The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife Blog

Painting by Reuben Ward Binks.  

Most golden retriever people are of an agreeable sort.

Do not assume that I am.

I’m really a contrarian. It’s my default position.

I often called it my “Prussian personality.”

But there are many things that bother me.

One of these is the problem with the golden retriever.

Miley is currently grounded due to lameness. I think it’s in her hip, and although she’s a very athletic sort of dog, she has some issues with her conformation.

One is that is she is a larger dog than a golden retriever bitch should be. She weighs anywhere from 73 to 77 pounds, which is actually on the upper end of what a golden retriever dog should be.

She has quite a bit of bone, though not as much as other golden retrievers, and although her legs are relatively short compared to her body size, she normally can move really efficiently and quickly.

But this lameness in the hip really has me bothered. I wonder if she had a lighter frame and a smaller body, if she’d be having these problems.

My old dog never had any lameness. She was built like a red rocket of a retriever. Soaking wet, she was 6o pounds of hard muscle,

She was of the old red retriever type that used to comprise the bulk of the golden retriever breed in the Midwest and much of the rest of the Flyover Country. She lived to the ripe old age 13, broke ice to swim in ice covered pond, and was the most annoying obsessive retriever that ever lived.

She was a good dog.

She is one of the muses of this blog.

I’d really like to have a dog like her again.

This old red dog haunts me, as do the photos and paintings of all the old red and dark golden retrievers of yore.

I still get nostalgic when I see the old Bush’s Baked Beans ad from 1996.

I get nostalgic when I see this photo of the first dual champion golden retriever in the United States, Dual Ch. Stilrovin Rip’s Pride:

These dogs are not cute.

The are comparatively harder to live with that the laid-baid, “sooky” type of golden retriever.

They are also annoyingly intelligent dogs, the kind that can open doors and train people to do their bidding.

The golden retriever has become domesticated, suburban animal.

The old type of dog doesn’t fit in that world very well.

But it’s still a good dog.

There is a sadness in me that so few people will ever know that there are golden retrievers like these dogs

There is also a sadness in me that is nothing more than I miss the old dog.

I never get over the loss of dogs or people. Over time, I just sort of get accustomed to their absence.

But I never let it go.

Read Full Post »