Oh, Sunny doesn't look retarded, she just looks like there's something she wants, up and to our left.

By the way, is there any chance Sunny's not full-blood Rhodesian Ridgeback? Not because of the coloration, but because her snout and ears don't have the right shape. The pictures I've seen have them looking more like a cross between a Great Dane and a coon hound.

On the other hand, I have read up on them somewhat, and it could just be that the Rottweiler in their ancestry came out unusually strong in Sunny.

Awwwwww. Lookit the cutie doggie!!!111!

Your Sunny looks very much like my daughter's dog Kaiser. We thought ours was a Rottweiler mix. Any ideas what your dog's breed is?

I think she's ALMOST pure Ridgeback, but probably has some sort of other hound in her ancestry. The vet says her purple tongue is a Ridgeback trait, and she actually has all the other classic Ridgeback features like lots of loose skin around the neck, smallish head, very aloof yet fierce-when-aroused personality, etc.

I did a bunch of research on Ridgebacks because she's black and her markings look just like Rottweiler, but found out that something like 4% of Ridgebacks have the rare black variation (which actually rules them out from being shown although they can still be registered with AKC).

Finally, the main reason I'm pretty sure she's almost if not totally pure is because when I picked her out at the shelter, she was together with her brother, who was a perfect specimen of Ridgeback - tan coat, a little bigger, etc. He was the textbook Ridgeback and was her full brother, so that makes me think their parents were both pretty full Ridgebacks. I think Sunny was probably the runt, and has some "flaws". HAHA. She really does have a small head, it makes me laugh. She looks like a baby elephant.