The History of the Keystone Retriever Club

Keystone Retriever Club originally began as the "Susquehanna Hunting Retriever Club" in the early 80"s as a parent organization of the Susquehanna Waterfowlers Association, primarily made up of duck hunters who hunted the Susquehanna River system of central Pennsylvania. The old Susquehanna Retriever Club started out as a training group of dedicated duck hunters wanting to keep their "Chessies" retrieving during the off season. This original group consisted of about 40 members at its height in 1997. With the newer members beginning to get evolved in the various hunt test programs - and with central Pa. not having a licensed AKC retriever club - it was a natural progression for The Susquehanna Retriever Club to expand. 
  
A group of 15 members wanting a new AKC club in central Pa. met in December of 1997 to plan licensing the Susquehanna Retriever Club to the AKC. In the process of doing this the AKC requested a name change of the Susquehanna Retriever Club as not to conflict with a club of the same name located in Maryland. The members selected the Keystone Retriever Club as the new name of the older organization. 

The licensing process for Keystone Retriever Club lasted from January 1998 until our license was granted in April of 1999. At that time Keystone became a licensed member of the American Kennel Club with the ability of offering licensed retriever events. During the first year of the licensing process Keystone grew from 40 members to close to 80, and then to about 130 buy the end of 1999. The KRC membership is quite diverse... from the competitive game of field trials to the casual duck hunter and every thing in between. KRC's strength has always been that it is a "members" organization, offering everyone the opportunity to train their retriever and,  importantly,  to learn how to train their Dog. 
 
Keystone's primary mission is to help educate our members in the training and handling of their dogs to better themselves and there respective breeds