Rhodesian Ridgeback
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39 free Rhodesian Ridgeback trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Rhodesian Ridgeback is the lion dog of southern Africa, a wheaten hound with a stripe of hair that grows the wrong way down its back. Its story runs from the ridged hunting dogs of the Khoikhoi through the big-game hunter Cornelius van Rooyen at Hope Fountain Mission to F. R. Barnes, who wrote the standard in Bulawayo in 1922 and borrowed the Dalmatian's as his template. These 39 questions cover the breed from every angle: the history of colonists, missionaries and lion hunts; the standard's rules on coat, nose and eye colour; the ridge itself, its crowns and the 2007 discovery of its gene; the ridged cousins in Thailand and Vietnam; temperament; the health issues of dermoid sinus, hypothyroidism and bloat; and the breed's arrival in Britain and America. Easy questions ask where it came from and what it hunted; the expert tier wants the names of Helm's two bitches, the extinct Cuban breed in its ancestry and the gene behind degenerative myelopathy. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a dog-club quiz night.
30 of 39 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which part of the world was the Rhodesian Ridgeback originally bred?
Southern Africa
Southern Africa. Settlers at the Cape crossed the dogs they had brought from home with the half-wild ridged hunting dogs already living there, and the mix became the breed.
Q 02What is a Rhodesian Ridgeback's ridge actually made of?
Hair growing backwards
Hair growing backwards. The quirk came from the native dogs of the Cape, which carried the same reversed strip of coat long before the breed had a name.
Q 03Rhodesia, the country that gave the Rhodesian Ridgeback its name, is known today by what name?
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe. The country changed its name in 1980 but the breed kept the old one, and the Zimbabwe Kennel Club is still one of the two bodies that supply its official world standard.
Q 04Which big animal were Ridgebacks famously bred to hunt by baying?
Lions
Lions. The work gave the breed its early name, the Lion Dog, and the first breed club, founded in 1922, put that nickname in its own title.
Q 05What does a Ridgeback do when it "bays" big game?
Harasses it with darting snaps
Harasses it with darting snaps. The pack feints in and out to pin the animal down for the hunter, and the popular belief that the dogs killed their quarry themselves is a myth.
Q 06Which indigenous people's ridged dogs are the forebears of the Rhodesian Ridgeback?
Khoikhoi
Khoikhoi. Their hunting dogs carried the ridge, and when Cape settlers bred those dogs into their own packs the trademark passed to a dog that otherwise looks European.
Q 07Which swift sighthound is named among the breeds that settlers crossed into the Ridgeback's ancestors?
Greyhound
Greyhound. Mastiffs and Great Danes went into the mix as well, which is how the Ridgeback came to pair a sprinter's long legs with the bulk of a guard dog.
Q 08The first Rhodesian Ridgeback standard, drafted in 1922, was modelled on which other breed's standard?
Dalmatian
Dalmatian. The owners who met in 1922 paraded dogs of every type and size, so the founder took an existing breed's standard as a template and wrote the ridge into it.
Q 09Besides big cats, farmers used Ridgebacks to drive which crop-raiding primates off their land?
Baboons
Baboons. Between hunts the dogs worked as all-round farm guards, clearing wild pigs and baboons from the fields and protecting riders from leopards.
Q 10Which big-game hunter's pack of ridged dogs became the foundation of the Rhodesian Ridgeback?
Cornelius van Rooyen
Cornelius van Rooyen tried out two ridged dogs that belonged to a missionary, liked them so much that he bred them into his own pack, and spent some 35 years refining the line.
Q 11Which Victorian explorer's 1857 travel book includes one of the earliest pictures of a ridge-backed dog?
David Livingstone
David Livingstone. An engraving in his Missionary Travels shows hunters gathered round a dead hartebeest, and the dog beside them has a clear ridge down its back, decades before the breed existed.
Q 12Which of these breed-restricted dog sports are Rhodesian Ridgebacks eligible to enter?
Lure coursing
Lure coursing. The sport, a chase after a mechanically pulled lure, is otherwise limited to sighthounds, but the Ridgeback's own standard praises its 'great coursing ability'.
