I am Tuuli Viitamaa. I'm from Turku, Finland, but at the moment I live in Tartu, Estonia. I study veterinarian medicine, which has been my dream for a long time. I have passed Finnish Kennel Club's breeder's basic course and ring secretary course. I have always loved reading, especially dog books.
As long as I remember, I have been fond of animals, especially dogs. My dream came true in 1997, when my mother bought our family's first dog, boxer Alli. Alli was my first guinea pig of training. I handled her for the first time in a show when I was 10 years old, and when Alli was old enough, I started training agility with her. When my mother moved abroad in 1998, I was allowed to train other sports with her too (obedience, tracking and searching).
I like working with dogs, so I have trained our dogs in many different sports. I have done searching, tracking and messaging, obedience, agility and shows with almost all of our dogs. I have also tried blood tracking and racing. I have always loves shows, and I've always handled all of our dogs in the ring. I competed in junior handler a few times and shown dogs for other people, for some reason most of them have been labradors.
One of the bigger changes in my life was moving to Tromsų, Northern Norway right before Christmas in 1999. In Norway, I decided that I want my own dog, and I started saving money for it. I offered to walk dogs for other people, and I found a cat that I regurarely looked after. When we had returned to Finland, I went to 4H dogsitter-course in 2001 and later to 4H catsitter course in 2005. I quit dogsitting in the end of 2006 due to lack of time.
Quite soon after we had moved to Norway, Alli found herself a good dog-friend, who lived in the neighbourhood. He was a Rhodesian Ridgeback, called Senna. From the beginning, Alli thought that Senna was a "good guy", and we used to do a lots of walks together. Before we moved to Finland, Vibeke, Senna's owner, told us that she was going to spend some time abroad and asked us to look after Senna while she was gone. To my great joy my parents agreed and Senna was going to be "my dog" for 1,5 years.
Senna came to Finland in 1.9.2001, a few months after we had moved. Senna was in quite poor condition when he arrived to Turku; He had never been in a train before, and now the poor 6 years old gentleman was put in to the train for 12 hours with 2 strangers. He was depressed and he had an awful diarrhea. But he adapted quickly to the change. We trained blood tracking, obedience and agility with Senna. We also tried searching, but I found out that this was not the right sport for him. He simply couldn't have cared less, if there was someone lost in the woods (why didn't they take a map and a compass?!), he was only interested in the treats that the person had. In the beginning, it seemed that everything was going well, but if there was no treats, there was nothing worth looking for. We quit training it and concentrated on sports that Senna liked more. We also went to shows, but we didn't have any expectations, since Senna had slighty offset crowns (just ok to the standard). We went there to have fun. Senna was supposed to go back to Vibeke in Norway, but after she got back home, she gave me my best Christmas present ever and gave Senna to me.
After Senna died in 21.3.2005 I started looking for a new dog. I was certain that I didn't want another ridgeback. I was interested in many breeds: miniature poodle, border terrier, dalmatian, boxer, cocker spaniel... But once you have had a ridgeback, you always need a ridgeback. I found myself looking at ridgeback-litters more and more often. One day I went to Kennel Ikimba's website, and I found Sheikh. I knew I wanted a puppy from that sire.
Senna made me fall in love with ridgebacks, and Inka has tied me on the floor. I fell in love with the amazing personality of the breed. A ridgeback should be brave but reserved, and never shy or aggressive. I value the great self-condidence and loyality of the breed. And the best thing is, that the breed is healthy in general. And with all this, comes the great look. Our dogs have been blessed with amazing sense of situations. They always know, when it is serious and when it is appropriate to be a clown. Both have also shown this sense in warning me only when there's a real threat, they never bark at for example joggers or old people with bad legs or back.