Speedwell Pluto
I’ve noticed some discord among the golden retriever message boards about a post I wrote about the first golden retriever champion in this country.
The following things are repeated. The GRCA doesn’t want a split in type, so they are doing everything they can to push a dual purpose dog. I’ve even found where on their official website that they want the dogs to have more moderate coats.
The problem is that the GRCA can say this stuff all it wants. It can support dual purpose breeding and competition all it wants.
But the horse has left the barn.
When the standards began to require a dog with more bone and more coat, then the dogs split into two basic types.
It’s unfortunate, but the split has happened.
And like Humpty Dumpty, it probably won’t come together again.
Remember, goldens in working trials are being run against Labradors– lanky, long-legged Labradors that run with a lot of style. They are at a disadvantage if they are short-legged and heavy-boned.
I personally don’t like the look of the show-bred dog.
There– I said it.
But I also don’t like the way it runs, the way it swims, or the fact that too many of them have to be taught to put things in its mouth. That’s one thing that a retriever should be doing automatically.
And despite what the GRCA says about excessive coat, I still see lots of show dogs being put up with lots of coat.
Has anyone ever read any working retriever literature? Have you ever read in any of these books or talked to anyone who has worked them who has said that the golden needs more coat?
I prefer an old-fashioned golden. One that looks a lot like Speedwell Pluto or Noranby Diana. Maybe I like those old 1930’s model dogs. They are built right, without exaggeration of either bone or coat. In the 1930’s, the heavier dogs that had so tinctured the Tweedmouth strain had been replaced with retrievers that had lost their lumber.
I find the whole dual purpose thing rather insulting to those people who bred performance dogs in this breed for years and years, while the show strain deteriorated into something like the American cocker of the 1980’s. The whole exercise is really quite Quixotic, like the Buckleys of the dog world standing athwart history yelling “stop.”
I am fine that this breed has split. I’m not happy that the genetic diversity continues to atrophy, but that problem is not entirely the fault of the split in types. Everyone seems to want to use just a few sires in this breed– and this problem is not only that of the show-line dogs.
I see a split in types. A performance bred dog is going to be a good performance dog– generally better than a show-bred dog. That’s why we have the split in the first place.
And the split isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It allows breeders to focus on producing the kind of dog they want to produce.
***
I think now that I should say that goldens aren’t the only breed to have split in this way. There are certain factors that have led to splits within breeds, and many of them have been nastier than this little split.
1. If a dog has more than a couple of thousand individual dogs in its worldwide population, it will split. You cannot get all the clubs in all the countries of the world to agree to a single standard. If every club was in the FCI’s registries, maybe that could happen.
2. If the type of dog that does well at a dog show is fundamentally different from the type of dog that is worked, the split will happen. That’s what happens in just about every working breed. If a gun dog breed originated in Great Britain, with a few notable exceptions (Flat-coats, Welsh springers, Irish water spaniels, etc), that dog comes in a separate show or working form.
3. In the early fancy, internecine conformation debates have caused splits. I say this as if it doesn’t happen today, but in reality, it does sometimes happen. The most recent is the row over what an Akita is. The Japanese have different sort of dog that is confined to a narrower range of colors than the Akitas you typically find here. There have been moves to separate these two Akitas. The most recent split I can think of that affected an AKC breed was when the Norfolk and Norwich terriers became separate breeds, which happened in 1960 in the Kennel Club and in 1979 in the AKC. The big difference between the two is that the Norfolk has floppy ears, and the Norwich has prick ears.
4. If someone discovers that the dogs originally looked very different from the current crop of dogs, there will be a split. How many bulldog breeds are there?
5. The whole history of dogs since the founding the fancy has been the history of these internecine conflicts that have eventually boiled over into schisms. The fancy not only created a way of standardizing already extant breeds, it created an atmosphere in which one could almost guarantee that there would be splits. If a certain strain in a particular breed couldn’t win at a dog show, because it didn’t meet the standard or possess a “fancy point,” the breeders of that strain would pack up their marbles and start a new breed. That’s what happened to the golden retriever. They even made up a story about the dogs coming from Russia to make sure everyone knew that this breed had nothing to do with the flat-coated retriever (except, you know, for sharing lots of different ancestors and being heavily interbred with the flat-coat.)
So when it comes to golden retrievers, roll that beautiful bean footage and lets have more 1930’s models!
I have always liked this article on ‘dual purpose’ dogs. Doesn’t work for an already split breed, though:
http://www.qashani.com/dual.html
Despite how I may come across, I have no problem with show dogs. People should breed the kind of dogs they like. But they should have the courtesy to STFU and let me breed the kind of dog I like, even when they don’t approve.
