June celebrates her 10th birthday on June 15th, 2009 ... also celebrating are litter-mates: Nick-at-Knight, Good-Knight-Irene, Knight-Before-Christmas, Starry-Starry-Knight, Indian-Summer-Knight

YNDA'S MIDSUMR-KNIGHTS-DREAM, REGISTER OF MERIT
"JUNE'
OFA EXCELLENT, OPTIGEN A, CERF, BB
MULTI-BISS CH BLACKDUX KNIGHT MOVES, JH X LYNDHURST JESSICA

SIX YEARS OLD
IN THE RING
IN FLORIDA

Miss June's Official 10th Birthday Pictures below:

 
we celebrate June's wellness at this birthday, we are so thankful to have her with us each and every day ...
she has benefitted tremendously from acupuncture on a weekly and bi-weekly basis since October 2007 ...
thanks to Jeannette Scott for making the suggestion and to Dr Brianna Idleman for such great care of our June.
June loves Brianna and cant wait to get in the car and arrive at acupuncture.  She whines -- ''are we there yet '' --
all the way to the office.  We should all be so lucky to have a dog like this one!

   This is is June in her favorite chair.  If you look closely
you will see that she has 1 eye cracked open watching the camera.
June is 8 years old in this picture.

June on her 9th birthday after nearly dying just after her 8th birthday from inflammatory
hepatitis ... she was still recovering at her 9th birthday.

You know you are NOT supposed to have FAVORITES in your kennel, but June is THE  favorite.  She is such a sweet, obedient, gentle dog that it's impossible to keep from just adoring her.  She loves to swim and retrieve, and has even caught bass out of the pond by sneaking down the high bank in the shadows.  June has a great nose, and loves to flush game birds!  An all around great labrador, June has proven to be a superb producer, and is the mother of multi-BIS/BISS GRCH Martin, RBIS GRCH St. John and RBIS GRCH Imp. The only producing offspring of Lyndhurst Jessica, June carried on all the attributes of her mother's line and added her own short coupling, and awesome tail to that heritage.

June is named to ULRA's Register of Merit in August 2004. 
Congratulations to June for this accomplishment with only 3 offspring!

To us, June epitomizes the true Labrador temperament.

Some of our favorite 'june stories':

'The tail'.  When this litter was young, we decided to keep litter sisters June and Irene.  They were nearly identical, except that Irene was a bit taller and a bit longer in rib cage.  We took them to many places and many shows.  When we showed them in Raleigh to breeder-judge Deborah McKinley, I handled June and Andy handled Irene.  Deborah got to June and went over her.  Then she held the tail, and went from base to tip, then she went from base to tip again, then she went from base to tip again.  June turned her head around, never moving a paw, as if to say, 'enough already, its my tail, lady'.  Deborah and I both laughed.  June won her class.

'the fish': June and Irene spent many hours 'on the pond' which means running around in the fenced area that encompasses our pond and its immediate grassed area -- maybe an acre in size.  They loved to swim together, to retrieve when we would throw for them, and to spend their days investigating every little detail of the flora and fauna of the pond.  One afternoon, Andy and I were washing the car in front of the house, and we looked over to check on the girls at the pond.  I was not wearing my glasses and I cant see worth anything at a distance.  I said, 'oh my gosh, Andy, one of the girls has something alive in her mouth.'  I could see one of them carrying something in her mouth that was sticking out of both ends and flapping.  The other sister was trying for all she was worth to steal the prize away.  So we rushed over the pond, opened the gate, saw it was June carrying the 'prize', and Andy said, 'my goodness, she has a fish in her mouth.'  I thought there was no way this was possible, but sure enough, when we reached Irene and June, Irene had managed to bite the tail of the fish off, and June was still carrying the remainder.  It was a small mouth bass.  We could not imagine how June had managed to catch a bass fish out of the pond.  The fish looked perfectly normal and we had both seen it alive and flapping in her mouth.  June is exceptionally 'soft mouthed' just like her mother, Jessica.  Well, in another day or two, we watched and learned June's method.  She would sit for a while on the tall bank above the pond.  When the shadows were just right, she would very very slowly creep down the bank under the bushes.  It took her almost 30 minutes to creep down the bank to water's edge.  There she waited motionlessly until a fish was just under her position and she dove into the water with her mouth open, sure enough to catch a fish.  Utterly unbelievable to us that she had this instinct.
June and her littermates at about 10 weeks old.  June is laying down, looking over her brother's head, she is on the left, wearing the pink collar.  Irene is sitting and wearing the light purple collar.  The other sitting puppy wearing the turquoise collar is Chatham.  The two boys are lying down -- on the left is Jay and on the right is Nick.  These were the last pups born in Atkinson, NC before we moved to the mountains.  You can see June's sweet expression even at 10 weeks old.

