- Phyllis Giroux, co-owner of Deep Run Farm, praises a yellow Labrador after the dog completes a basic obedience exercise. Positive conditioning is an essential part of the training.

- Phyllis Giroux, co-owner of Deep Run Farm, praises a yellow Labrador after the dog completes a basic obedience exercise. Positive conditioning is an essential part of the training.

- Phyllis Giroux, co-owner of Deep Run Farm, praises a yellow Labrador after the dog completes a basic obedience exercise. Positive conditioning is an essential part of the training.

Deep Run Farm owners Phyllis Giroux and Jack Jagoda love Labradors. Phyllis Giroux, co-owner of Deep Run Farm, praises a yellow Labrador after the dog completes a basic obedience exercise. Positive conditioning is an essential part of the training.

- Phyllis Giroux, co-owner of Deep Run Farm, praises a yellow Labrador after the dog completes a basic obedience exercise. Positive conditioning is an essential part of the training.

- Phyllis Giroux, co-owner of Deep Run Farm, praises a yellow Labrador after the dog completes a basic obedience exercise. Positive conditioning is an essential part of the training.

- Phyllis Giroux, co-owner of Deep Run Farm, praises a yellow Labrador after the dog completes a basic obedience exercise. Positive conditioning is an essential part of the training.

- Phyllis Giroux, co-owner of Deep Run Farm, praises a yellow Labrador after the dog completes a basic obedience exercise. Positive conditioning is an essential part of the training.

The dog days never end at Deep Run Farm in Goldvein. But that's OK with owners Phyllis Giroux and Jack Jagoda. By Lee Woolf

Date published: 10/7/2006

HYLLIS GIROUX and Jack Jagoda are leaders of the pack.

That's true whether they are sitting amid a litter of squirming puppies, guiding a group of energetic Labrador retrievers on a walk, or turning a Fauquier County cattle farm into one of the top training, breeding and canine health-care facilities in the nation.

Deep Run Farm sits on 116 acres in Goldvein, not far from the Stafford-Fauquier border and about 20 miles northwest of Fredericksburg.

Giroux, who is 56, and Jagoda, 61, purchased the property about 12 years ago. They were longtime friends who decided to go into business together. Giroux was a practicing veterinarian from the Tidewater area. Jagoda formerly owned and managed All-American Sports Awards in Stafford County.

Both are dog lovers and have a special affection for Labs.

"I had this dream, if I could just find some land," Giroux said. "Then the farm became available. And I knew I could just keep wishing, or make it so.

"We could ill afford it when we started. We figured there was a good chance we'd run it for two or three years and then go bankrupt."

"I think the place grew in spite of us," added Jagoda with a smile.

The business started as a breeding operation with about a dozen Labs and two or three litters of puppies each year.

Now, there are about 60 dogs on-site, and the business includes breeding, obedience training, field training, boarding and health care. Besides Giroux and Jagoda, there are four full-time employees and additional part-timers for the busy seasons. And these days, each month brings two litters of about eight puppies each to join the farm family.

Giroux said about 80 percent of the farm's business comes from referrals. Dogs with Deep Run Farm on their resume have earned hundreds of titles in various competitions, from field trials and agility tests to American Kennel Club breed shows at places like Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Giroux proudly points out that the No. 1 "beauty contest" Lab in America was trained at Deep Run, as was the first search-and-rescue dog that entered the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Giroux, with her extensive veterinary background, and Jagoda, a seasoned hunter and trainer, are considered experts in their fields.

With 50 years of combined experience, both are published writers, frequent hosts for dog demonstrations, clinics and competitions, and contributors to training videos, TV programs and outdoor magazines.

Retrievers from Deep Run Farm have demonstrated their skills on ESPN, TNN, Outdoor Life, Animal Planet and the Outdoor Channel. And several episodes of regular programs on those TV networks have been filmed on-site.

Giroux and Jagoda even hosted a re-triever demonstration at the Rayburn House Office Building in downtown Washington that included having dogs splash amid decoys in the fountain pool next to the building.

Date published: 10/7/2006