I agree.
But the standards came down with Moses with the Decalogue– which is why they change it every 20 years or so.
Split breeds? I wouldn’t know a thing about that. And I’m like the only one I know who dares to mix them back together.
Hell, I’d love for my dogs’ genes to work their way into the establishment of an new landrace. Why split when you can combine? What do you think, an “American Collie” with open registry. Any Aussie, BC, English Shepherd, can apply.
Why not even larger… a shepherd landrace. Love the idea.
I’d be fine with that if the show dogs of my breed weren’t of such a different shape and type and very often without real working ability. I know there is a definite split in BC’s, but goldens started separating a long time ago.
I think if more breeds did this (allowed intermixing of similar/related types) it would be a great thing. Genetic variety with some stability of type — win/win, imo.
A lot of the working breeders already do it (I’m thinking herding and LGDs.) Some of the working breeders in sighthounds are doing it; it is difficult and expensive to get dogs from the East right now, but I know someone who has bred their Tazi to a Saluki, and I am preparing one of the two Tazi pups I have here for export to Scotland, where she will be bred into the owners Salukis. To show breeders it’s mostly anathema. There has always been a controversy over whether the Saluki or the Afghan is the ‘older’ breed, there is now controversy over whether Tazi from Kazakhstan and other areas are really Salukis or something completely different. One of the bigwigs in Taigan in Kyrgyzstan is adamant that they are not related to Afghans at all. There are also people who believe that importing such dogs and using them on related breeds will somehow ‘destroy’ the breed in their COO; this is nonsense. It is perfectly possible to preserve one type and also use that type to increase diversity in similar types. It is unfortunate that the countries where Taigan and Tazi are native, are going with the Western concept of breed purity which includes closed registries and restrictive breed standards.
I had an interesting exchange last week with a person who swore that there was such a breed as an Illyrian shepherd. A breed I call by its Serbo-Croatian name–Šarplaninac. This person– who was a Kosovar Albanian– hated that I called this breed by that name. The Slovenians have don the same with their version of this dog. It’s now its own breed.
Historically, these dogs were all the same breed. It was a freely breeding landrace, moving through the Balkans through transhumance.
Now, I know all of these people hate each other.
But for them to get the dogs involved in it is just insane!
Until recently the Australian Shepherd Club of America (ASCA) allowed for ‘hardship” registry (any dog that looked like an Aussie and worked like one could get registered). Their current position requires much more significant documentation regarding the dog’s origin. Even in the “performance” realm there are those who focus on one aspect versus another — in Belgian Sheepdogs, for example, there is the “protection sport” and the “herding” plus the newer roles of agility. some early photos of working Belgians (and others) from WWI are here: http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Animals_at_War/Chiens_02.htm
and here
http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Animals_at_War/Animals_at_War_00.htm
(Belgian in the center photo second row).
What’s amazing is how similar these dogs are to the original German shepherds.
Hey…please don’t bash the American standard for the Golden Retriever. The folks that wrote it did indeed have the dual-purpose/useful sort of dog in mind. Note that the Standard calls for males to be 65-75 pounds in weight, females ten pounds lighter. Yes, many of the show-bred examples weigh a lot more. yes, that’s a fault, by the standard.
The standard calls for a dog of defined proportion (11:12 height:length). Yes, a majority of winners these days are not of those proportions, but lower/longer. Yes, that should be faulted.
The standard also calls for a dense, water-repellent coat with moderate feathering (somewhat heavier on the back of thighs, and the tail). It calls for dogs to be presented with untrimmed natural ruff. If excess coat and exotic grooming becomes the norm in the show ring, don’t blame the written standard.
The fact that a majority of exhibitors choose to disregard (or misinterpret) a clearly written standard is not due to the standard. It’s human nature to want to “win”, and excess and exaggeration are more likely to “win” these days.
I was wrong about that.
This is pre-Damascus post!
It’s the “fancy points.”
I think another problem is that goldens mature slowly.
But exhibitors want to finish a champion earlier, so it’s better to show a dog that has bone on an 18 month old that it should have on a 3 year old. By the time that 18 month old is 3 or 4, he’ll look like a Newfoundland.
The golden has a pretty good Darwinian standard.
It’s just they like ’em furry.
But I’ve never read any working retriever text that says anything nice about the golden’s coat. They always say moderate the feathering a bit. James Lamb Free believed the golden’s coat was like a man going swimming in a coonskin jacket!
Very nice blog post I enjoy your site keep up the great posts