Pippi was the dog I just “had” to have. She is imported from the successful Qwandoya kennel in Czech, and I am ever grateful to Hanka Pankova that I was allowed to have her. She had the irresistible combination of an exiting pedigree, promising conformation and the sweetest temperament. In the beginning we had planed that she would be placed with someone else on breeders term, but when I travelled to Czech to pick her up I fell completely in love and quite fast I understood that she just had to stay at home with us. Pippi has always been such an easy going dog and the only thing she have destroyed are toilet paper rolls and one or other pillow. Home alone training was never an issue, I am not sure we even needed to practice it. She’s a typical ridgeback being a little aloof towards strangers, but she is never afraid or shy! She just don’t feel the need to jump onto every lap that comes in her way, like Ninja does or like Sheriff did. But she likes a good rub on her back, and when she gets to know you she will be your best friend. When Pippi is happy to see someone she will make her special humming, and she will hit you with her paws giving you some though love. She is crazy about food and completely looses her head when food is involved. I have at some occasions found her on top of the kitchen countertop. She takes counter surfing to a whole other level… Pippi have done both MT (dog mentality assessment) and BPH (behavior and personality assessment in dogs) with good results. Both tests showed that she is a friendly dog with a moderate interest towards strange people, but in no means afraid or shy of people. She doesn’t get very afraid and has very good nerves. She also has very little guarding instincts and really doesn’t feel the need to bark at anyone or anything. If I could have wished for more, I would be happy to see a little more curiosity and a little more independent courage, but by using Sheriff on Pippi I hope to get exactly this. But in general Pippi is the kind of dog that really is a pleasure to own and have around, and dogs like her is a necessity to keep the Rhodesian Ridgeback on a god mental line in the future. She has been a healthy dog her entire life, and has never had any issues with her stomach, skin , etc. She is a female on the larger size being around 66-67 cm tall, and is quite a muscle packet with a solid bone mass. She is super athletic and when she runs in the forest she bounces around like it doesn’t cost her a calorie. Together with her best friend in the world Bente (who owns Nixon from our B-litter) she trains and competes in Nosework and rally obedience, and have gotten the official rally obedience diploma title RL1. At the moment they are competing in class 2. She is a funny dog to train with because she goes all in when food is involved and likes to hear how good girl she is.
Sheriff was my first own dog, and I imported him from Denmark in 2005. Sheriff showed from a young age that he was a dog with a lot of humor and high level of energy, and he made us laugh every day. He loved to work, and even at the age of 13 years he was still playful and would do almost everything for a treat. We have trained agility, nordic working trials (tracking and searching), search and rescue dog, rally obedience, obedience, field tracking and Sheriff was also the first Ridgeback in Norway gaining the BH-title (obedience- , behavior- and shooting-test). We also did a lot of skiing during the winter, bicycle during the summer and swimming. We have traveled around Scandinavia on obedience and working dog competitions and I was so incredibly proud when we repeatedly stood on the podium with the ordinary working dog breeds under us. I never asked myself what Sheriff could learn or what Sheriff could do, actually he knew most exercises to elite obedience. The question usually was “what did Sheriff want to do…” Would he work with me or would he steal the judges sandwich or cake – in which he did more than one time – to the delight of the audience – and with great satisfaction over himself.. Even if he was a dog who liked to work and satisfy me, he constantly tried to find ways to break into the food container, opening doors and drawers and make delightful mischief. We never had a boring moment with Sheriff.
Sheriff had a wonderful mentality, something his mentality assessments confirms. He was a social and very accessible dog, fearless in every way, very curious with lots of playfulness and hunting instincts and he was rather easy-going. He had several obedience titles and working dog titles, but he also became Norwegian show champion. He was friendly to people and always demanded both people he knew, as well as strangers, to pet him. He had a great body language, and didn’t care to much about other dogs, and even though he was a dominant dog who wouldn’t submit to other males that growled at him, he rarely was the first one to growl. On the contrary, he actually was a great dog to have around when training with insecure dogs, because he would ignore them and help building their confidence. Even though he had a bad side in having a quite high resource defense around food, he still stands out in our minds of being a quite outstanding and unique Rhodesian Ridgeback. He had all the qualities I cherish in a dog – great health, a great mentality and an overall balanced exterior who carried him to the age of 13 years and 4 months.
