Have you seen the gorgeous redhead strutting around Bird’s Hill? He’s fit, athletic, muscular, very well-groomed with perfect teeth and has won top marks at many pageants. He’s Huey, a Rhodesian ridgeback showdog.
Short for Huey and the News, Huey was adopted by the Smith family in February 2025. Clark Smith always wanted a ridgeback, so when he learned there would be a few breeders with their dogs at the Big E in West Springfield, he decided to make the two-hour drive to meet them. That’s where he connected with Bonnie Johnson of Shabani’s Rhodesian Ridgebacks — and Huey.
Johnson has been breeding ridgebacks since 1996, with one or two litters a year. It hadn’t been her plan to make this her vocation — in fact she wasn’t particularly interested in dogs at all. But as often happens, the vocation found her. “My first husband dragged me up to the North Shore,” she said. There was a breeder he wanted to visit. “He insisted we get a ridgeback. I was fresh out of college, just started as a mortgage broker and had absolutely no interest in getting a puppy.” But by the time they got home, she said the puppy was hers. “He was fantastic.”
When Smith expressed his interest in the breed, known for its ridge of backward growing hair along the spine, Johnson told him she didn’t have any dogs available for adoption at that moment.
“So I said, ‘What about this dog, the one you’ve got right here?’” said Smith. “She said, ‘Well this is my dog, we’re showing him, he’s going to be a show dog.” And I said, ‘Well, we could co-own him.’”
After discussing the idea with her daughter, who has named the puppies of every litter, Johnson agreed. The Smith family — Clark’s wife, Heidi, their four daughters, and possibly most importantly, Teddy, their golden doodle — then met Huey and gave their approval. They also checked out several books from the library about Rhodesian ridgebacks — one of which featured Johnson’s dogs.
Smith wasn’t looking for a showdog, but co-owning with a breeder/handler has benefits. “Basically we have the responsibility of the dog and she shows him,” he said. “For me the main benefit is when we board him, we drop him off at the breeder’s house when we go on vacation.” He said he usually gives Johnson their travel schedule and she looks for shows during those periods. There have only been a couple of times when she picked him up to bring him to a show.
Huey recently earned his American Kennel Club championship, which means he earned the requisite minimum of three or more points at several dog shows to reach 15 points total. The points are awarded based on several factors that determine whether a dog best represents the breed.
“He has a beautiful head and neck to shoulder, nice topline, moves beautifully, has a ton of substance and bone, and a beautiful temperament,” said Johnson. “And he’s started to mature. He’s becoming more protective of the home — nobody is breaking into Clark’s house.”
Ridgebacks, also called African lion hounds, were originally bred in Southern Africa by European settlers to track lions and hold them in place for hunters. Boer farmers brought large breeds such as mastiffs, greyhounds and bloodhounds to Africa, which, when bred with the indigenous Khoikhoi ridged hunting dogs, rendered the present-day Rhodesian ridgeback. The ridge can be either a dominant trait or heterozygous, thus not all ridgebacks have a ridge. It was thought the dogs that had the ridge were better lion hunters, and so the mix became intentional, Smith said.
Johnson said the dogs are outdoorsy and active with an independent nature and require a lot of extra training and exercise. She said they’ve become more popular in recent years because of their unique look. But, she said, “They’re not a golden retriever. They’re not going to comply just because you ask them to, they do what they want. You have to have a temperament that can handle independence.”
Next up for Huey will be grand championship — a higher level best of breed — dog shows. “I think Clark would love it if I took him to the Westminster Dog Show,” said Johnson. But Huey still needs to mature a bit before he’ll be ready for that level of competition. She also plans to do extensive genetic testing when he turns 2 both for the ridge-dominant gene as well as other factors including hip dysplasia. If all goes well, Huey will help Johnson perpetuate the breed.
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