I often get comment that there is such a thing as a “white golden retriever.”
I hate to explain this again, but sometimes, it’s worth repeating.
All golden retrievers are recessive e/e (yellow to red) for their coat color. All of them. No one has found a dog that carries the white masking gene, which is found in bull terriers and boxers. No one.
Even these dogs that appear to be white are not white in terms of genetics.
And there is an easy way to test this: get the dog wet. Usually, one of these dogs gets wet, it will have a yellow tinge to its coat.
These people who are selling “rare white goldens” are con artists or ignorant of the actual genes involved. There is no such breed as a “British white retriever.” It is actually the European show-line golden that is very pale in color.
Again, my next question is why do you want a dog like this?
Is it because of the novelty of color?
Is it because the breeders tell you the dogs are calm and mellow?
Is it because Oprah has a couple?
It might surprise you to know how recently this color variety developed. I’ve looked at paintings and photographs of hundreds of early goldens. None of them are of this color. None. The much peddled myth that the first Guisachan dogs were of this color doesn’t hold much weight when there are actually paintings of the first litter. They were light gold, not cream. And the 1st Baron Tweedmouth bred in setters to darken the color.
I can explain this 100 or 200 or 50,000 times, and I still have explain the genetics of the color. Also, because there is recessive nature to the light color gene, if you breed for light color, you cannot breed dark colored dogs from light colored parents. That’s why in Europe, dark colors very quickly got bred out of the lines.
Again, I’ll it ONE more time (although I’m kidding myself, I’ll say it again) there is no such thing as a white golden retriever. All we are doing in breeding for the light color in some golden retriever and the mahogany in Irish setters is messing around with the intensity of the yellow to red color. It’s the same color genetically, e/e.
Interesting, “white” German shepherds don’t exist either for the same reason. And West Highland white terriers are of the same color. It’s a very diluted e/e coloration. (Although in these breeds, it’s impossible to see the yellow color.) Check out this study on the cream color. And check out this page on “white” color.
Interestingly, all the supposed white e/e’s have close relatives that come in the more traditonal yellow or red colors for the gene. Westies are close relatives of the Cairn terrier, which does come in a goldish yellow color. American “Eskimo” dogs (American version of the white German spitz) and Samoyeds also come from dogs that can come in the reddish or yellow color. (See the coloration of some reindeer herding spitzes or the typical coloration of a Pomeranian. Some Samoyeds are creamy colored–”biscuits.”) I knew a gold-colored purebred German shepherd. These white dogs are actually very diluted yellows.
But they are not white in the same way that bull terriers or white boxers are white.
There are so many problems with white color. It is, without a doubt, the most genetically problematic color. Merle x Merle disaster puppies? White. Deaf Dalmations? White. The slew of fear, aggression, blindness, feafness, cancer, and neurological problems that are linked with albinism? White.
There were white collies for a while. I guess that didn’t last.
And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sigfreak and Roid were undone by an inbred white tiger along with the two freaks in the “Cat Dancers” who were also killed by an unhinged white tiger.
There are problems inherent to the color, and problems associated with the intense inbreeding from a very very small gene pool to start with (in some cases, one freak dog).
What amazes me more is that the “white” color in goldens didn’t exist until about 1960 or maybe the mid-50′s. Light golds did exist, but they were not this palid coloration.
I remember reading somewhere but a few months ago that many golden fanciers who prefer the darker colors were very tired of having to sort through all the pets for profit breeders who have spent lots of money importing this color and then having the temerity to suggest that 1. This was the original color (and that is very easily shot down); and 2. that the darker colors are “red” and therefore not acceptable. I would love for them to talk to Mrs. Charlesworth (the breed’s real founder) about this.
There still are predominantly white collies, but nothing like Coolidge’s “Prudence Prim” or Lyndon Johnson’s “Blanco.”
