Mardas Labrador Retrievers

We acquired our first labrador in 1968 or at least he acquired us.  Before the labradors we had boxers for many years from Alan Dawson of the Stainburndoff Kennels near Otley.  But they died and we were without dogs for over 6 months. Our three sons who were getting too old for Easter Eggs were asked what they would like for Easter instead of Easter Eggs.  All three answered lets have another dog!!!!! Well for 6 months I`d had a lovely clean house with spotless floors, no slobbering on clothes or furniture. But we agreed to look into having a new dog.

It was just at that time that the Afghan hound was becoming very popular and I would have liked an Afghan but they were very expensive and it was very hard to find someone who would sell us an Afghan as a pet. All the breeders were wanting to put out their females on breeding terms and I did nt want to go down that road.   Our Vet told us of a labrador male puppy that needed a home. So we set off to see this young labrador and he fell in love with us on first site and of course we fell for him. He was so excited to see us and was running around in frantic circles. Our sons just would nt have left him there in the farm kennels even if my husband and I did nt want him. So we came home with a yellow labrador puppy. He settled in well and we loved him very much. People who saw him said we should enquire at various show kennels to see if they had bred him  and could give us his pedigree. At that time the Kennel Club allowed dogs to be registered on a provisional registration if three Championship Show judges agreed that it was a pedigree animal and that they would sign to that effect. Well we went around the show kennels asking if they had bred Shan. No one was sure if they had bred him or not so we never did get him registered with the Kennel Club. So he remained a pet. However during the time we were going around the Show kennels we made alot of new friends. These friends encouraged us to buy another labrador male this time a black one. We bought him from the Keithray kennels which were owned by Jack and Mary Wilkinson living in Bradford and Championship show judges. We brought Keithray Venturesome home and this was to be the start of a new life in pedigree dogs. We also bought a black female called Keithray Anthea another lovely black labrador from Jack and Mary she was eventually mated producing a lovely litter and we kept a show qualifty bitch that we registered as Bridget of Rosevilla and mated her eventually to Venturesome and the resulting litter produced a black bitch we eventually called Mardas Vivette. By this time we had registered our Official Kennel name of  "Mardas." Mardas was made up of the letters Mar for Marlene D for David (my husband and son) A for Andrew another son and S from Stephen our third and youngest son.  We also bought a couple of yellow labradors from the Longley kennels at Wragby. For one reason or another we seemed to do well in the show ring with the blacks rather than the yellows. So basically became for many years a BLACK kennel. Our first Show Champion

Sh Ch Martin of Mardas was from a mating of Vivette`s to Ch Ballyduff Marketeer. Sh Ch Martin of Mardas himself a black was born in 1975 and from there we have gone on from strength to strength producing 7 champions in England up to date and many many more abroad we have bred  Champions in all three colours - liver or chocolate as its now commonly called - yellows and blacks. Sh Ch Martin of Mardas produced a son who for many years was the top winning labrador holding the breed record of the highest number of Challenge Certificates. Also Sh Ch Martin of Mardas is in most of the show labradors pedigrees of today. We also won Challenge Certificates with a liver called Special Edition of Mardas Another of our famous Show Champions is a yellow called Sh Ch. Mardas Cordilly and is on the cover of Garry Johnsons book of pedigrees based on winning Champions from 1946 onwards. My love for the Labrador breed has been constant. To this day I`m still in love with the Labrador Breed. My Labradors have helped me through many troubled times. They have always been there for me. Happy to be loved and give loyality and love without question.

 We ve judged Labradors at Speciality Labrador Shows and General Championship Shows. We ve made many friends who also love animals and Labradors in particular the World over and this in turn has given us many happy hours judging and travelling in Countries to name just a few France.Germany.Estonia.Italy.Canada.America.Russia.Japan.New Zealand and Australia.

I ve judged many of the LABRADOR RETRIEVER CLUBS around the World which is a great honour but the greatest Honour must be when I was asked to judge males at Crufts in 2006. The exhibitors entering under me gave me the highest record entry.   I shall always be grate to my fellow exhibitors for making it a very enjoyable and interesting day to remember.