It all depends.
Here's some of my pups:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGXhn9wO6aw
This is a complex story. The short version is that the majority of Rhodesian Ridgebacks, from a working-dog perspective, aren't worth their weight in kibble. And I'm not saying that to imply that my dogs are anything spectacular - they're not, I'm trying to produce a functional hunting dog, and hopefully I'll produce the dog I want eventually, but it's an ongoing (likely life-long) journey.
That said, there are some decent ones out there, you just have to find the right sort - and that depends largely on what sort you are looking for.
On the whole I would agree with Roy's observations, except to note that he paints with perhaps too broad a brush. Some Ridgebacks have a lot of hunt, some have great nose, some are wonderful family dogs, etc. Again, you just have to find the right sort.
I would whole-heartedly agree with Roy's "utility" classification... with a lot of caveats. The AKC parent-club's sighthound classification is just silly. The FCI's classification, placing it with the Dalmatian, gets a lot closer to both the historical and functional reality - the Rhodesian Ridgeback is a versatile/utilitarian Cur-Dog (Cur-Dog in the American (UKC) sense of the term).
The earliest incarnations of these dogs were mostly employed as general farm-dogs, traveling/trekking companions (moved stock, protected wagons and helped secure venison/bush-meat in the evenings) and as aides to the early Dutch Transport Riders who used them for guards and finder/bailers on lion and bush-pig.
One dynamic often ignored in the evolution/ruination of this bred is human conflict. War time pressures and strains have done
a lot to change the breed, and in my opinion not for the better. I won't get into the pedantic details, but the Second Boer War, the Second World War, and the Bush Wars chief among them.
It was Van Rooyen who's version of this dog became famous for being straight-lion-bred. And in fairness, most of the modern registered rhodesian ridgeback stock out there traces back solidly to Van Rooyen's line. But that brings us to the second dynamic... in Africa, then and now, there are lots of farm-bred ridgebacks. In fact, they significantly outnumber registered/pedigreed dogs.
There is also a third, the cultural dynamic, to consider. The Rhodesian Ridgeback as it is known in most of the world is the product of turn of the century efforts (both in the hunting sphere and in dog-showing) of the Victorian ambition. By contrast, the ridgeback as it began pre-1890ish, and as it continues in many corners of Africa, was/is the product of the Afrikaner ethos. I don't want to get into an English vs. Boer debate... that is a can of worms i don't want to go anywhere near. But as it relates to the dogs, these cultural differences can clearly be seen in many of the dogs, both in terms of their construction, temperament and use/non-use.
The key thing to take away from this is that the Victorians saved Van Rooyen's line of lion-dogs from extinction and then simultaneously destroyed them in the effort. The dogs kept by the English in Mashonaland and Matebeleland were, for the most part, real-deal working dogs, and yes, most were used to hunt, and many of those were indeed used to hunt lion. But by the 1910's/1920's lion hunting had dropped off dramatically in the region, and there wasn't much call/need for Rhodesian Lion Dogs. They were on the skids, lion dogs with few lions left to hunt. Barnes (who himself kept and hunted ridgebacks) and several others formed the parent club in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and petitioned the kennel union in South Africa to open a stud book. These out-of-work Van Rooyen dogs would be saved, but eventually at the expense of becoming show-dogs.
Now as a consequence, in southern Africa the majority of the papered dogs are kept as guards or pets or show dogs and the majority of non papered dogs are kept for as farm/estate dogs - guards, varmint control, pets, etc. Very few hunted any more.
To give you some perspective, there are hundreds of registered Ridgebacks in southern African, but some estimate that there are thousands (or better) of non-papered dogs. And yet, while there are numerous PH's who hire (or keep) dogs for their hunts, I am only aware of four african PH's that use Ridgebacks on their hunts.
The big obstacle to their use here in the U.S. is two fold. 1) The lack of hunt-bred/hunt proven-stock, and 2) Cost, for the price of one ridgeback you can buy two or three black mouths, their closest North American cousin.