I wonder if white German shepherds and Westies didn’t start out as yellow-colored dogs that had all their color bred out of them. These dogs are both the same genotype as golden retrievers, and there are yellow shepherds and gold colored Cairns. Samoyeds come in a cream color, “biscuit,” and American “Eskimo” dogs are really very pale colored German spitzes (They aren’t Eskimo dogs. I’m from a German-American community, where the old timers still call them spitz.)
I believe all white tigers are descended from a single pair, and are incredibly inbred as well as having unique neurological issues associated with the color (their eyes are miswired into their brains, for instance, making them cross-eyed). Most white tigers are killed at birth because they are so deformed.
It’s sadly ironic that people seem to like white/merle animals because those colors are ‘rare’ in nature, without realizing the health reasons as to WHY that would be.
“White” goldens aren’t even rare.
In Europe, they make up the vast majority of the population.
It’s just a marketing tool by breeders who are either ignorant of how the color works or who want to grease the American public writ large.
White only works if you are a canid on Ellesmere Island or a similar environment, where the snow pack used to linger all year. And I doubt that what we see as white on such a subspecies is “really” white. It’s a dilute. Take them away to a lower latitude and I bet color appears in just a few generations.
As for goldens, the more I come here the more it reinforces for me that were I to get one, I’d go about 5 miles away to a woman who has bred field dogs for years and has developed a very nice line of dogs that compete well in field trials, SAR, AG, and Obed.
That is exactly where I’d get mine.
“White” wolves aren’t really white. They are born gray banded agouti (wolf sable) then they turn white as they mature. However, their undercoats remain the same color as their birth color.
Regarding “white” wolves, that is about what i thought, that they were “normal colored” at birth and the coat lightened with the first shed, but I was too lazy to search it on the Net or in my personal library.
Yup, anyone looking for a field/real golden, I’d recommend this person highly! I think she breeds great dogs, but being field bred, they aren’t for the uncommitted/faint of heart! They need dedication, training and consistency, but to me, they exemplify what the breed should be. And I am not a golden person!
I’m fed up. The FCR Societies in America have gotten their sphincters all pinched airtight because we’ve imported two dogs from overseas. Fortunately they only know about one of them. But they’ve harassed our sister Kennel in Sweden to the point where they’ve embarrassed themselves internationally. All because we possibly have the only intact Yellow male FCR in the united states.
Well, my goals are sincere. I’m not going to inbreed or line-breed to closely related dogs, something the old school breeders have been doing for so long that they no one else to blame for the current state of the FCR than themselves. They call us unscrupulous because we have a new hybrid and they feel we’re doing an injustice to both Cockers and FCRs. Well, their opinions have me and my friends at the DNA research labs in LI NY laughing their asses off. If they weren’t so concerned about the cosmetics of the FCR and focused more on the overall health of each specimen then they possibly wouldn’t be in the genetic mess they’re in now.
Sure they’ll show me all the research done to learn what can be done to reverse the downward spiral. But the one thing they all seem to fail to realize is that their practices put them in this situation to begin with. And none of them seem very quick to change those practices since they still get top dollar fees for studding out their genetic mess and further spreading the problems.
To quote my Swedish Sister Kennel “these American Clubs are full of misguided misinformed maniacs.
Thank you for a well-thought out explanation. I am against white Goldens, especially those who breed them specifically for the shade of white. Of course I think anyone who breeds for color has no care for the breed and only breeds for the current fad, but seriously, the Golden Retriever is Golden, not white. If they want a Golden with a White coat, go ahead and make a whole nother breed, the White Retriever. I think these dogs are quite ugly and for this I have been heavily criticized.
It is bad enough so many fad-type breeders want to mess with color and genetics. Why can’t we try to maintain at least some of the most beloved breeds? Why can’t these same breeders strive to maintain the Golden back to a healthier breed rather than what it has become, instead of experimenting with colors and asking for a genetic nightmare.
I get tired of people thinking each breed always has to be updated rather than “bettered”.
Your blog is very intriguing and I wish more dog fanciers thought this way.
