Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Happy New Year

Dear Friends

As today is the first day of our Jewish New Year - I would like to wish all our friends around the globe - 4 and 2 legs alike - all the best for the coming year.

Let it be a year of good news only, and a lot of happiness for humans and canines alike.

Hope to see many of you along this year, somewhere in Israel or overseas

Love to all of you

Orit and the Rich-Rachs

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Some Brags


Hi Evryone

I was just appointed to do the official blog of the Israeli Kennel Club and then I realized I didn't updated my own Rich-Rach blog for such a long time, as we say "the shoemaker walks barefoot"...



So here I am trying to make it up - first of all I owe it to my beloved Detemba (Rich-Rach Detemba aka Hili). At the last Tel-Aviv International Show, under the Polish judge and chairperson of the Polish KC - Mr. Andrzej Mania - Detemba had her great day. She won open class winner, CAC, CACIB, Best Female - winning over the Champion class winner as well as her kennel mate Chetz - and then won BOB. Then, when we just thought she did it all - she did it again at the main ring - winning BIG !!


Vered and me were so proud of her, specially that she repeated the same Groupe winning her mother did at exactly the same location almost 3 years ago.


More then that - this Grope winning at the Tel-Aviv show gave Detemba the ticket to the 'Best Dog 2008' Challenge, the winner of this event will represent Israel at the Eukanuba World Challange in California in December.
Well, we know for sure that Detemba do not have much of a chance there among the 22 best dogs in Israel, with all those well groomed champions that travel all around the world. But we are proud to see our little country girl from the Moshav (village) among those fabulous dogs. We do promise
to keep you informed.

Now, this weekend belonged to Chetz who made it to BOB at our club show. From Junior class Chetz won all the way to BOB. Eeven those it was just a small show she behaved so well and looked so sweet,we couldn't be anything but very happy with her.

Many thanks to Zara from www.petnet.co.il, Yigal Pardo and
Yossi Guy for the pictures.

Will try to update soon about the Irish adventure - the world congress and the shows.

Orit

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Hero Ridgebacks - Niki

Hi everybody

There is no better way to honor our beloved breed then telling some of the amazing stories about Hero Ridgebacks.
So, in the coming weeks I will tell some stories about Ridgebacks I consider Heros, in a grand or modest way.
My stories are from Israel. If you have any story of your own, pls send it to me, so I can add it to the blog, or just add it briefly as a comment to my post.

There is no better story to start with, then the story of Niki, the Hero Ridgeback from the Arava wilderness in Israel.

Are you familiar with the heartbreaking Walt Disney movie 'Old Yeller"? I remember myself as a very young child waiting every Friday afternoon to the "Walt Disney World" TV show. I will never forget the day I saw Old Yeller. The cult feature about the mixed Lab living in the Western wilderness, and to the heroic, non-happy-end , when he was giving his life, fighting a rabiesed wolf. Gosh, I cried like mad... my young mind just couldn't accept that idea. 'Didn't they have rabies vaccinations"? "I would never let them kill my dog", where the dominant thoughts I carried for a long time after. Telling you the truth, till now I can't tell whom I prefer: the child who couldn't accept the facts of life or the more realistic person I'm today.

Anyway back to Niki and Yaron Farida, her owner. They were farmers living i a very small and isolated Kibutz at the Arava desert. The Faridas had a puppy Ridgeback male as well.
At nights the settlement is quite dark, due t its small size and isolation from big cities lights.

One midnight the Fadidas heard Niki barking outside like mad. Realising they have no chance to sleep, Yaron went out to see what's going on. Niki was all bristled and infuriated focusing in the deep dark. Then he saw she was bleeding at her right cheek and from her nose, and covered with saliva at her back.

Then HE appeared, emerged from the dark - looks like the stereotype of rabiesed wolf, salivating, running directly toward Yaron, without the slightest sign of fear. The wolf attacked them with full speed and power. Yaron, defenseless, without his handgun, had no other choice, the wolf was reaching them, he let Niki go. Niki attacked the wolf fearless. Her weight was as double as the wolf, but he was agile. He did try any trick he could, but Niki, a descendant to the lion dogs, did not let him play his game. According to Yaron, she was "like a muscles barrier", didn't let him any access to her owner.
All the agility qualities of our breed came to life at that moment. Yaron recovered from the surprise, took a garden chair and throwed it at the wolf. It did work, the wolf disappeared in the dark. Yaron didn't wait too long and dragged the infuriated bitch and the confused puppy inside.

