OUR STORY
Our introduction to loving Rhodesian Ridgebacks began in 1995 when we decided to get my 9yr old pet dog "Sandy" (Lab/Bull Terrier cross) a companion to see out her last few years.
Don Burke did a road test on the Rhodesian Ridgeback on "Burkes Backyard' and we fell in love instantly and decided that was what we wanted. The next day, as fate would have it, advertised in the local paper was a 6mth old female ridgeback puppy for sale. Unable to resist, off we went and Henry knew as soon as we saw her that there was no way we would be leaving without her, and hence "Zoe" became a part of our future.
Zoe & Sandy were best mates even though Zoe chewed everything that Sandy had owned the last 9yrs and also enjoyed chewing any washing left overnight on the line, shoes, plants and even the blinker lights on Henry's car!
The years went by and in between our children were born and we also very sadly lost my darling Sandy to bowel cancer. Then when Zoe was 9, we noticed that she was very bloated and not herself and she was diagnosed with "hemangiosarcoma" of the spleen and was operated on to have her spleen removed but unexpectedly died the following day from massive internal bleeding.
To this day we still feel that we were cheated of more years we should of have had with our beautiful Zoe and we were so devastated from losing her that we did not have another dog for 18mths.
During this time we met one of the local Ridgeback breeders called Vanridge. After visiting them many times for a "ridgie fix' we also started going to a few local dog shows and I then thought I would give dog showing a go.
Now 6 yrs later, we own and show 3 beautiful ridgebacks (with the plan to expand up to 4 - sorry Henry) and who knows where after that, except that there will always be a ridgie or two by our sides!
