The Legend of the Lion Dog

When Lindsey and I owned our first Ridgeback in 1978 the dark red, wheaten colour seen in abundance today was rarely evident, the vast majority being different shades of the light wheaten colour, as usually bred by our breed's founders.  Now there are only a handful of light wheatens being shown/bred throughout this country and I suspect the same is true of many other countries.

Wyn Hayes made a similar observation after viewing a video of Ridgebacks from Africa.  Apart from the prospect of dour uniformity this cannot be good for the breed and it has been suggested that continuously breeding red to red can eventually lead to colour discrepancies.

It would appear that we judges and breeders have been discriminating against the light wheaten colour as indeed some have against white markings in the breed.  Both are allowed in the standard and were included for a reason.  Our Ridgebacks were formulated from different breeds indigenous and otherwise to provide a unique, tough hunting hound (no other breed has been successfully used to hunt lion in Africa).  The white and light wheaten is apparent because of these other breeds which were, no doubt chosen for many reasons (not just colour).  Today we can only speculate upon the motives for their inclusion. 

If a colour is eliminated non-visible genetic factors will be lost and our Ridgeback becomes a diluted version of the real thing.

Breeding for fashion will destroy our breed as it has others.  Then all we will have left is the "Legend of the Lion Dog".

Kelvin Barnes©

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