Richard and Wilma van der Horst and daughter, Britt, with Trickle, Dazzle and Robin.

Jet's journey really began when we contacted Richard and asked him if he were willing to export a puppy to the USA.  After asking many questions, Richard agreed to let us choose a puppy from his breeding of Dazzle (Braemist Hot Gossip) to Rowan (Featherstone's Sound of Monnach).  At first, we thought that traveling to Europe would be impossible, but as time went by, we learned we could make it happen.  Then one day, Richard emailed that Dazzle had whelped a healthy litter of 6!  As we corresponded back and forth, we continued to make plans to travel to Holland, and we recruited friends Nancy Cavallo of Bertschire and Kellie Kanipe of Brookestone for our trip.

Finally, the time came to get on a plane and cross the ocean to Amsterdam, and then to Beilen, a beautiful town in northeast Holland.

All of Holland was captivating and picturesque, and so beautiful.  The people were friendly, and spoke excellent English, so we were able to enjoy our visit to it's fullest.

After 2 days sightseeing in Amsterdam, we headed to our hotel in Spier, about 2 hours from Amsterdam.  Once there, we called Richard, and he came to the hotel to meet us.

What a friendly fellow, and every bit as funny in person as he had been on email.  Richard took us to meet his wife and daughter, and how beautiful they both were, and just as friendly and charming as Richard.  We liked them all immediately.  It was obvious these were true dog lovers, and great fanciers of the Flat Coated Retriever.

Richard was kind enough to guide us to see two other quality breeders in Holland, Leonie Galdermans of Swallowsflight fame, and Sikje Winter of Flat Castle.  Their dogs were all beautiful, and of excellent quality.  Both of these women were kind enough to give us hours of their time, answering our many questions and getting out dog after dog for us to see and photograph.

Leonie (against the far fenceline) walking dogs as evening falls

We spent 3 days visiting Richard and Wilma, and had the most delightful time learning about Dutch customs, and picking up a bit of Dutch too.  Wilma's coffee was superior!  Wilma also took us shopping one afternoon, and we were able to buy many nice mementos of our visit.

One of the shops we visited.

Our visit to Beilen ended much too soon.  We said good-bye to our new friends and headed back to the states with little Jet, who was a perfect traveler.  The happy news is that our friendship is continuing, thanks to email and the Internet!  We are already making plans to return to the Netherlands, and hopefully Richard and Wilma can travel to Georgia sometime soon.  You can visit Richard's website here.

Dazzle playing with her babies the day before we returned to the US