I think any dog, regardless of breed, is what you make it. If you make it into a loving, friendly dog, then that it what it is more than likely to be.

I think you will always find people who have pre-conceived ideas about a lot of breeds, the best way to get round this is to make sure you have a well trained dog.
I know a lot of RR who have good recall but I also know a few who do not. RR are classed as both sight hounds and scent hounds which means - if they see something they will chase it and if they smell something, they are nose down after it. They are also selectively deaf and have a 5-10 second delay where they decide if your request is worth responding to They are intelligent and independant. They are also quite sensitive and dont respond well to anything that they perceive to be unfair.
At this point you may want to run a mile but they are also fabulous dogs

As far as hounds go in general, a ridgie is certainly not one of the worse for recall but all hounds need to be treat with caution as far as recall goes and you need to have an open mind about this and that they might never be reliable offlead in certain places, it's just how they are.

Well ive only met two and can quite honestly say i love them. The first one we met when he was offlead in the woods, he came bounding towards us and his owner was worried about my reaction, he thought nobody was around, my dogs played happily with him but i seen the owners point of view that they can LOOK intimidating charging up to you and he would have prefered to have him on lead if he'd known we were there.

In my experience of Ridgebacks they have always been fine

Choose with care and you should have no problems at all over and above the fact that it is a hound. Some can be very sharp but it does seem to run in the breed line so can be avoided. They are beautiful dogs with determined self will within a lovely head.

Thank you everyone for your help. I personally think that if someone is afraid of dogs, they'll be scared of any breed. I just have to convince my hubby now that it's a breed for us.

Elena, why not visit a few shows where R. R.s are scheduled and let him say hello to a few.

A lady used to walk her two RR's over the field next to our house. I often saw her with the Chis. These two dogs were terrified of my Gremlins. She said a small breed (not Chi) had snapped at their legs when they were younger. They were beautiful dogs and had no intention of hurting my children or dogs. I think they are a lovely breed, if the two I knew, are anything to go by. Very gentle and very well-behaved. The woman who had the two of them was totally in control.

I really like the breed, but then I am not easily scared of many dogs (esp owning GSDs). I wouldn't think the breed have a bad rep with members of the GP, so you should be fine so long as your dog is well trained.

Good luck convincing your hubby