These are very hard to tell apart form certain performance-line goldens.
Of course, goldens have been bred to be hyper-biddable, and tollers have been bred to play.
And that’s the big difference between the two in terms of behavior.
Tollers always have straight coats, but goldens are often wavy.
The real way you can tell this is a toller is that its color is more uniform and not as shaded as one normally finds in goldens. It has a foxy, collie type appearance.
Some goldens have heads like this, but they are nowhere near the majority of the breed.
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“Tollers always have straight coats” Actually, this is not the case. Many Tollers have a wave in their coat, though they do seem to be getting straighter, the wave is quite evident in the picture you linked to on the Toller/Golden comparison entry.
“The coat may have a slight wave on the back, but is otherwise straight. Some winter coats may form a long loose curl at the throat.”…NSDTRC(USA) breed standard. The description is the same in the Canadian breed standard.
You can have a wave in flat-coated retrievers. “Slight wave” That’s simply not what I’m talking about.
When I’m talking about the wavy-coat in golden retrievers, I’m talking about cowlicks everywhere.
No toller has that.
This is wavy.
No toller has that feature. No other long-haired retriever has that feature, except rare long-haired Chessies.
I’ve had this exact same discussion with flat-coat people.
In goldens, we have a true wavy-coat and a true straight coat. The wavy-coat is very obvious, and I would call dogs that flat-coated retriever people would call slightly wavy straight-coated. That’s only because from my perspective, we have two rather obviously different coats.
The original Toller Standard called for a wave down the back. The current Standard says MAY wave down the back. Most Tollers have “crimped” hair behind their ears. There is definitely a natural wave, and in my experience with Tollers since the mid-1970s, those with the wavy coat on the back had the most waterproof coats and tried fastest.
Yes, Tollers absolutely can have that wavy coat illustrated in the link that was posted http://presentiavirtualis.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/golden-head22.jpg
Or they did! If it is being bred out today, that is wrong.
The one in this old photo has a wavy coat: https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/a-typical-tolling-dog.jpg
It shows more cocker spaniel than collie features.
What I’m talking about with a wavy coat isn’t a slight wave or a few wavy hairs.
I’m talking about this from golden retriever perspective, where the true wavy coat is one of the two correct coats. A true wavy doesn’t exist on other retrievers, except for the rare long-haired Chessies and some of the long-haired Labradors. True wavy-coated flat-coats simply disappeared from the bloodlines, although they can have some wave.
The dog in the gravatar is a straight-coated golden, but she has some slight waviness to her.
I would not call her wavy coated, because wavy-coated dogs in golden retrievers are very wavy. Not just a slight wavy here or there. Many people have not seen a truly wavy-coated golden, because they tend to do poorly in the show ring– for some odd reason, it’s one of the true correct coats in golden retrievers.
This is what I mean: http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=39754&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1229656009
Flat-coated retrievers and Nova Scotia duck-tolling retrievers do not have this coat. They might have some slight waviness, but its not a wavy coat.
Another.
You are not going to find any other long-haired retriever with a coat like that.