ABOUT OUR BASENJIS

We started out with one little girl that was from Jill and Sean's Australian imported line. We loved that spunky girl, who waltzed into the Dobermann household and ruled, so much we let her have a litter and kept all the pups except for one boy that we exchanged for a Tri colour girl from Jill bred from her American Jamila import.

At that time we had no intention of becoming Basenji breeders but this changed when we found ourselves to be the owners of the only two un-spayed breeding age bitches in the country. We felt a responsibility towards this lovely breed and bred a few litters to increase the population in the country but soon found we were unable to continue. There was insufficient stock available to use for a successful breeding programme. We imported some frozen semen but unfortunately this was not a success. This led to our fist import M'Wami's American Divine Diva from Sweden. She line breeds back to the Jamila line and she has done us proud in the show ring. She lives with Nico Meyer in Johannesburg and has featured in the top 100 several times as well as having qualified for several other prestigious ‘invitation only' competitions.

With the help of a few other Basenji fanatics two more pups were imported - Canaan and Miri. Diva's first litter is now in the show ring Canaan's first babies will hit the ring in 2007.

Naming our Basenjis
As Basenjis are from Africa we felt they should have appropriate names. Some research showed a staggering 800 or so dialects were being used in Congo and along the Nile where the breed originated. However, some more digging revealed Kingala as a sort of hybrid dialect used by most of the tribes. So, all the names we use are Kingala words.

Kitokombwa is the kennel name registered specially for developing the breed in South Africa. Nico Meyer and Marie Knight being the ‘owners' but we are helped and supported by Gerald and Thinus. Kitoko means beautiful and Mbwa means dog. So ' Mbwa Kitoko' would be beautiful dog. The origin of our kennel name.

Thanks to:
Joanne Fimlaid for helping us get some really good stock into the country and being very helpful with tips and health info over the years Gerda Steenkamp and Harry Kassel for the import of 2 absolutely stunning pups from Canada. Breeder Cheryl Edgeton for sending us such lovely dogs..