Origins and Plans

Kona Coffee Farm

We enjoy the world's best climate on our coffee farm at a 1,600-foot elevation.  The sun shines 360 mornings a year, and clouds cover many afternoons.  Temperatures vary from 58 degrees on some winter nights, to 85 degrees on some summer days, with the usual temperature being 80 degrees for days and 65 degrees at night, year-round.  Rain is seasonal, with dry falls and winters and rainier springs and summers, when the coffee trees are flowering and fruiting.  

Eleven years ago, there were few good Labs and no Lab stud dogs in Kona.  Sandra imported foundation stock from Australia and New Zealand and began breeding sound, good-looking Labrador companions.  She feeds the raw-meaty-bones diet to adults and to puppies as soon as they begin solid foods.  Aloha Labradors is very successful in placing great puppies with great families  that continue the raw diet.

In February 2010, we decided to add standard Poodles to the kennel.  We noticed there are few standard Poodles in Kona.  After some research and thinking, we concluded that people don't know what great family companions standard poodles can be.  If standard poodles are presented as the sporting dogs they were bred to be, they will be more popular. 

We began by importing excellent breeding stock (puppies) from Australia and the US mainland.  .In the first year, we acquired 7 standard poodles, including one adult female. We had our first litter in March 2011.  We learned how to groom faces and feet and when to use professional grooming.  We learned that poodles are not the voracious eaters Labs are, but they thrive on raw-meaty-bones.  We learned that standards are intelligent, affectionate companions that are also excellent guard dogs.  They bark a lot when strangers come.

Elaborate show clips do not appeal to us, especially on standards, which have great dignity and natural beauty with more modest hair-dos.  We're into wash-and-wear and active dogs.  Labrador retrievers swim, dry off, and rarely need to be bathed.  A poodle can be an active sporting dog that is clipped in a simple, overall fashion.

Thus, began Kona Poodles.  In 2012, we plan to have a brown litter with Nani bred to a mainland brown dog and a red/apricot litter with Rika and Teddy.  Perhaps, later in the year we will breed Ruby to a suitable stud dog. 

We decided not to breed cream and white poodles on the farm.  Our dogs run, swim, and play in grass and brush.  We cannot keep white poodles looking good.  Quincy has become a service dog for a great family in South Kona.