This was written in 2005, a few years after I had returned to Sweden to see if I wanted to live there again … after all, my father had left me the most beautiful house/home, so I needed to find out how I would cope. But, however beautiful my home, and however safe and comfortable the country, my heart was still in Africa, so in 2014 I moved back home. And no regrets whatsoever, and this story still does tell how I started with Rhodesian Ridgebacks, and how my breeding got off the ground.

Unlike most Rhodesian Ridgeback owners in Sweden, I bought my hounds in Africa and lived with them, in Africa, for several years before eventually returning to my native Europe. After 20 years in the sun, I sold my house, packed my bags, and flew, with the dogs, to the UK, where the dogs were subjected to six months of quarantine, while I rented a furnished cottage near the quarantine kennels, visited the dogs for two hours a day, six days a week, and did odd jobs to keep my car in petrol. Six months later (and at times it felt like eternity), I packed most of my worldly goods, plus Churchill and Clementine, into my rather tiny little Fiat, and drove back to Sweden via France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Denmark. An adventure? Probably, but in view of what we had already done and experienced in Africa … well, it was all part and parcel of a day’s work!

And, unlike many Rhodesian Ridgeback owners I did not dream of owning a Ridgeback before actually acquiring one. I used to live in a very small house on a large property just north of Johannesburg, and I already had two dogs (one Cocker Spaniel and one mutt), when I met David, a divorced man whom I thought was rather nice. This was in the early 80s, and he was a duck farmer who lived alone on a farm not too far from iGoli (the South African name for Johannesburg). As he also had 97 black farm labourers his ex-wife had presented him with a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy called Winston, a puppy that was supposed to grow into his master’s body guard. However, his master was far keener on smaller dogs and had his heart set on a Jack Russel; he made several serious attempts to get me to buy the dog, but my finances did not permit this transaction. And then, one day, I was invited to dinner. Thinking that the gentleman in question had finally woken up to my not inconsiderable charms, I accepted with alacrity, but … all was not what it seemed, and after a very delicious dinner, with many glasses of excellent wine, I was sent home, minus one cheque and plus one large and rather unruly puppy!

The following morning I did have a headache, but however much I cursed my own stupidity (after all, I had walked straight into this trap, and I really should have known better!), Winston stayed with me till the day he died, and apart from the two dogs I already had at the time … since then there’s been nothing but Ridgebacks in the family.