Welcome to my blog

My name is Rosemary and as a way of keeping a diary of my fourth litter of Rhodesian Ridgeback puppies,I thought I would start my own blog.

We are in our 2oth year of living with this wonderful breed and I like to think I now know a little about what makes this breed so special. Every day brings new experiences and my life has become so enriched by being around these wonderful animals.

My dogs are Ruby,her son Brewster, his daughter, Lela, Kasidi, mother of Lela and lastly Raiza who is a cousin to Kasidi. It can be a little "hairy" with the boys when the girls come into season and there have been a few fallouts, but we all live together in the same house and generally get on well.

I would not recommend having 2 dogs with bitches unless you have experience with this breed and know without question and that your dogs know you are the pack leader.

Our first Ridgeback was called Joshua, named because I had lived in Matabele Land in Zimbabwe and the leader of that region was Joshua Nkomo, adversary to the current leader Robert Mugabe.

In all truthfulness, I could not tell you if Josh had a perfect ridge, but what I can say is ,he was the perfect dog. He accepted my 3 children as they came along, was a loyal, loving companion and in his later years was the donkey in the play school nativity. By now I was totally smitten with this breed and was keen to learn as much as I could.

It was during the last ten years that I took an interest in dog showing, more of a spectator in the early days, attending breed seminars and learning as much as I could about the breed standard and confirmation. I soon learned that dog showing could be a little contentious, we all have our own interpretation of the standard. I would find myself at dog shows and be staggered sometimes by some of the dogs that were awarded top honours, then other times, be in awe of some of the Ridgebacks that were out there.

I always worked prior to my moving to the states and so dog showing was always an occasional thing for me, plus my children were of an age where I was needed at home, so I was never
totally committed. If I am honest, I have never really enjoyed dog showing, people can be become obsessive and quite nasty about their own dogs and I would never wanted to become so obsessive that I cannot see beyond my own dogs . When my husband is finally able to move out here to the States permanently I will take the plunge and jump onto the campaign trail.

Meanwhile, I have more than enough on my plate raising my 3 calves, my pet pigs my Tamworth pigs which have now become pork, my 20 chickens, my large family of Ridgebacks and last but they would say least, my 3 teenage children. Plus dealing with the first truly very snowy winter and sub zero temperatures. we currently have 3 feet of snow with drifting 6 foot in places and more forecast for tomorrow.

What has evolved though, is, I have a clear idea of what type of Ridgeback I want to breed. Type being the operative word here as I strive to breed a dog that conforms to the standard but has a certain type.

I can thank many breed people for helping and guiding me to form the views I have and how I came to understand the breed standard. I will mention them later.

The first thing that dazzles me about a good dog is movement. A Ridgeback that strides out with free flowing movement surely has to be put together well. How else would they be able to move so effortlessly. One of the reasons why I was so attracted to Liz and Pauls Kiromol Kennel is that they have really nailed beautiful movement in their dogs and fortunately Kasidi has passed this on to my young bitch Lela. It was Alison Muir who owns Dempsey (Brewsters sire) who in the early days taught me the virtues of good movement and pointed out to me the wheat from the chaff at the dog shows.

I also like to see bone and substance in both bitches and dogs. How else would they be able to hold a lion at bay. Small snipey heads are not my cup of tea either. Males should stand apart from the bitches. How many times do we see dogs that could be bitches if we were just looking at a head shot. Similarly bitches should be strong but feminine. I think Ruby my bitch illustrates this perfectly.

As a breeder I have learned that It is hard produce a dog that has everything, beautiful laid back shoulders, a well angulated front, good tight feet, level topline with good quarters and ample second thigh, good rear angulation, well laid down hocks, correct ribbing, good reach of neck, the list goes on, but having a picture in ones mind and striving to produce the image into reality is all I can aim for. Then of course we have the ridge, some purists will not accept an offset ridge but are happy to award honours to what I think are more structual faults such as upright shoulders,dogs that move terribly etc . One great thing about moving to the US is part of the breed standard is to recognise a slight offset as correct.

Brewster, my male is offset, yet has produced 2 two litters with Kasidi that have produced outstanding ridges. One offset out of 19 puppiesA trait he has clearly inherited from his father Dempsey, as he too has an impressive record with ridges.

This opportunity to go on and on is quite liberating, It is of course just my opinion, but if you care to read my ramblings, please feel free to comment. Lively debate is always refreshing and we all have different views about our Rhodesian Ridgebacks. I just hope to allow people to see where I am coming from.

Thats all for now.

Rosemary