REDHOUSE KENNELS

introducing the dog to be proud of

When Sonja visited Arizona and Nancy and Bob Glenn in 1989, she was introduced to Mr William (Bill) O'Brien and his wife Sada.

The first established Ridgeback kennel in U.S. was founded in 1950 by William and Sada. After finishing his studies at the University of Arizona Bill started a business in wool import. He and his wife spent several months every year in South Africa and it was when he wanted to find a dog that could guard the house and his wife during his travel he came across the Ridgeback. He met Major Hawley on April 25, 1950 and Major Hawley picked three ridgebacks for Billy. Ridgeback that would be suitable to start breeding from in the States. The prefix Redhouse was named after their red house they lived in during their stays in South Africa.

On January 18, 1950 they arrived in Boston with the three ridgebacks picked by Major Hawley. These were:

Tchaika of Redhouse, bitch, liver nosed
Caeser of Redhouse, dog
Zua of Redhouse, bitch

Picture taken leaving Cape May 15, 1950

Portrait of Caeser of Redhouse, 1952

In 1951 Bill founded the "The Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of America", which adopted the standard of the breed from South Africa and started to work to get the breed recognized by AKC. After five years struggle he succeeded and the AKC adopted the Stud book where Bill had kept track of all pedigrees.

During my stay in there home I had the pleasure of going through their scrap book and found this interesting picture:

I also fell in love with there framed statue of ridgebacks

Here are some comments from the scrapbook:

The Rhodesian Ridgeback has come to stay. He's a new kind of dog. Easy to train, with an abundance of intelligence, he makes an excellent guard dog and protective pet for children. - SPORTS AFIELD

No other dog has the courage and toughness of the Rhodesian Ridgeback. - SCOOP MAGAZINE

Once seen, these dogs can never be forgotten ... There can be no question as to the courage, sense, adaptabiltiy, stamina and complete cooperation with man. - N.Y. WORLD TELEGRAM

Introduced to the U.S., the dogs drew little attention until 1950 when a Boston wool dealer namned William O'Brien formed the Ridgeback Club of America to promote them. Alert as watchdogs, Ridgebacks also make fine pets and are gentle with chirldren. - LIFE

... a splendid-looking fellow ... mannerly indoors and nearly as much interested in children as children are in them. - THE NEW YORKER

They are excellent watchdogs, yet have an agreeable temperament and are most gentle with children. - SAN FRANSICO EXAMINER

As any bunch of sportsmen to name to world's best hunting dog ... immediately you are deep in argument. There's only one dog you probably won't hear mentioned, unless someone in the group has hunted in Africa - the Rhodesian Ridgeback. And he's the best of them all! - STAG

The below article was published in Arizona Days and Ways Magazine, september 22, 1957

Ridgeback puppies relax like kings of the jungle

Canine Social Set Gets A New Member

By Jim Lindstrom

IN MAY 1950, a young University of Arizona graduate and wool buyer named William Howard O´Brien stepped off the freighter African Rainbow at Boston with three dogs of a breed virtually unknown in the United States.
     When O´Brien and his Rhodesian Ridgebacks disembarked they were met by a curious crowd that included photographers from two Boston newspapers. The African Rainbow also carried hyenas, jackels, and baboons, but the photographers were there to cover the arrival of the Ridgebacks.
     Before leaving Africa, O´Brien was told by officials of the South African Rhodesian Ridgeback Club that his Ridgebacks were undoubtedly the first to be exported to the United States. O´Brien later learned that perhaps a half dozen of the breed had preceeded him. Credit for bringing the first Ridgebacks to this country probably goes to the actor, Errol Flynn, one of whose dogs O´Brien later acquired.

BUT CREDIT FOR gaining recognition for the Ridgeback in the United States is unquestionably O´Brien´s. With a nucleus of 8 members, he organized the Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of America, started a stud book, encouraged selective breeding, registered all purebred puppies, and kept the American Kennel Club in New York and the South African Club in Johannesburg informed on activities of the club.
     The growing Ridgeback population was appearing in the miscellaneous class of dog shows in Eastern cities. O´Brien´s Caesar of Redhouse was judged best Ridgeback of 16 entries in the 1952 Eastern Dog Show and his Bantu of Redhouse was acclaimed best bitch in the 1953 show at Boston.
     Finally in November 1955 - after five years of effort - The American Kennel Club accepted the Rhodesian Ridgeback into the canine social register. It was the 112th breed to be recognized, and the first in more than 10 years. Except for imports, only offspring of the dogs in O´Brien´s records at that time can be registered as pedigreed Rhodesian Ridgebacks.

