It’s from an episode of a show called Bird Dogs Forever.
Pointing golden retrievers aren’t supposed to exist, but there are breeders who produce pointing Labradors. There is a lot of debate about pointing Labradors, which I will not go into here. Let’s just say it’s controversial.
However, pointing can be trained in a wide variety of breeds. Mark Derr writes about how a foxhound can be trained to point in A Dog’s History of America, as well as mentioning a pointing bloodhound that belonged to Montague Stevens, the celebrated grizzly hunter from New Mexico. Then there’s that story about the pointing coyote from Oklahoma. It’s likely that many breeds have this capacity, and it just takes some training to bring it out and refine it.
What you will see in the clip is very informal gun dog work. The British call this kind of hunting “rough shooting,” which means the dogs are put after truly wild birds that have never been raised in pens in an environment that is totally natural. They are not driving the pheasants out with spaniels and shooting them. They are using retrievers as spaniels– well, at least the Labrador is being used as a spaniel!
There is not a single trial or test for pointing ability in golden retrievers, and it is not at trait that is normally bred for or typically reinforced through training in this breed, which is almost universally regarded as a flushing dog when used on land-based game birds.
It is somewhat difficult to see this dog point in the video because she is almost exactly the same color as the grass.
But it is still interesting to watch.
At 2007 Wildrose event that ran pointing dogs with Labradors, two of the British Labs actually pointed some birds– and the pointers backed them!
One of my Golden Retrievers has pointed since she was a puppy. The very first day we had her, she pointed at a Robin on the lawn. She was 7 weeks old.
I raise and breed pointing golden retrievers (full akc golden retrievers, not a hybrid). They both point and back. I had to convince the trainer before she would accept and finish them. Every golden should point, it’s a recessive trait but it can be brought out.
Very interesting. From what I’ve read, pointing in general is a recessive trait. It also exists in Dalmatians, not just the ones that have recent pointer ancestry to reduce uric acid levels.