At Sunbuilt Retrievers, our purpose is simple: to raise exceptional Golden (and soon) Labrador Retrievers who are beautiful, healthy, and thoughtfully prepared for the lives ahead of them. Whether that future is as a service dog, therapy dog, performance partner, or deeply loved family companion, we strive to give every puppy the strongest possible foundation from the very beginning.

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Howdy! I’m Sammye.​

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I’m a Certified Professional Dog Trainer, preservation breeder, and lifelong dog enthusiast. I’m also a proud honors graduate of Texas A&M University, where I earned my degree in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience in College Station, TX.​​

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My journey with dogs began long before Sunbuilt Retrievers. I started volunteering with animal rescues in high school, and while attending Texas A&M, I became involved with Aggie Guide Dogs and Service Dogs (AGS). Through that experience, I began raising and training puppies to become future service dogs and discovered just how profoundly the right dog, thoughtfully bred, raised, and trained, can change someone’s life.

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​These experiences helped shape the direction my life would take.​

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Over the years, I expanded my work to pet dog training with an emphasis on positive reinforcement-focused training methods and behavior modification helping dog owners with manners, remedial socialization, reactivity, separation anxiety, resource guarding, and more. I eventually founded my own professional dog training company and continued pursuing advanced education, specialization, and certification. 

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But I kept coming back to the beginning of the story: the puppy itself.

 

Training can accomplish incredible things, but genetics, health, temperament, early development, and thoughtful socialization all contribute to the dog a puppy will become. I have trained rescue dogs from shelters and owner surrenders for service and therapy, but overall success rates are much less reliable with an unknown history and parentage. I wanted to bring my experience as a professional trainer into breeding and puppy raising, with a particular focus on producing dogs with the health, temperament, confidence, and trainability needed to succeed in demanding roles such as task-trained service dog work and certified therapy dog work, while preserving the wonderful qualities that make Golden and Labrador Retrievers such beloved companions.

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That vision became Sunbuilt Retrievers.

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Today, my breeding program brings together comprehensive health testing, thoughtful pedigree selection, science-informed puppy development, and years of hands-on dog training experience. Our puppies are raised in our home with intentional socialization and development inspired by programs such as Puppy Culture and Avidog, while each puppy is treated as an individual whose personality, strengths, and needs matter.

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I believe breeding is about much more than producing puppies. It is about preserving and improving the breeds we love, making thoughtful decisions for future generations, preparing puppies for the lives they will lead, and standing behind the families who welcome them home.

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Our dogs are our life. We live with them, train with them, compete with them, celebrate their accomplishments and birthdays, and stay connected with the families who love the puppies we raise.

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For me, Sunbuilt is where everything I love about dogs comes together: breeding, behavior, training, science, service, the outdoors, and an incredible love for these breeds.