I don’t know how to say it any better.
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BTW, as per that Washington Post story, Raymond Coppinger is wrong.
There were golden retrievers before the 1st Baron Tweedmouth founded his line.
They just weren’t called that.
They were usually called drowned as soon as they were born.
The 1st Baron Tweedmouth was merely a person who founded a line of them, and that line begat three lines of yellow flat-coated retriever that eventually founded a separate breed.
I know that for literary purposes we say that Lord Tweedmouth founded the golden retriever, but I think we have to be careful in our language. This isn’t exactly what we mean. We actually mean what was written in the previous paragraph.
I think we put a bit too much emphasis on the Guisachan story, and we ignore the years between the last of those and when the breed became distinct from the flat-coat. The golden retriever must be understood as being part of the wavy-coated and flat-coated retriever breeds during this time. They were evolving within that breed’s framework. Ignoring that context makes us fail to understand the breed’s history in very fundamental way.
I don’t think it’s wrong to look at the Guisachan story, but it’s not the totality of the golden retriever’s history. We have to understand the history of retrievers, especially the history of Labrador and flat-coated retrievers, if we are to every really get a grasp on where the golden retriever came from and where it is going.
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I believe it was the 1st Viscount Harcourt (the owner of the Culham line) who first coined the term “golden retriever” for the dogs some time in the early twentieth century.
It’s really not an ancient term.
It’s also pretty good marketing, if you ask me.
I don’t know how far the breed would have gone if it had been called “Tweedmouth’s retriever.”
And if it had remained within the flat-coated breed, it probably would have experienced the population crash that the flat-coat experienced in the Interwar period.
It probably would have disappeared entirely, for yellow coloration was never in favor in flat-coats or any other breed of retriever.
The golden dogs would have gone the way of the fawn-colored Scottish deerhounds, which no longer exist at all, or maybe the way of drop-eared Skye terriers, which are a very rare part of an increasingly rare breed.
Separation does have its advantages.
Well, it is true that Dudley Marjoribanks (later, Lord Tweedmouth)was one of the first to deliberately establish and maintain a strain of these yellow retrievers (as they were then called– “Golden” wasn’t used until after 1900, as you said). His cousin 5th Lord Ilchester also maintained his own strain, although they were (with perhaps one exception) not registered with the Kennel Club, as did Lord Portsmouth; both were originated with Guisachan-bred dogs. I know of two or three other probably unrelated strains of “red” or “yellow” wavy/flat coats, but they died out before 1900.
There were several kennels that had both yellows and blacks, originally registered as Flat- or Wavy-coated, then some of the yellows were re-registered as “Retrievers (Yellow or Golden”) 1912 and later. prior to 1912, all were simply registered as “Retrievers”, and since color and coat type were not specified in the published registrations, it is often impossible to tell which might have been which.
The person most responsible for getting the yellows formally recognized as a separate variety probably was the redoubtable Mrs. Charlesworth. She also was the impetus for the formation of The Golden Retriever Club in 1911. And I say “variety” advisedly, as up until 1949 or even later, the Kennel Club considered the breed as “Retriever”, with the varieties of Labrador, Flat-Coated, Curly-Coated, Golden, etc. and Interbred Retrievers could be registered as well.
Thanks so much for this valuable info M.R.S.
In response to the “Zing” article regarding purebreds vs mixed breeds. There is a reason that specific types/strains/breeds were developed in the first place — for specific duties/jobs. If you were a shepherd in Scotland, a working collie would be the dog of choice — not a mastiff, nor mixed-breed terrier type. If you need a soft-mouthed retriever for North Dakota, a mixed-breed chow-type is probably not going to do the job.
If all you want is a nice companion, or perhaps to train for Agility or Rally, sure, the right trainer can be successful to at least some degree with almost any dog, purebred or not. And there are some lovely, loving random-bred dogs. But they aren’t likely to have the special abilities/talents that specifically-bred dogs will.
I’d like to someone turn a chow mix into a retriever.
I agree with you on that, but you can find mixed breed dogs that actually do have the characteristics to do certain specialized jobs. The thing about mixed breeds is those traits are not predictable, but even in purebreds, they aren’t either. I see lots of goldens (including my own) that have no interest in retrieving at all.
If you don’t breed for it you’ll lose it. Not completely, it sometimes amazes me how predatory western Afghans still are, but in general you have to select for it to keep it.
Lady and the Tramp or the “Huck Finn” mixed breed myth. It’s a case of presenting purebreds as “snobs” and the mutt as “one of us”. Obedience or Rally, or Agility, are all sports where mostly, there aren’t purebred “advantages” – although clearly, the top competitive Agility dogs do tend to be one specific breed. In herding, yes, some mixes “can”, but it’s simply better odds to get a dog from herding parents. Some mixes are “compatible” — in police work, a Dutch/Belgian shepherd or a Dutch/German Shepherd isn’t an “issue”. But you don’t see Belgian/Chow or Dutch/Akitas. Or even Dutch/Dobermans. The odds are simply better if “crosses” are within specific lines with known working background — that are proven to be complimentary.
The news media and those advocating that “a mutt is as good as a purebred” always tend to forget this. It may be true that “most” of a given breed don’t “work” any longer. But the ones who DO work have to be capable of that work. You wouldn’t just cobble together an aircraft out of spare parts and expect it to competitively fly against a specifically – designed stunt plane. Why on earth people refuse to acknowledge that genetics has something to do with the various capabilities in dogs is beyond me.
Peggy Richter.
This thought came to mind: It’s like a cake. A well assembled cake is superior to the sum of its ingredients, once you bake it.
While it might share ingredients with many other kinds of cakes and baked goods, there’s a narrow band for the key ingredients that would result in satisfactory or exemplary results.
One problem is, even if the ingredients are top quality and you have all the right ones in the right ratio, you can still OVER BAKE the cake.
At some point, a superior cake that is over cooked will be a toss up for an ad hoc recipe that is cooked well. And at some point a burnt cake becomes unpalatable no matter how expensive and delicious the ingredients were.
This is the case with many pure bred dogs. The refining of the recipe did provide positive returns, but once the cooks were so far removed from original breeders to appreciate the quality of the results over the purity of the input, and they kept kneading the batter too much and baking the cake too long, the results suffered.
This is the same with mutts. There’s no guarantee that you slap-dash mixing ingredients is going to produce an edible cake. But if you’re mixing quality ingredients from one recipe with quality ingredients from another, you have a better chance.