never gift cards, crypto, Zelle or a wire to anyone but us. We send a written receipt for every payment.
Registration
Full AKC registration for hunting and competition homes. Limited registration for family homes — not a judgment, just how we keep track of breeding — changed to full at no charge once your dog has OFA finals and a CAER exam.
The contract
The Ridgeline Puppy Contract (2026 edition), four pages, signed at pickup. We send it to you with the deposit receipt so you read it weeks ahead, not on the tailgate.
30-month guarantee
If OFA rates your dog's hips or elbows dysplastic, or a CAER exam finds an inherited eye disease, before 30 months: we refund $1,500, or you get a puppy from a future litter. You keep your dog either way.
Genetic guarantee, for life
If your dog is ever affected by EIC, CNM, prcd-PRA, HNPK, SD2 or DM — which its parents' results say can't happen — we refund the full price.
Spay and neuter
We ask that you wait: females after their first season or 12 months, males 15–18 months, on the UC Davis Labrador joint studies. The hip and elbow guarantee requires no spay or neuter before 12 months, and a lean dog.
Lifetime take-back
If you ever can't keep your dog — at four months or at eleven years — it comes back to us, and we find it the right home. You may not sell or rehome a Ridgeline dog without calling us first.
Terms of sale
The seller is Ridgeline Labradors, Matt and Jodi Kessler, Corvallis, Montana. Montana does not license hobby breeders; we are a home kennel with six adult dogs, and we follow AKC's Care and Conditions policy and are subject to AKC kennel inspections as Breeders of Merit.
The contract is governed by Montana law. Nothing in it limits rights you have under your own state's pet-purchase law; where your state's law gives you more, you get more. Health certificates meet interstate travel rules for every state our puppies have gone to.
We don't sell to brokers, pet stores or anyone buying for someone else, and we don't sell more than one puppy from a litter to one household.
Paying safely
This is our only website. Our phone number is (406) 555-0147 and our email ends in @ridgelinelabradors.com — nothing else is us.
We never ship a puppy you haven't met, by air cargo or by ground transport. We never take gift cards, crypto, Zelle or a wire to anyone but us, and we never ask for 'crate', 'insurance' or 'customs' fees. If someone shows you our photos with a different phone number, the photos are stolen; please tell us.