I'm very much a golden person.
What follows are some generalizations based upon my experiences. Because you have different experiences than I do, you may have different opinions. I respect them. Please respect mine.
1. Labs do have a lot of energy. The American trial Labrador is usually a very hot-blooded animal with lots of spirit and more than a little stubbornness. Some can be scatty, and others are furry lunkers that can’t be controlled without judicious application of the e-collar. A lot of these Labs also lack retrieving instinct and must be force-fetched. (The average working gundog should never need to go through it. It should be a natural retriever.) It’s still possible to find good lines of working Labrador that aren’t too extreme in this regard. However, the chances of getting one of these wild ones is too high these days. With goldens, high energy is something to still be breeding for. In fact, pet goldens are being bred that lack drive and instinct. If you get a golden, chances are it won’t be one of these wild dogs. (I really don’t like a very calm golden retriever, but I think if you had one that was as up as some of these Labs are, you would have problems very quickly).
2. Labs are not as easy to train for normal purposes as a golden. Now, for waterfowl and retriever trials, they are far better. But goldens are far easier to precision train for dog sports. As house dogs, I find them easier to housebreak and easier to teach simple obedience commands.
3. Labs are more neotenous than goldens are. This means that they don’t develop as many wolf-like behaviors as goldens develop.
4. Goldens have a better nose than Labradors. Goldens are also natural air scenters and quaterers, which is bad for a trial dog but very useful in a flushing retriever in heavy cover.
5. Goldens mature later than Labs. This is supposed to be a negative if you’re a trialer. I happen to like a dog that as a bit longer childhood, because then you have more time to put in foundations in your training and socialization.
6. My goldens have lived longer than the working Labs I’ve known. Now, this may no longer be the case, but when the Labs died at 10 or 11, my goldens still made it 13 and 14.
7. If there is a border collie of the gun dogs, the golden is it. Before BC’s became AKC dogs, goldens simply took over the obedience trial. If you wanted to do competitive obedience, you got a golden to start out. Then you figured out to do it with something harder– like a basenji.
8. I prefer setter and spaniel behavior in a hunting dog but with much more control. The golden has a lot of setter and spaniel quartering behavior. They aren’t great at speed as flushing dogs, but because they are so easy to train, it is easier to teach them how to quarter closer. Labs don’t have the golden’s nose, and I find their quartering behavior to be very different. They are either methodical like black Clumbers or they run around like black springers.
9. I have had three super smart golden retrievers, which have all been very easy to train. They also have been superb at problem solving. All three have figured out how to open doors on their own. One taught the other how to open the door. The current dog figured it out when she was about 5 months old.
10. “If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it?”
Labs are popular, and many are good working gundogs. If you want a trial dog, there are many more lines of working Lab than golden. If you want a dog that works in the old-fashioned way, that is very easy to train as a pet but takes longer to train as a retriever, I’d say go for a golden.
I’m biased toward goldens. I don’t deny this.
There are good Labs are there. There are many of them.
You do have to hunt to find a good golden. Good Labs are far more common.
It’s just the Labrador isn’t for me.
I’ve never actually written why I prefer goldens to Labs before. It may be that I just met the right goldens early on, and first impressions have a very strong impact upon perception.
I respect Labrador people for making their decisions. I’m sure their dogs are good.
It’s just that I like the old-fashioned retrievers. I like dogs that look like they belong in Edwardian shoots in the last halcyon days of the Empire. Call me romantic or a touch nostalgic, but the golden is the only common retriever that still has that mystique.
If goldens have a better nose why are more labs working as drug dogs than goldens? Interesting post but alot of opinion not based on actual science that I can see. I think it’s hard to be objective when you have a breed bias. VBG
They do have a better nose, but their coats are harder to care for.
That’s why.
I don’t know why the drug detection people don’t use them.
But they do have a better noses. Their coats are harder to care for. That’s the only reason why I can think of it. The average golden will pick up on birds that a Lab will miss entirely.
“Fourth, he needs a good nose. Actually, most goldens excel Labs and Chessies in this trait, but they need to in order to overcome their somewhat lesser marking ability.”
James Spencer, Gun Dog Magazine
At little later the Rev. E.N. Needham-Davies, contributing a chapter on the breed to a book entitled Gun Dogs; Their Training, Working & Managment and conscious that his article would be read in a comparative sense with the articles on other varieties of the retriever family, drew attention to similair qualities. Being a younger breed the Goldens, he felt, had not been crossed as had happened with some other varieties. So, whereas some Field Trial work showed dogs to be very reliant on the whistle the Golden had not lost his ancestors’ hunting traits. “Fast and sure”, he wrote, “is excellent, they are two gundog virtues but the greater of these is sureness. The Golden, broadly speaking, is sure”. with “a nose second to none, he holds his line and carries it”. Too much pace, he added, and he may drop it.
http://www.thegoldenretrieverclub.co.uk/workgun.html
Labs mature earlier than goldens, so that could be the reason. A Lab matures six months earlier than a golden. That means you can run more dogs through a detection dog program in a shorter period of time. I find their noses inferior to the goldens’. They are better markers and easier to train as waterfowl dogs. But in all other areas, a proper working bred golden is a much easier dog to train. It’s not that Labs aren’t good. It’s just that they are harder to train for normal dog tasks.