After letting all the residents of the Kibutz know the situation, Yaron went out again, this time Niki was leashed and he was carrying his handgun with him. They didn't have to search, the wolf, seems like if he develop a personal agenda against Niki, didn't wait, emerged from the dark and attacked. The wolf realised Niki was on leash and that increased its rage. Niki was like crazy, trying to pull off the leash and protect her owner. The wolf was running in circles, reducing the distance all the time. When he was only 2 meters from them, Yaron shoot. The wolf drooped dead.

Few days latter the dead wolf diagnosed as rabiesed and Niki's fate, due to her severe wounds on her head, was doomed.
The brave Ridgback bitch from the small and remote Kibutz gave her life, sacrificed herself, to protect the life and safety of her human owners and neighbors.

That wasn't a Walt Disney movie, that was a real Ridgeback in real life.

If you feel like it, you can shade a tear for poor brave Niki.

O rit & the Rich-Rachs

Monday, November 26, 2007

First Blog - RRCI Specialty 2007












Hello Friends

It is a great day for me, to post my first Ridgeback blog, I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do. I couldn't choose more exciting timing to start - just after the 6th RR Club Israel Specialty.So I will dedicate this very first blog to this event.


I promise that at the following posts I will share with you more evryday fun stories and observations from around the world...


The RR Club is, as far as we know, the only breed club in Israel that organize specialties. We do it for 6 years by now, once a year, trying to have the best breed specialists from overseas, or at least a good allrounder with a "touch" for the breed.


We had 23 entries, which is quite nice for Israel. The judge was Mr. Christian Jouanchicot from France ("out of Africa").
Among the dogs that entered we could find 6 champions and some imports from: South Africa, Holland, Russia & Croatia.
It was a great day for the Rich-Rachs. Other then seeing 8 of us, we also brought back home some nice wins.
  • Rich-Rach Wadi, from Intermediate class, won her 3rd and last CAC (waiting now to be approved as a new Israeli Champion), BB and - BOB - Club champion 2007.
  • Rich-Rach Detemba won open class and ResCAC bitchs
  • Rich-Rach DeMeisi won EX2 at open female class
  • Rich-Rach Dor won best open class dogs, CAC and BOS
  • and Isr. & Int. Ch Pronkberg Mi-Yofi won best in champion bitch class (with Isr. Ch. Rich-Rach Gawanda as EX 3 in that class).

It was a great pleasure seeing Wadi getting the BISS, especially that she is the first Israeli born Ridgeback, and the first female to win that. Not less then that, at her way to the BOB she had to get over her fantastic father, Isr. Ch. Vizara Juba, Club Ch. 2004, 2005, 2006.

The atmosphere was, as always, very nice and friendly,the judge took his time to give the best chance to each dog, and we still had time for some fun competitions like best Ridge: Karoskloof Kordaat Leeu; best head: Elisey Ero; best mover: Kirini, and junior handler.

It is a great opportunity to thank our judge for excellent job, all the people who entered the show (in future posts I guess you will learn more about the Israelis and their ambivalent feelings for dog shows), and all our friends from other clubs, who came to help us.

I would like to end by honoring the previous club champions: 2002 – Isr. Ch. Vizara Fashama, B: Trapel&van der Veer O:Roni Zvi, Judge: Liz Meginson 2003 – Isr. Ch. Kenmillone Durban by Eilack B: Selby O:Gavish Judge: Jan Coppens
2004 – Isr. Ch. Vizara Juba B:Trapel&van der Veer O:Ben-Zur, Judge: Zvi Kupfberg
2005 - Isr. Ch. Vizara Juba B:Trapel&van der Veer O:Ben-Zur, Judge: Linda Costa
2006 - Isr. Ch. Vizara Juba B:Trapel&van der Veer O:Ben-Zur, Judge: Orit Nevo 2007 – Rich-Rach Wadi B: Orit Nevo O:Orit Nevo & Arbiv, Judge: Christian Jouanchicot