Hello,
This is the first post on this blog. Let me tell you I have in mind for it!
I am a person who has some training in historiography and social science methods. I also have a background in golden retrievers, which are the fourth most popular dog in the United States, according to American Kennel Club registrations. Originally a retriever of waterfowl and descended from the St. Johns Water Dog (as are ALL retrievers), the golden has shifted from a hunting dog belonging to the British aristocracy to a pet. Some enjoy the talents of a working retriever in the field, using those talents to flush and retriever game. Others use those talents in creating sniffer dogs for bomb and contraband or train the dogs in search in rescue. The talents that made the golden a hunting retriever are used in all of those tasks; however, the golden is rarely chosen to be a competitor in retriever field trials.
One of the reasons for this shunning in field trials is that goldens are such beautiful animals and are easily trained. They are widely recommended as family pets because of their good nature. Whole generations of goldens have been bred that have never fetched a duck or flushed a pheasant. These dogs make up the majority of the breed throughout the world. In Europe, the tendency has been to breed goldens with more muscle and bone than could ever be practical in a field dog, while in North America, the tendency has been to breed much more feathering on the dog. When one has to compete against a short-haired dog that can swim very fast (the Labrador) that has well-established working lines, it becomes obvious that the golden is not going to be the field trial competitor’s first choice. Goldens are known for their high trainability, even in the lines that are not bred for work, but the field trial Lab has been selected through the generations to be a retriever trial specialist.
Although I am not currently a breeder of goldens, I would like to have contact with those who are working on producing the working golden, one that can compete with the Lab. I see no reason why selective breeding cannot produce a golden that can work as well in the field as the Labrador, except that there are not enought people out there who consider the golden a working retriever.
The golden has proven to be a superior competitor in obedience and dog agility competition. Goldens have dominated the Lab in obedience and dog agility. However, the golden is often thought of in the field as being the more hard-headed of the two most common retriever breeds. A disconnect must exist here, and I think it has more to do with selective breeding. Generations of Labradors are bred for the field trial, and its peculiar environment. There are specialist lines of Lab that have done nothing but win trials. A short-haired dog is also more streamlined and can swim faster than a long-haired dog. The Lab is also more accepting of harder corrections than the golden, in general. Most retriever trainers use corrections that might be a little strong for a more sensitive dog like a golden. All of these factors might explain why the Lab is the field trial dog, and the golden is the “swamp collie.”
First of all, let’s talk about how we got golden retrievers.
Here is a look at some goldens of the 1920’s:
Silence of Tone, Noranby Black -Eyed Susan, Ch. Noranby Diana & Noranby Jane--Note that Noranby Diana is dark and appears lightly built and is a show champion!
The flat-coated retriever still maintains its working ability and its lighter build for fast retrieval work. However, the breed is often considered more difficult to train than goldens and Labs, but this breed is far rarer than either of those two breeds, even though the three were interbred extensively!
Because the golden was a color variety of the flat-coat, the two breeds have a very similar history. They both derive from the St. Johns Water dog, often thought of as the ancestral Labrador. These were crossed with setters (each region in Britain had its own setter, like the Welsh black setter), water spaniels (of which there were many, many varieties) and working collies to produce a dog that would retrieve game that was shot.
In the early to mid-nineteenth century, economic conditions had led to the development of new economic titles. Romanticism was deep within Britain’s intelligentsia and economic elites. Many people with means to buy land were purchasing estates in Scotland and rural England solely for the purpose of having a shooting estate. Game-keepers raised pheasants for their master’s gun, and the wealthy began to want a dog to pick up shot game. The retriever is the dog developed for this purpose. Originally, the dogs used for this task were water spaniels, which are rather old breeds. They are mentioned in Shakespeare, and often described as a cross between a land spaniel and a “water dog.” A water dog is a dog much like a poodle or a Portuguese water dog. A cross between the two would look something like a cockapoo or one of the other poodle hybrids. However, selective breeding for a mixture of spaniel and water dog traits could result in a dog very similar to the Irish water spaniel and the American water spaniel. The most important water spaniels in the development of retrievers are two extinct breeds: the English water spaniel, which was often liver and white or black and white in color, perhaps similar to the English Springer spaniel into which some of these dogs were absorbed, and the Tweed water spaniel from the Scottish Borders region, which was “liver,” meaning like a chocolate Labrador or pale cream to a tawny coloration.)
The curly-coated retriever was in development before the importation of St. Johns water dogs from Newfoundland. However, it was crossed with it at some point. It shows a very strong water spaniel ancestry and may include the last remaining European water dogs in its ancestry. It was once a very common breed.
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