IN SIZE, Ridgebacks are between a boxer and a Great Dane. Their coat is shorthaired and tawny colored, like a lion, and their foreheads wrinkle charmingly when intent on a trail.
     Most distinctive feature, from which the Ridgeback gets its name, is a dagger-shaped ridge of hair along the back that grows against the grain of the rest of the coat.
     This ridge is inherited from half-wild dogs prized by Hottentot villages in Africa, and is shared by only one other breed - the Chinese Phu Quoc, from an island in the Gulf of Siam.

THE QUESTION of which came first - the Hottentot dog or the Phu Quoc - is still debated by dog experts, and has given the Ridgeback a reputation as a mystery dog. O´Brien believes the Phu Quoc was derived from Hottentot hounds carried to Asia by Phoenician traders.
     The modern Rhodesian Ridgeback was developed on the South African veldt - in country much like Arizona - by Boer farmers and big game hunters who wanted a fast and fearless dog to hunt lions and guard their homes.
     The Boers and British settlers bred the Hottentot dog with European mastiffs, Great Danes, bloodhounds and other types until they developed a dog that was intelligent, swift, hardy, courageous, gentle enough to be a family dog.

THE RIDGEBACK breed was standardized in 1926. It was recognized in England 10 years later and in Canada shortly after World War II.      In the United States, the number of Ridgebacks has about doubled every year since 1950 until there are now about 600 of the breed in this country.      For the approximately 300 members of the Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of America, Arizona has become the nearest thing to the national Ridgeback center. As founder and president of the club, O´Brien sends from Scottsdale peppery newsletters exhorting members to be diligent about improving and promoting the breed.      As a leading breeder, O´Brien has sent puppies from his Redhouse Kennels to Bermuda, Nassau, Canada, Mexico City and more than half the states of the union. To facilitate shipping, he is now working with a large box manufacturer to perfect a strong and lightweight container for shipping puppies by air freight. O´BRIEN´S ENTHUSIASTIC adoption of the Ridgeback is foretold by his lifelong penchant for what is different and exciting.      As a youngster in Los Angeles during the 1930s, O´Brien and his horse worked a 30-mile trap line between Sepulveda and Malibu - taking pelts of foxes, wildcats and other animals that sound improbable when thinking of that area.      Before finishing high school, he took his saddle and bedroll and hopped a freight to Arizona, where he found a job on a Verde Valley cattle ranch near Rimrock.      After a summer in Arizona, he returned to Los Angeles to get his diploma, then enrolled at the University of Arizona. Although he lost a close race for student body president to Morris Udall, brother of Arizona Congressman Stewart Udall, O´Brien distinguished himself by organizing the University Rodeo Association and stagging the first all-college rodeo. AS A RIDER, O´Brien was a consistent winner in the wild horse races. During the summer vacations, he took jobs in Northern Arizona breaking wild horses.      World War II interrupted his education, but not his search for adventure. Enlisting in the navy, he was commissioned and sent to the Pacific as a frogman - or, as they were called in those pioneering days of skin-diving, an underwater demolition expert.      After duty in the Pacific, including the battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and in South American waters, O´Brien returned to Tucson and finished work on his agriculture degree. After graduation, he got into the wool business and in 1949 went to Africa as wool buyer for clients including the Japanese government.      It was in South Africa that O´Brien´s path crossed that of the Ridgeback. During buying trips through the country, he had to leave his bride, Sada, alone in their home outside the British colony of Redhouse, near Port Elizabeth. It was the time of the Mau Mau trouble, and for protection he bought a Ridgeback from Col. T. C. Hawley, president of the South African Rhodesian Ridgeback Club.

IN ADDITION TO taking up the sport of polo, O´Brien exercised in Africa by hunting wild boar, rogue baboons, and springbok with Ridgebacks. Before leaving, the O´Briens acquired two more of the breed.
     After wool gathering several years in Massachusetts, Chile, and Peru, O´Brien returned to Phoenix this year to start an investment company.
     Since there is a short supply of springbok and rogue baboons over here, O´Brien has used the all-around hunting qualities of the Ridgeback on pheasants, partridge, doves, ducks, racoons, bobcats, and mountain lions. As hunters, Ridgebacks are described as fast, alert, with good nose and vision and easily trained. Webbed feet make them fine swimmers.

BUT THE O´BRIENS feel that the Ridgeback's big future in the United States rests on his excellence as a family dog in suburbia. Ridgeback owners say the dog is gentle, friendly, obedient, faithful, and clean. They are adaptable to extremes of heat and cold, require little extra care, and do not shed. They are not prone to barking, biting, or roaming. But their presence commands respect; consequently, Ridgeback homes have little fear of intruders.

And, says O´Brien, "Ridgebacks are the world´s best baby sitters."