Family-raisedGolden Retrievers
Golden Retrievers raised in our farmhouse outside Franklin, Tennessee.
Proud Member Of
Golden Retriever Club of AmericaOur Story
Golden Retrievers raised in our farmhouse outside Franklin, Tennessee.
We're the family at the end of the gravel drive: Annie, Caleb and our three kids, on fourteen acres outside Franklin with a creek along the back fence and a white oak in the front pasture that lightning hollowed out long before we got here. The tree is still standing. It gave the place its name.
Our first Golden, Honey, came home in the spring of 2012 as a family dog and nothing more. She was the kind of dog who made strangers in the hardware store ask where she came from, and she is the reason we learned what a hip rating and an eye exam were in the first place. We whelped our first litter in the fall of 2014 with a mentor from our Golden club on speed dial, and we have kept it small ever since: two or three litters a year, every one of them born in the room off our kitchen.
Puppies Available Now
View All Litters →Biscuit × Boone
Born Aug 3, 2026
Seven puppies, four boys and three girls, born on a Monday morning between 4:10 and 9:30 with Biscuit doing all of the work and Annie mostly holding a towel. Birth weights ran from 13 to 17 ounces and everybody had doubled by day nine. The kids named them after apples because the orchard down the road opened that same week. They are almost seven weeks old and spend most of the day on the lawn between the house and the barn, chasing bubbles, a toy football and each other. They finished Early Neurological Stimulation on day 16 and have worked through the Puppy Culture weeks since: a new surface or object every day, startle and recovery work with a dropped pan, manding for attention, short sessions alone in a crate with a chew, and their first car rides. Their vet check and first vaccine are this week. Colors run from Biscuit's pale cream to a true medium gold. Look at the ears for the adult shade. Temperament evaluations were on Saturday, September 19, and we have spent the days since on the phone matching puppies to families. Five are spoken for. Russet and Winnie are still open to the right homes. Go-home day is Saturday, October 3, at eight and a half weeks.
Biscuit
Boone
Go home October 3, 2026
This Litter
What We Offer
Built around the puppy, not the sale.
Every part of our program is here for a reason.
Available Puppies
Browse our current litters and see which puppies are still looking for their forever home. Updated in real time from our app.
Meet Our Parents
Every puppy's future starts with its parents. See our health-tested sires and dams, their titles, certifications, and personalities.
Health Guarantee
Every puppy goes home with a written 26-month guarantee covering hip and elbow dysplasia, subvalvular aortic stenosis and other hereditary heart disease, and hereditary eye disease, as diagnosed by OFA or a board-certified specialist. If it happens, you choose between a refund of the purchase price or a puppy from a future litter, and you keep your dog either way. We would never ask a family to give back a dog they love. Separately from the guarantee, any Hollow Oak dog can come back to us at any age and for any reason. That part is in the contract too, and it is not optional: our dogs do not end up in shelters.
Why Hollow Oak Goldens
Raised right, from the ground up.
Born and raised in our house
Puppies are whelped in the room off our kitchen and move to the sunroom at four weeks. They grow up underfoot, handled every day by adults and by kids who have been taught how to hold a puppy properly.
Every clearance, in public
OFA hips, elbows, cardiologist heart and yearly eyes on every parent, plus DNA for PRA1, PRA2, prcd-PRA, NCL and ichthyosis. We give you the registered names so you can pull the records yourself.
A real puppy curriculum
Early Neurological Stimulation from day 3 to day 16, then the Puppy Culture protocols week by week: startle recovery, barrier challenges, manding, crate time, car rides and a new surface or sound most days.
Matched to your family
We temperament test every puppy at seven weeks and match from there. The quiet observer goes to the therapy home, the busy one goes to the family with three boys and a pond. Nobody picks from a photo at three days old.
From Our Families
Loved dogs, happy homes.
12
Years breeding
185+
Families served
27
Litters whelped
6
Health-tested dogs
Common Questions
Straight Answers
Start with the application. We read every one, and then we call you, because a fifteen-minute phone call tells both of us more than any form. If it seems like a fit, a $500 deposit puts you on the list for a specific litter or for the next one with a puppy that suits you. Deposits are refundable until the litter is born, and they roll to the next litter if the one you were waiting on comes up short. Most families wait four to eight months.
We match, you don't pick from a lineup, and we know that is hard to hear when you have been staring at puppy photos for a month. At seven weeks a friend who trains service dogs runs a structured temperament evaluation on each puppy, away from the litter, in a room they have never seen. We put that together with seven weeks of living with them and with what you told us about your household. Families choose in deposit order from the puppies that fit them. In twelve years we have had very few people disagree with the match once they met the puppies in person.
Every parent has OFA hips and elbows done at 24 months or later, a heart clearance by a board-certified veterinary cardiologist (not a general practice vet with a stethoscope), and an eye exam by a veterinary ophthalmologist repeated every year for as long as the dog is being bred. We keep examining eyes after retirement too, because pigmentary uveitis tends to show up late. On the DNA side we test for PRA1, PRA2, prcd-PRA, NCL and ichthyosis. Ichthyosis carriers are very common in Goldens and a carrier is a healthy dog, so we don't throw a good dog out over it. We breed carriers only to clear dogs, which means no puppy of ours can be affected.
It would be dishonest to leave this off the page. Goldens have more cancer than most breeds, there is no test for it, and any breeder who tells you their lines are cancer free is guessing or selling. What we can do is study pedigrees for how long the dogs actually lived and what they died of, favor lines with dogs reaching 12, 13 and 14, keep our dogs lean, and tell you the truth about our own. Honey, our first Golden, lived to 13 and a half.
Ready to Find Your Dog?
Your next good friend
is out here waiting.
We'd love to help match you with the right puppy for your family. Reach out — we keep it personal.