We are Jurgen en Chris Poen-Vanderheeren and we live in the Netherlands. Jurgen is born there, but Chris is born in Belgium. Early 2007 Chris moved to the Netherlands, where we met. Shortly after that we started living together and not much later, on 23 september 2008 we got married.
Jurgen found out about the Thai Ridgeback by accident. During a search on internet for more information about the Rhodesian Ridgeback he discovered there is another breed with a ridge. After meeting the Thai Ridgeback in real life it was clear which of these two breeds he likes the most: the Thai Ridgeback dog. Love at first sight!
That did not mean he could buy a puppy immediately. At first it was collecting as much information as possible and find breeders to talk to and learn from. With one breeder he could be placed on the waiting list. Because the female that was supposed to become a mother one last time did not cooperate, that never happened. This breeder went to Thailand regularly and eventually brought a puppy from Thailand. And that was the start! That first puppy did not live very long due to a congenital defect to her brains. The puppy to replace this first poor baby was Jenna. Jenna did not have to live alone very long; about a year and a half later Indie came to keep her company. Another year later was the moment that Jurgen en Chris met and started living together. Sometimes you could Jenna see thinking about the good old days when it was just the two of them...
It has always been a wish to breed this wonderfull dog breed, but that did not happen overnight. Jenna was meant to be have puppies from Indie, but for some reason that never happened. She never allowed him to mate her. Not even another dog she went to whein it was her timen. We had to wait until Nua came to us. Only then could we breed our first litter, luckily it still were puppies of Indie
We are registered by the officially recognised breed club for the Thai Ridgeback Dog in the Netherlands; de Thai Ridgeback Club Nederland, de TRCN, which is recognised by the Dutch Kennelclub, part of the global organisation FCI.