' The bird':  We finally decided to breed June when she was about 3 years old.  We thought it would be wonderful to mate her to her paternal grandsire, Chelon's Mac The Knight.  I drove June 17.5 hours one-way to Oskaloosa, Iowa where Mac lived.  He was almost 12 years old at the time and it was better to do a side-by-side collection than try to ship chilled semen.  The Reeves were very nice and allowed June and I to stay there with them.  There was a large corn field -- acres and acres -- adjacent to their property, and that's where I would walk with June.  Well, the first time we went out to walk, June and I, we walked quite a ways out.  On the way back, June was be-bopping along beside me when suddenly she turned 90 degrees to the left, put her nose down almost to the ground, and her tail went into a gear I had never seen before.  She stopped alert and still, almost like a pointer would stop and freeze, and then she took a plunge like a jump into some cut-down corn stalks.  Up flew the biggest bird I had ever seen that close up.  You have to understand Andy is the hunter in our family, not me.  June was very pleased with herself, looked at me as if to say, 'hey, Mom, isn't that cool?'  Well, she proceeded to put her nose down and repeat this exact sequence 3 more times within the next 30 seconds or so.  Finally, I said, enough, Miss June June.  I know you are flushing the birds for me, but I don't have a gun to shut them with.  She looked sad, but accepted my decision.  When I described the event to Andy and described the birds to Andy, he laughed and told me that June was flushing ring-neck pheasant hens.  Wow, what a thing to do with no training whatsoever! Well, every day we were there in Oskaloosa, June had to go to the field and flush at least 3 or 4 pheasants before she was satisfied.  She was more interested in the birds than in her chosen stud dog.  The litter we obtained from this breeding was our beloved singleton litter, Martin.

'the dance': June came into the house to be a full-time house-mouse when she was about 3 and a half.  It happened after Martin was a puppy, in late May after Suzan had died suddenly of bloat.  June came in to be the full time companion to Jasmine.  June was thoroughly thrilled to be invited to be a fulltime house-mouse, and immediately learned all the house routines, fit in perfectly, and has never been a moment's trouble.  Every morning, she greets us when we come downstairs by doing her 'dance.'  June's dance is to stand in the kitchen, madly wagging her tail from side to side, make eye contact with us, smile, and then lift first one front paw and then the other.  It is so endearing to see her dance.  Even when the size of the house crew grew and grew, June always finds the space to do her dance for us.  I greet you, she says, I greet you, I am happy to see you. 