In Britain, the standard allows for two colors, gold and cream. Cream is interpreted to allow for the almost white color. Dark gold dogs aren’t accepted, and certainly not the ones as dark as the founding lines of the breed. The dark gold color has a reddish look to it, but the standard does not allow for red. Because this very light color is inherited in a recessive manner (I’m not sure if the darker colors are dominant or incompletely dominant), roughly 90 percent of all European dogs are very pale in color.)
I don’t think many of these dogs have well-balanced conformation, although there are a few that are rather nicely built.
They are starting to approach the Newfoundland’s conformation.
I can speak only for the White German Shepherd, and say that unlike those cases, white in the GSD is a masking color gene represented by the W locus. The options are WhWh for non-white and whwh for white. Unlike the Golden, White German Shepherds have pre-dated the breed itself, and there is photographic evidence of the sire of the very first GSD being white himself (Ironically his name was Grief). Since the foundation GSD was bred to other dogs as well as his own children, the white gene has imbedded itself in the bred. Now white is also a tricky thing because it varies depending on the breeding. A white bred to a white will always give you whiter whites. A white bred to a color (unless that colored dog carries white) will always give you a color with no signs of white. If you do however, breed two white carrying dogs to each other, you will get white dogs with highlighted colors. Basically, you will get white dogs who appear to have a light creamy haze over them, or with creamy tinged fur. They are genetically white, but the color that they carry makes the white “dirty”. In some cases though, a white dog will have a very very diluted/faded cream saddle on the back, but this is only when certain genetics are being masked by the white.
As for the negativity circulating the white German Shepherd, its all farce. The ideas of the white color diluting colors and making for poor specimins was started in Nazi Germany with the desire for darker pigmented dogs. The founder stated himself that color is irrelivent to the breed, and in no way hinders performance. As long as the dog has function, color is not important. The Nazi’s did not agree with this, and Max v. Stephanitz was actually uprooted from his own organization to further the Nazi idea of what the German Shepherd should be. Hence, we have the negative notions surrounding the White German Shepherd to this day. There is the issue that they cant perform good work as the colored dogs can (protection work) and that has not only been disproven, but it has also been the fault of the breeders themselves. If you breed dogs with weak temperment purely for color, you will get weak temperment dogs. There arent many people willing to work their White GSD’s, and as a result you get a lot of dogs who can do noting but show in Conformation. Its a vicious cycle.
So thats my 2 cents on the White GSD.
I’m no expert on protection dogs. I’ll take your word for it.
In goldens, the lighter colors were not preferred until about the 1960′s in Europe. They existed, but they weren’t that light.
In the working lines of golden, you’ll almost never see a very pale colored dog that looks like a kuvasz.
Hi, I know this is an old discussion, but I found it when looking into the colors of Golden Retrievers. I just got a lighter colored Golden Retriever at a local dog pound. He had been a stray, but is clearly purebred. He is very large, 80lbs during the period he was not eating, and now he has a great big happy appetite, so I imagine he weighs closer to 85lbs. The dog pound put his age at 5 to 7 years and I was looking for an older, calmer dog. After spending about an hour with him, I seemed to work through his anxiety and get him to sit and heel. He was anxious at first, but now is a great big goofy, loving, playful, lively, dog. So. How old is he? His teeth look like the teeth of a young dog, clean, actually spotless. But his face has the white pattern of an older dog, around his eyes and nuzzle. The veterinarian I took him to thought he was probably not as old as the pound had estimated. She pointed out the white on his feathering and belly area.
Is there a way to tell if the white is due to old age or is he a light colored Golden Retriever with white (pale coloring) on his face and extremities? He is quite a lively fellow, though he calms down quickly and sleeps well.
I would appreciate any ideas you have about his coloring.
Thanks,
Karin
Goldens turn white around the muzzle. Often at quite early ages– 5 or 6.
The only way to estimate age is have the vet look at his teeth.