The fact that they are a sighthound makes me doubt they will track.

NEVER encourage your Ridgeback to be aggressive or defensive. When your Ridgeback is mature, it will know when that type of behavior will be appropriate. To encourage a Ridgeback to be a TOUGH dog, CAN create a dog that will have to be put to death for aggression.

I decided that I had reason to put a four year old bitch through attack training for farm use. (Please note, again, we repeat that attack training is not regarded as a good option for our RR's; in fact we recommend strongly against it.) It was extremely difficult to get her to bite when we reached that part of the course, and for the first time she lagged behind the others.

It is worth pointing out at this stage that the dogs participating together were a GSD, a Rottweiler, a Doberman, a Bull-terrier, a Staffie, and of course the Rhodesian Ridgeback . Probably this assortment represents trouble to a trainer spelt in capital block letters. The two terriers were a washout, the first three mentioned trundled along at very much the identical rate of progress, but the RR surged way ahead while we were tackling obedience as an essential prerequisite to the more aggressive discipline to follow. Most fortunately the trainer moved onto the next skill as soon as the previous one had been mastered by any one of them; and that one was always the RR. She left them all floundering behind her and obviously revelled in these novel experiences. So she and I omitted two sessions of the course to let some of the others catch up, did the final "revision" session, and went pell-mell into the attack phase.

As already stated she just refused to bite. So her ears were given a couple of good jerks and, after the second "prompting", she ran around behind me, launched into his proffered arm, and started removing all the padding. Stopping her was something she had yet to learn about, so she did another circuit behind me and launched into him for the second time. Fortunately his reactions were quick; he thumped his partly protected arm down on her head while she made for his ankle. She backed off, ran around behind me again, and launched herself at his throat. Once more his quick reactions saved the day, while he fended her off with his ripped up protected arm. I brought her under control, we mutually agreed that her attack methods necessitated no further embellishment, and her attack-training days were over.

On reflection it all made sense. Why on earth did she have to bite that fellow? Sure, he was pointing at her, staring, making stupid noises, acting very silly, but where was the threat? And then he jerked her ears. Certainly the first time was uncomfortable, but for heaven's sake he did it again. Then he gets that clumsy arm in the way and she gets a mouthful of evil tasting canvas, hessian, and grass stuck between her teeth which she cannot spit out easily, so the obvious thing to do is to go for a softer, tastier target.

It is amazing how much damage she wreaked in so short a time. He had lost the outer covering on his arm-shield and was down to the leather, and he didn't fancy that overly much for protection in the circumstances. Also there was nothing for the other dogs to hang onto, so "taking a bite" was out for the day in any event.

It all went to prove why attack work is not to be recommended. Ridgies have very powerful jaws. They lunge in, take a big bite, use their potent necks to twist that very strong head, and then jerk back violently, taking fresh bites whenever the current mouthful yields.

Three other owners described almost identical experiences after participation in attack courses with their Ridgies.