Yes. I’m biased, but then we’re all biased. I’ve dealt with both breeds, and I find the golden fits me far better than the Labrador. Malinois are similar. They mature earlier, and these are often used as detection dogs.
Another possible reason Labs are used as drug dogs is that it seems to me that working like that requires teamwork, but it also requires a good deal of independence.
This is kind of in opposition to your quote from Mr. Needham-Davies, but here goes: My observation of Labs and goldens in field work leads me to the broad generalization that Labs will work as a team, but work best in a team and on a task that requires a good deal of independence on their part; goldens, on the other hand, will be independent, but “typically” seem to work with the most confidence on a task that requires teamwork first and foremost, and look to their teammate/handler for assurance and guidance more often than the “typical” Lab.
This doesn’t make a Lab better than a golden in my mind–it’s just my own personal observation and speculation. I’m sure others know different dogs and have different observations. But, it seems this penchant for teamwork is one of the reasons the golden people I know prefer them–and I certainly see their point, and occasionally downright pine for that quality. (At its most golden-y extreme, however, I find it cloying and insipid–like the worst second-grade teacher’s pet. Heaven help me if I ever bumble into owning a golden like that…)
Broad generalization regards…
I would have the right golden in a heartbeat. I would also have the right Lab in a heartbeat. I have the right flat-coat right now (lucky me… I think).
But the whole “Labs are hyper because of field trials” thing is, I think, a crock. Labs are hyper and have poor manners when their trainers let them get away with it, or encourage it consciously or unconsciously, because they think it’s evidence of retrieving drive (and usually this pride in showing off “drive” is related to the reason that middle-aged men by red cars and date 22 year olds, and it usually backfires in competition, in my observation).
Now–VOCAL dogs…. that, I think, has some evidence for a genetic component, in a few lines, and once you’ve seen one you know you don’t want to encourage it to breed. I don’t see that as becoming a widespread issue, and hopefully it will be a dead issue in Labs a few generations from now.
I actually think it’s a combo of the way the trials are and the fact that you can’t train them without pressure.
I’m with Milner on this.
Dogs are a product of the environment they are raised in. Sort of like children. I agree with F&L. We’ve rehabilitated too many labs and goldens and really can only come to the conclusion that the problem at the root their behavior problems is their owners lack of understanding how to take charge and provide the proper training. Parents with kids that are nuts are not much different than the owner with a nutty dog.
“I guess thats just how you were raised” applies to our four legged friends, too.
(( It’s not that Labs aren’t good. It’s just that they are harder to train for normal dog tasks. ))
This is also a stumper. I have to say in my years of training I have not found this to be true. What exercises are you refering to specificly? Perhaps I am missing something.
Obedience trials. Agility.
I’ve found a true working bred golden to be just about border collie level.
I’ve found Labs to be good gun dogs.
Maybe you’re dealing with generic pet type goldens, or are using methods that don’t work well with them
They are temperamentally much softer than Labs. Corrections based training can ruin them.
I’ve found very few breeds that are like goldens– the poodles and the border collies.
Every book on retrievers will say that goldens if bred from real working stock are very easy to train, but there aren’t many good ones.
A Lab is easy to train, but they aren’t goldens. Because I prefer to also do these other dog sports, I am less inclined to the Labrador.
When Stanley Coren did a survey of obedience trainers to get what they thought were the best working breeds in his Intelligence of dogs, Goldens were in the top 5, and Labs were not. That was a survey of top obedience judges and trainers in Canada and the US.
Now, my experience with goldens has been with working strain goldens. By the time they are mature, they are usually very easy dogs to handle– up there with Aussies, Borders, Shelties, and poodles. People who do obedience trials with the AKC regularly use goldens. In fact, they may be the only breed that has its own obedience trial lines.
The show-bred ones and the “white” ones are usually terrible when it comes to this. If that’s what you’re dealing with, then they are usually inferior to the Labradors.
I’ll send you James Spencer’s analysis of the golden’s working abilities– you may just be dealing with the overbred pet class golden.
http://www.gundogmag.com/gundog_breeds/GD_ideal_0709/
A true field bred golden is one of the easiest breeds to train. However, they are softer in temperament and slower to mature than Labs. And they have setter-like hunting behavior. That’s why the field trialers don’t use them very much.
Ah, so many disagreements, so little time!
