About us

ABOUT US

Nzawi Ridgebacks was started by a family with a huge love of Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Our 'Nzawi' family currently consists of Kim, Paul, Debbie, Andy, Nala (Pictured below as a puppy and the Ridgeback in the above photo) and two of Nala's beautiful babies which we kept within the family Nuka and Kaiser. We now also have another Nala daughter from her second litter and Kaiser's first born son, Hunter.

We sadly lost our two lurcher cross rescue dogs pictured above at the end of 2017 at the grand old ages of 17 and 15. RIP Pepsi and Kia.

Our passion of Ridgebacks started after walking at the park with a new friend that had two lovely Ridgebacks herself. We hadn't come across the breed before and just loved everything about them. We were extremely lucky to find an amazing breeder to which we now know to be hard to find when we nearly ended up with a puppy from somewhere very different :-(. This is the reason to which we now advise everyone to take their time finding their perfect puppy/breeder to ensure they achieve the perfect match!

Our breeder has given us an enormous amount of support/ guidance which is why we are where we are today. Showing was something we had never considered before and had never even heard of 'Ringcraft classes' but we decided to give it a go! Nala loved attending all the training classes. It was brilliant for not only for the socialisation aspect but it gave us such a special bond and we gained another level of respect from our puppy.

Showing Nala ended up being a new hobby for the family, we loved going to the shows to meet lots of new friends and to show off our gorgeous girl! In Nala's first open show she was awarded 'Best Puppy' and went through to 'Puppy Group 4' since then she has carried on making us proud having gained her Stud Book number (Qualifying her for Crufts for life). More recently Nala won 1st place at Crufts 2016.

With our two cross breeds being quite elderly we felt Nala needed a young playful companion which is why we decided to let her have a litter of her own.

Making the decision to have a litter was a big one and not something we rushed into, we spent over a year trying to find the perfect stud and we travelled a long way to meet him but it was so worth it! Our very first gorgeous litter of 5 puppies arrived in September 2014. Nala was an absolutely amazing mum and all the puppies were born lovely and healthy. We kept two puppies within the family (but living separately), Kaiser and Nuka, they are very close siblings and both have lovely temperaments. We regularly meet up with the other three puppies and their lovely families. It's a absolute joy to watch them grow and follow their individual stories.

Kaiser and Nuka have had an amazing start to their showing careers, Kaiser having gained his Junior Warrant and Stud Book Number at just 13months and Nuka qualified for Crufts at her very 1st Championship show with a 1st place and gained her first CC, gaining her Stud Book number at just 20months .....We hope their success continues! (See our show news page for more info)

Hunter began his show career but this has been affected by Covid 19 unfortunately so he has missed out on his entire puppy/junior career.
We decided to start agility with Hunter as he was missing out and he loves this!

We very much enjoy everything that being a breeder entails and strive to be the very best we can, offering our experience and support whenever we can.