Mission Statement
A dog breeder in the 21st century has many tools available to ensure the breeding of superior, healthy, well temperamented puppies that adhere to the breed standard. Health testing, incorporating the coefficiency of inbreeding, awareness of the harmful effects of over vaccination and use of products such a frontline and womers, the benefits of feeding a natural diet, all are considerations I am mindful of when planning a litter of puppies
About me.
I first came into contact with the remarkable Rhodesian Ridgeback 40 years ago while living and working in Zimbabwe. I was fortunate to live, albeit, for a short time, in a household that owned a Rhodesian Ridgeback and that first impression has lived with me ever since..
My journey of living, loving and learning all about my dogs is ongoing and I have many people to thank, incredible mentors, excellent foundation dogs for my breeding programme, Liz and Paul Storey of the Kiromol kennel in particular who allowed me to take Kasidi, Alison Muir of Kikeba who let me use her beautiful Zeptepi Maserati, (Dempsey to all who loved him) for my first breeding with my lovely Nyassa bitch Ruby and Raiza from the Diamondridge kennel who has been so instrumental in passing on his wonderful temperament to my puppies.
We have shared our lives with one or more Ridgeback for 35 years now and could not imagine a life without them. We do not have kennels, our dogs are, first and foremost, members of the family and it is a testament to their natural good behaviour and fabulous temperament that we can all live together in harmony. There are exceptions of course e.g, when the girls are in season and the boys get a little grumpy.
I hope my website, through its many pages, gives you a glimpse into to how we raise our animals. From time to time we raise, cows, pigs and sheep, we also have free range chickens and English heritage pigs. We expect everyone to get along and they do!
I was a member of the committee for the Rhodesian Ridgeback club of Scotland several years ago but these days I prefer to avoid the breed clubs and instead enjoy being an active member of my local all breed kennel club.
Puppies.
The Rhodesian Ridgeback is not the dog for everyone. There are many sites that tell us all about the breed and I am not going to repeat information here but I would hope that anyone considering a Ridgeback puppy will have researched the breed in detail before making that first step in contacting a breeder. I am never desperate to find homes for my puppies, I am desperate to find good, forever loving homes for my puppies. I will never let a puppy go to a home where there is no one to look after the puppy during the day, so please, do not contact me if you cannot care for your puppy. Please look at the links page for some of the places I recommend you go to get more information about dogs and puppies in general.
My puppies are raised in the whelping box, in my living room for the first 3 weeks and then they are moved into to the mudroom where they are constantly stimulated by music, the other dogs and assorted visitors! They are weaned onto a diet of raw natural foods and are taken to my vets around 7 and a half weeks for their health check. We do not recommend vaccinating at this age and will not do it. If you do decide to vaccinate your puppy we recommend waiting until the puppy is around 12 weeks old as this is about the time that the puppy starts to lose the natural immunity acquired from its Mother.
Useful Reading.
If you are new to the breed I recommend the following books that are excellent sources of information:
https://revodanapublishing.com/books/your-ridgeback-puppy/
http://www.imbaliridgebacks.co.uk/books.html