I guess to me, when you’re talking about The Big Three plus flat-coats (I’m leaving out the curly-coat, which I have only seen a handful of, and tollers, which I think are different), retrievers are generally retrievers and may or may not fit the conceptions and misconceptions attributed to their breeds.
I am more than a little sun-burned from my day in the field, and happily exhausted from the margaritas at a father’s day get-together, so you are off the hook on the particulars I’d otherwise quibble over (plus I guess it’s your blog…)!
Have a good night. ;)
(And I do want to add–I’ve got the “right” Lab for me already–I didn’t make it sound like that before. Love this guy.)
The right Lab for me would be one that acted like a golden.
If I lived where there were ducks, I might have a different attitude. But we don’t havea blasted wild duck for a hundred miles.
(( Maybe you’re dealing with generic pet type goldens, or are using methods that don’t work well with them
They are temperamentally much softer than Labs. Corrections based training can ruin them. ))
I said that I do NOT have problems training either breed. Unsure why this was part of your reply.
For the record I use positive reward based training methods.
The notion that some breeds are harder to train to me is hogwash IN MY EXPERIENCE. I think some dogs need different motivation. If you can find what the dog will work for, and use that as motivation, then you can teach a dog anything. I find many people in this day and age are just to impatient.
And I find it interesting that you paint whole breeds with one brush stroke. One has to take into account the dogs in a specific area, or from specific lines possibly acting different than the picture you paint of them all. Saying ALL X dogs are better than all Y dogs seems counter intuitive to me as a trainer. To me all dogs are individuals no matter what breed they are. Training needs to be adjusted depending on the dog you have.
(not trying to be argumentitive, just giving another side)
I do think some breeds are harder to train.
Some of my previous comments were aimed because I assumed from your writing that you thought Labs were easier. They are easily trained, don’t get me wrong.
You are very correct about motivation, but some breeds tend to pay closer attention to voice commands. And some are softer.
If you look at different dog breeds’ brains, they look so different that they they look like they belong to separate species.
It’s not just that they have a different motivation, their whole wiring is different.
Of course, goldens and Labs are very similar. It’s just that goldens are a bit softer and generally don’t tolerate pressure as well as Labrador. Labs also mature on average six months sooner than goldens do, even if the Labs are larger.
I agree with you that most dogs are far easier to train than their owners believe, and I am not one of these who believes that there are “dumb” breeds. It is about motivation, and skilled trainers figure out what’s the thing that makes the dog do it.
Contrary to popular belief, cats aren’t that hard to train. Now, they aren’t dogs. Raccoons are easy to train, too, and we all know pigs are. (Raccoons are wild animals, though, and have wild instincts.)
I very much agree with you.
My experience is that goldens are very easy for the average person to get motivated. They are very good at paying attention to the human voice.
Check this out.
http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/are-golden-retrievers-smarter-than-afghan-hounds/
I think both breeds are intelligent, but they are such different dogs that it’s comparing apples to oranges.
Hmm, neoteny used as an adjective. I thought it was a noun, a trait to have, not a thing to be…
I’m interested that they ranked German shepherds below goldens for adult wolf-like physical characteristics. I would think the floppy vs. prick ears alone would reverse that ranking.
It is a noun.
The reason why GSD’s are higher on the “puppyish” scale is because they are derived from herding dog ancestors that were bred to look like wolves but not act like them. Sheep are more likely to move from dog that looks like a wolf than one that looks cute. The goldens may have lower levels of neoteny because retrieving might require more wolfish behavior to remain intact. The truth is we don’t know why the researchers discovered this.
I do know that my goldens have lots of “wolfish” body language. In fact, they really don’t get it that other dogs don’t get them. My first golden used to be confounded that my uncle’s Jack Russells never figured out what her play bows meant.
Are play bows wolfish? What is specially wolfish acting in dogs?
Being mostly cool, and not to bark, are the only ones that springs to my mind. And only the latter I for sure know is true.
Yes, play bows are wolfish.
I know that Jack Russells very often don’t have a clue about them.
You say you love the Edwardian glamour in your goldie.
And I love the Victorian feel in my lab. Victorian age was before your age, so lab is a bit older breed.
But mostly I’d hate the long hair touching the ground in this dirty ol’ town. And I mean fags and car-shit = metals, paint, what ever it may contain.
The goldens have higher (fore)head, and the shape is round. Haven’t they? Especially the show-types.
A lab’s forehead is flatter and broader. Especially in some photos taken, it looks like a horizontal slice has been cut away from the dog’s top of the head. This thing has popped into my eyes so many times.
I think it’s a yellow wavy-coated lab in that old painting in that painting above.
I wish I had a digital photo of my first dog. She looked like a tawny flat-coat. She had no big flews or the rounded head. And she was an excellent retriever. She had the softest mouth of all of my dogs. My experience is that big flewed dogs, are often like boxers or mastiffs, and have rather hard mouths.