Slovenský Klub Chovateľov Ridgebackov

First I would like to thank the club for the invitation to judge the Slovak Club Show. It’s an honour to be allowed to judge so many ridgebacks at your Specialty.

My overall impression of your dogs is that you have quite a high variaty in quality both conformation and temperament.

The winners of championclasses were of very high quality and I was pleased to see so many livernose dogs at your show and many of them also of high quality.

The young dogs were as a group more uniform in conformation while the older dogs had more bigger faults and unfortunatelly more lack of selfconfidence.

A common fault was a straight front, many also with lack of forechest. Both traits very vital to gain a more stabile front movement. Another common fault and by far more severe was steep croup and lack of angulation behind often combined with a roach back and high hooks.

This is a serious fault and may produce unnecessary pain for the dog. Besides it also makes the rear movements highly ineffective.

These faults are not easy to change it will take several generations to overcome but if you love and care for the breed you must carefully select your breedingmaterial for high quality and in the end you will succed.

Balance
In my critiques I very often write that I would like a more balanced angulated dog. By that I mean that front and rear angulation must be about the same (ie well angulated front and rear). A dog with a bit straight front and well angulated rear must compensate front movements due to excellent drive from behind and then front movement will suffer (high movement, paddling, turning out etc). If the dog also lack front fill there will be no support for the elbows and as a result you will get very unstable front movements.

Ridge
Mostly out of good quality. A world problem are that the ridge is getting shorter – it stops about 5 cm short. This can be accepted but if breeders don’t take notice we might very soon see too short ridges in the ring.

Coat
Mostly the coat colour was within the spectre of light weathen to dark weathen colour. One or two dogs was a bit too dark. I Myself would like to see more dogs with a little white on chest and toes, I find it beautiful and it highlights an otherwise beautiful dog. I think we are losing something very vital if breeders keep on breeding away from the white spots.

Temperament
A ridgeback must have a strong and stable temperament. In my opinion there were too many adult dogs that lacked selfconfidence. I just can’t say it enough – a ridgeback is a big dog and they need lots of training and socialication but if it’s still a problem after training then it’s genetic and then you have by fare more bigger problem. A judge in the ring can’t tell if it’s lack of socialication or a genetic problem- only your own conscious can tell.

I would say that looking at the dogs entered you have good promesis of improving your live stock of ridgebacks. The young dogs was overall very nicely built and they are the future of the next generations. I would like to thank the ringstewards for a well done long day work and also thank the club for taking good care of me.

Best regards

John Berg