Amber Sky Labradors

Our History - The Beginning

We started raising Labradors in 1983 with the acquisition of our first lab, Amber. She was pure bred, however when she came to live with us no papers or paperwork was ever presented and we were just happy to have her. Amber was bred from excellent hunting stock and had the look typical of many field labs in that she was on the taller slide, very slender, and had a longer muzzle and narrow head. She was a true multi purpose Labrador as she was an excellent pet and companion and had no equal in the public gamelands of Ohio where she could find any pheasant in any weather. Amber is pictured below.

It wasn't until the next year that we purchased our first Labrador eligible to be registered with the American Kennel Club, Rumajas King Buckingham, aka Buck. It was with the arrival of Buck that we decided to create a kennel name that we would register our Labradors with. Rumajas was chosen as a kennel name to represent a family effort of the three children of the Krivak family. The kennel name was formed by taking the first two letters of my name Russ, my brother Matt, and sister Jamie and adding an 's' at the end.

Buck was the ultimate expression of the term 'English lab' as his father was imported f rom Great Britain. He had a massive square head, stocky body and massive bone, and a well mannered even going temperament. Buck had an excellent pedigree containing many of the best dogs that the Sandylands Labrador Kennel ever produced combined with excellent dogs in the United States. Despite his strong conformation pedigree and background Buck made an excellent hunter and complimented Amber quite well providing more strength in going under and through brush while she provide finesse and speed. Buck would be our foundation stud dog for the first eight years of our breeding program.

For the next three years Amber and Buck would be our companions often roaming the 20 acres that we owned and the surrounding areas as well. We would hunt pheasants with them every fall at Spencer Wildlife preserve and would often reach our limit on birds. We would go hunting long after they were done stocking the fields and this is where Amber and Buck's hunting skills would shine. Over this course of time Amber and Buck had several all yellow litters. Despite that fact that they resembled Labradors in every way they were not eligible to be registered with the American Kennel Club. All of Amber and Buck's puppies grew up to be excellent companions and in many cases excellent hunters. With the desire to own and produce black Labradors we would acquire, Rumajas Lady Bay, Bay in 1987. Bay was registered with the American Kennel Club and when she matured she would be bred with Buck to produce several excellent litters together.

Bay (pictured to the left) was a black female sired out of Am. Ch. Heatherwood's Midnight Echo who had an excellent temperament combined with a solid pedigree. Together with Buck she produced several great litters over the years of black and yellow puppies. It was at this point that Rumajas Labradors was formed and would provide the foundation for Amber Sky Labradors.
After we acquired Bay we committed ourselves to becoming more knowledgeable about the breed and sought out advice from other breeders to begin to develop our own distinctive line of Labradors. We would learn and understand the importance of evaluating a pedigree through examination of the dogs it contained and what Labrador kennels produced them. We became students of genetics and learned the importance of health screenings on hips, elbows, heart, and eyes. We would perform these health screenings on Buck and Bay with both of the passing. We would begin to develop an eye for desireable traits in Labradors and begin to discern those traits in our puppies.

Start of our Foundation

As a result of research and planning we decided to purchased three Labrador puppies in the fall of 1990, a black female, Ashley (Rumajas Lady Ashley), a chocolate female, Terra (Rumajas Lady Terra), and a yellow female, Brooke (Rumajas Lady Brooke). Our goal was to have these three puppies become the future and part of the foundation of our Labrador kennel.

All three of these puppies came from exceptional pedigrees and from breeders who had done an excellent job in producing wonderful Labradors. Each of these puppies would mature into a beautiful 'English' type Labrador with a calm gentle temperament. Each of them were physically sound and passed their hip screening through the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals and their eye screening through the Canine Eye Registration Foundation. We were on track in achieving our goal as these three puppies matured into adults however we had a set back as our only stud dog, Buck began to have problems producing litters. It would be this event that would lead us to look into using an outside stud dog and it was this process that would change everything.

We inquired with other breeders in the area concerning a stud dog and did not want to wait for a puppy to grow up. Our search took us into Medina to Crowhaven Farms where we met a long time lab breeder Sarah Steiner who had finished several Labradors to their American Kennel Club Bench Championships and was actively involved with labs in field trials as well. We would use one of her stud dogs, Balcroft Crow Haven Reprise, Brodie for a litter and when Ashley was ready to be bred we had planned to do the same. Instead of breeding Ashley Sarah convinced us to enter her into the show ring in pursuit of her American Kennel Club Championship. In doing this we became co-owners with her and her partner, Dr. Kris Kofron of Valleywood Labradors in Columbus and we in turn became co-owners with them on Brodie (Balcroft Crow Haven Reprise pictured below). Ashley then began her show career and accumulated many prestigious wins on her way to earning her conformation title. Ashley is pictured above winning Best of Opposite Sex at the Miami Valley Labrador Retriever Specialty.

During Ashley's campainging Brodie and Terra would be bred and would produce several litters together which we kept our first ever puppy out of, Jake (Rumajas King Jake). Jake was not the pick of the litter rather he was the last puppy left in the litter and managed to stay around long enough to convince us that he need to stay. He would become an important part of our chocolate line as he would grow into a massive dog weighing 115 pound with tremendous bone and a broad square head. Terra and Ashley were both doing well however Brook would be retired as she was unable to produce a litter. Everything appeared to be going well until Ashley's yearly CERF exam where she was diagnosed with corneal dystrophy and the decision was made to have her spayed. This was a major setback as our new foundation was reduced to Brodie and Terra as both Buck and Bay had at that time become to old to breed.

The decision was made to find pet homes for Ashley and Brook and to press on and continue in using Brodie and Terra as our foundation Labradors to build from and to seek out and secure other Labradors that had the same potential. Over the years we would find a handful of dogs that met our criteria, Jeb (Gaines Mill Jeb) and Naomi (Cupid's Touch of Daylyn) would be brought in to help in solidifying and broadening our foundation from which we would grow from. Naomi (pictured below right) was a black female that was chocolate factored who had an excellent pedigree. She would produce several outstanding litters with our own Jake (Rumajas King Jake) and several titled outside stud dogs as well.

Jeb (Gaines Mill Jeb pictured below left) was an excellent yellow stud for us. He was a stocky, well defined Labrador that was an excellent mover with an excellent topline. He had a great temperament and reproduced himself very well in may of his puppies. Jeb sired many litters over the years he was with us, but none would be as important as the one he sire with Terra. From that litter we would keep three black Labradors that would be able to produce all three colors, Johnny (Rumajas Amber Sky John Henry) Chelsea (Rumajas Amber Sky Chelsea), and Ellie (Rumajas Amber Sky Elliot). Both Ellie and Chelsea have contributed very well to our program and have provide us with excellent Labradors and are both retired into pet homes. Johnny has been an excellent stud and is still with us to this day producing beautiful sound puppies.

We always strive to produce better than what we have and we will continue with this goal. Many of our current dogs can trace their ancestry back to at least one of the dogs mentioned in our history while others do not. Please click on the links in the right hand margin of this page to look at our current dogs, almost all of which we have bred and in some case have bred three to four generations behind them over the last 20 plus years.