'Aunt June the babysitter':  Andy was invited to judge at Mid-Jersey LRC when Tango and Hawkeye were wee babies.  So that would have been 2001.  The pups were too young to leave at home with the kennel keeper, so they traveled with us.  June was selected to accompany us and them to be their babysitter.  The only thing was, well, we didn't ask June if she wanted to, we just volunteered her.  As Andy spent his days judging, I set up a couple of x-pens together, and put June and the two pups into the extra large pen together.  Tango relentlessly tormented Hawkeye as was her custom.  Hawkeye put up with her barrage of harassment as best he could, as was his custom.  June sat off to the side as if to say, 'they are not MY puppies, I'm just here, I am NOT responsible for them.'  It was comical, really.  Well, the trio attracted much attention.  I was first approached by a well known labrador owner with deep pockets.  He wanted to know, 'is that little bitch puppy for sale?'  I said, 'certainly not.'  He put his hand in his pocket, drew out a wad of cash, and said, 'money is no object.'  I said 'she is not for sale at any price.'  He just grinned.  A few minutes later, when June had sauntered over to ask him if he had any treats, he said 'the same offer goes for that bitch, she's a beauty.'  I said, 'my answer is the same.'  He replied, 'well, at least you know what you've got and appreciate it, many people don't.'  I laughed and he soon left.  There were several other offers for Tango and June during that show.  None were accepted.

'You can load that bitch in my van, andy': We went to Miami Valley LRC and took June and Irene when they were still young, in the 9 - 12 puppy class.  They did well in Sweeps and Regular conformation.  I showed June and Andy showed Irene.  We tried to get some good candid shots of June  since we didn't really have a good picture of her yet.  This is the picture we got from that show.  Andy free-baited June and I took the picture.  When he was walking back to the van to put June up, I saw Carol Heidl walking with Andy with her arm around his shoulder.  I later asked him what that was all about.  'Oh,' he said, 'Carol said you can just load that bitch up in my van, Andy.'  I always have remembered that, and do think that June is the type of bitch that would appeal to Carol.  Through the years we have certainly had our share of people ask us if we got her from Carol.  We have always considered this a great compliment.

'I don't do puppies':  By the time that June was mated to Mac, she had been asked to be the babysitter for Tango and Hawkeye a number of times.  As described above, this was a duty she barely tolerated.    Hawkeye and his littermates -- Hawkeye has no collar and Tango is airborne.  DJango has the red collar, Anna has the pink collar.  Would you want to baby-sit these hoodlums?  Who could blame June for her attitude?  Anyway, the time came for June to deliver, and we had her xrayed at Tech.  Sure enough, she had a single puppy.  Well, this puppy was huge, I mean huge.  Martin was 27 ounces when he was born.  On the xray, he looked like he was stretched out on the lounge chair, listening to the boom box, sipping one of those drinks with the little umbrella in it.  He was re-laxed.  There was no way this pup could be born, so June had to endure a "C" section to extract Martin.  As luck would have it, Jasmine was due the same time, also with a singleton pup.  She, too, had a "C" section.  We drove the girls home, and as they 'came out' of their sedation, Jasmine whined and whined.  We could figure no reason except she was somewhat disoriented from surgery.  When June 'came around' and found herself in the nursery kennel, in a whelping box adjacent to Jasmine's box, well she was OK with that.  It was when she found 'that little thing' attached to her nipple that she freaked out.  June jumped out of the whelping box and went lickety split out the dog door into the kennel run.  I am NOT going back in there, she said.  Meantime, Jasmine continues to whine.  Well we put a leash on June and got her back into the nursery kennel and into her box and I sat down and blocked her from bolting out the doggie door.  Try as I might I could not persuade her to have anything to do with her puppy.  Finally, I picked up Martin, and asked Jasmine if she would take this puppy.  Well, faster than I could lower the puppy to her, Jasmine had him snuggled up against her, nursing away and being groomed.  AND SHE STOPPED WHINING.  Jasmine knew she was pregnant and wondered what had happened to 'the rest of her puppies.'  In her mind, there was not possibility of having just one puppy, so she thought the rest of her puppies were lost somewhere.  Giving her Martin to foster was just what she needed.  We let June remain in the whelping kennel until Jasmine weaned the pups, so that June would watch and learn what having and nursing puppies was all about.  When June had her 2 frozen pupsicles -- John and Imp -- she was a wonderful mother and nursed and cared for them like a pro.  But we never asked her to do puppies again after that.  We figured she had done enough.

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