Breed Profiles

Ridgebacks did not kill lions. That was never the job, and the sooner you let go of the picture in your head, the sooner the actual dog starts to make sense. What these dogs did in the southern African bush was find a lion, circle it, harass it, and make enough noise to hold it in one place until the hunter on horseback caught up. Bay, not kill. A dog that closed the distance died, and dead dogs leave no puppies. Two or three generations of that arithmetic produces an animal with enormous physical courage and an even bigger instinct for self-preservation, one that makes its own calls at speed without asking anybody's permission.

That is the temperament currently taking up two thirds of your sofa. Brave, watchful, independent to the point of rudeness. It is a magnificent dog. It is also why so many of them are looking for new homes at eighteen months old.

The ridge, and the thing under it

The ridge is a strip of hair along the spine that grows forward, against the direction of the rest of the coat, from just behind the shoulders down to somewhere around the hips. At the wide end there are two matching whorls, called crowns, sitting opposite each other. Show judges run a hand down it and check the symmetry. The trait came from the indigenous dogs kept by the Khoikhoi people of the Cape, which European settlers crossed with their own imported mastiffs, greyhounds and terriers. Cornelius van Rooyen's kennel in what was then Rhodesia fixed the type in the 1870s and 1880s, and a written standard was drawn up in Bulawayo in 1922.

The ridge is caused by a duplication of genetic material, and it is dominant, which is the neat part. The awkward part is that the same mutation is associated with dermoid sinus, a defect where a tube of skin fails to separate properly from the developing spinal cord in the embryo. It shows up as a small hole or dimple on the neck or back, sometimes with a tuft of hair coming out of it, and it can tunnel a surprising distance inward. Left alone it can abscess and, at worst, infect the spinal cord. Good breeders check every newborn by rolling the skin between finger and thumb, and surgical removal is the fix. Ridgeless puppies turn up in ordinary litters, they are perfectly normal dogs, and they carry essentially none of this risk. They were once culled at birth. Most decent breeders now sell them as pets, which is the only sane answer.

Living with a dog that argues

Biddability is the word trainers use for a dog's desire to be told what to do. Ridgebacks have very little of it. They are not slow — they learn a new behaviour in about three repetitions — they simply want to know why. Drill a Ridgeback the way you would drill a Border Collie and it will do the exercise twice, look at you, and then go and lie down. Harsh handling is worse than useless. Push a sensitive, hard-headed dog and you get a dog that shuts down and quietly stops cooperating with you altogether.

Recall is the honest weak point. Prey drive is high and hardwired, and a forty-kilo sighthound-mastiff cross that has locked onto a deer is gone, deaf, and doing fifty kilometres an hour. Long lines, fenced fields and realistic expectations. Many are dog-selective, particularly with the same sex, and cats are a lottery that depends entirely on how the puppy was raised.

Indoors they are startlingly easy. Quiet, rarely barky, clean, and physically affectionate in a heavy leaning way. They do not greet strangers, they assess them from across the room, and nobody needs to teach a Ridgeback to guard anything.

Sun dog, not snow dog

That short coat and low body fat evolved for hot, dry country. Give them shade and water and they cope with real heat better than almost any dog their size. Cold is the other story. Below about five degrees a Ridgeback shivers, and in cold rain it will plant its feet at the back door and look at you like you have lost your mind. Winter coats are not a fashion choice for this breed.

Exercise runs to an hour or two a day for an adult, and it has to include the chance to properly gallop, not just plod round the block on a lead. Go easy while they are growing — no forced roadwork or repetitive jumping before twelve to eighteen months, because those joints are still soft. Add scentwork or tracking if you can. A bored Ridgeback will redesign your kitchen.

Males stand roughly 63 to 69 cm and carry 36 to 41 kg, females a size down from that. Expect ten to twelve years. Screen for hip and elbow dysplasia, ask about hypothyroidism and degenerative myelopathy in the line, know the symptoms of bloat because the deep chest puts them at risk, and be aware that mast cell tumours turn up more often than anyone would like. Everything about a dog this size costs more: food, insurance, anaesthesia, kennelling.

The homes where it works are the ones with space, a secure fence, a sense of humour and prior experience of a large independent breed. First dog, small flat, long working days — this is the wrong animal, and no amount of admiring the ridge changes that.