Q 13In which Rhodesian city did Ridgeback owners meet in 1922 to draft the first breed standard?
Bulawayo
Q 21What coat colour range does the Rhodesian Ridgeback standard call for?
Light wheaten to red wheaten
Light wheaten to red wheaten. The shades run from pale gold to a deep red-brown, and a coat peppered with black hairs or splashed with too much white is marked down.
Q 22Which two nose colours are permitted in the breed?
Black or liver
Eyes should match: dark with a black nose, amber with a liver one.
Q 23What eye colour should a Ridgeback with a brown nose have?
Amber
Amber. The standard wants the eyes to harmonise with the dog's pigment, so the light eye that would count against most Ridgebacks is exactly right on a brown-nosed one.
Bulawayo. Owners were asked to bring their dogs to the city's kennel club show, and with animals of every size and colour paraded in front of them they agreed on a single type.
Q 14The US breed club urges breeders to BAER-test Ridgebacks for the inherited loss of which sense?
Hearing
Hearing. Deafness in the breed is inherited and can pass from two parents that hear normally, which is why the club asks for a hearing test before a dog is bred.
Q 15Which joint disorder do Ridgeback breeders screen for by X-raying a dog before it is bred?
Hip dysplasia
Hip dysplasia. A loose-fitting hip joint can be passed on by parents that look sound themselves, so breed clubs ask for the hips to be X-rayed and scored before mating.
Q 16The AKC Ridgeback standard warns against ribs "rounded like barrel hoops" because they would suggest a lack of what?
Speed
Speed. The standard wants a deep but not wide chest, because a round, barrel-shaped ribcage belongs to a heavy dog, and this one had to keep up with big game.
Q 17In which AKC group is the Rhodesian Ridgeback placed?
Hound
Hound. The label is a loose fit, though: the world canine federation files the breed not with its scenthounds proper but in a side section set apart for 'related breeds'.
Q 18What are the two whorls at the top of a Ridgeback's ridge called?
Crowns
Crowns. The standard demands exactly two, identical and directly opposite each other, and a ridge with only one, or with extras, is marked down as a serious fault.
Q 19Where does a Rhodesian Ridgeback's ridge begin?
Behind the shoulders
Behind the shoulders. From there it should taper to the hips, and judges care: in the American scoring it carries more points than any other single feature.
Q 20When does a Rhodesian Ridgeback's ridge first appear?
It is present at birth
It is present at birth. A puppy born without a ridge will never grow one, and the ridge a puppy does have keeps the same proportions for the rest of its life.
Q 24Where on a Ridgeback's body does the breed standard accept a little white?
Chest and toes
Chest and toes. Even there only a little is tolerated: white that spreads onto the belly or climbs above the toes counts against a dog in the show ring.
Q 25Which country is home to the other ridgeback breed recognised by the world canine federation, the FCI?
Thailand
Thailand. Its ridgeback kept the same old type for centuries because poor roads left the dogs of the country's east with little chance to mix with other breeds.
Q 26The Phu Quoc Ridgeback comes from an island in which country?
Vietnam
Vietnam. Phu Quoc is the country's largest island, and the dog named after it began as a half-wild hunter and guard for the islanders, not as a kennel-club creation.
Q 27Gene studies found that the African and Asian ridgeback breeds owe their ridges to what?
The same mutation
The same mutation. Both carry an identical duplicated stretch of DNA, so the ridge arose once and travelled between the continents with dogs instead of evolving twice.
Q 28How is the Ridgeback typically described around strangers?
Somewhat aloof
Somewhat aloof. The standards ask for a dignified dog that is reserved with strangers yet shows neither aggression nor shyness, so the coolness is there by design.
Q 29The author of the first standard warned that Ridgebacks "go to pieces" under what?
Rough treatment
Rough treatment. Francis Barnes warned it should never be used on these dogs, least of all young ones, and guides still call the big hunter a sensitive breed best trained by reward.
Q 30How is the Ridgeback's ridge inherited?
Dominant trait
Dominant trait. One copy of the gene from either parent is enough, which is why two ridged dogs that each carry a single copy can still produce a puppy with a smooth back.