Eng Irish Ch. Papeta Philosopher, born 11 November 1985:
A fairly recent prolific sire in the UK/FCI conformation lines.
This is the so-called “white” color that is more accurately called “cream.” This is fairly common in conformation lines from Europe and the UK.
The head and somewhat heavier bone are also characteristics of this type. The eyes are usually quite dark and round, and the head shape is closer to the blockiness one associates with Labradors.
Virtually all of these lighter colored dogs have black skin pigment– and it’s usually quite clear and dark. I’ve actually never seen one with brown skin.
Miley’s somewhat lighter color and very dark skin come from this breeding. Her sire was of this type. When she gets her feet wet, the dark skin shows through the lighter fur, making her feet look smudgy or even muddy. I first noticed this when hosing her off after a good walk. Lke all goldens, Miley is magnetically attracted to mud, but when I hosed her feet off, they just wouldn’t come clean.
It was only when I looked at them closely that I noticed it was just an optical illusion of the wet, light gold hair lying close to the black skin.
Dogs of the European show type have certain traits that do make them good pets, though many of them lack the drive to be decent gun dogs– at least as it is understood in this part of the world. These dogs tend to be more sedate and more softly disposed than the typical golden retriever in this country– which is already an extremely soft-natured dog to begin with. Some studies of golden retriever health in the UK and Sweden at least imply that their dogs have a lower incidence of cancer than the ones in North America. However, more comparative health surveys need to be done on goldens in different countries before such pronouncements can be given without providing some caveats.
However, these European conformation dogs are very often mass-produced and sold at exorbitant prices. “Rare white golden retrievers” or “British white retrievers” sell for thousands of dollars on the internet. Never mind that the dogs aren’t rare– it’s a very common color in goldens worldwide– and they aren’t really white. They are cream. Many of these dogs come from unknown European stock that may have health or temperament issues, which is why they were sold to unwitting Americans as something novel.
That’s not to say that every breeder of these sort of goldens is mass-producing this type of dog, but if one really wants a polar-bear dog, one should be very careful of which breeder one chooses.
It’s very easy to sell puppies that look like baby seals or Knut. And the mass producers know this.
The typical European conformation golden does have traits that might make it more suitable for the typical American home, but because it’s almost a brand name, one should make certain that one isn’t just buying a brand.
The dog has to fit with your lifestyle and your family.
And goldens from all different types have varying temperaments and energy levels.
Just because it is “white” and “English” doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a good family dog.
On seeing so many Goldens in their native UK, one striking feature is the excellent quality of the coats on the British dogs. That lovely wave in the coat is most often indicative of correct texture, firm and resilient with good protective undercoat. No soft fluffy coats back-combed and blowdried as is so common at the American shows!
I totally agree. I’ve noticed that more of them also have a true wavy-coat than a flat-coat, which is more popular over here.
I prefer a bit of a wave in the coat.
There might be some wave in those coats but they are all blown out.
I was curious about the Golden color spread in the UK so I have been looking at some field trial champions in the UK and find quite a few darker dogs.
It seems like some lighter Goldens seem not so driven but is it because they are from a long line of Conformation Goldens and so don’t have as much drive as their cousins who are bred to retrieve game? It seems to me that any of the Golden colors could be bred to be one way or the other…
It gets confusing. I feel like there is an identity conflict within the breed… Some Goldens look so different from one another.
It’s really nothing more than founder effect.
It became stylish in conformation dogs in the UK and Europe to have pale coats, whereas in the early days of the breed, as an actual recognized breed, the darker colors were more popular. The lines that were bred for work were never bred to be pale colored.
And in the US, our original lines were founded from the very dark dogs that were popular in the 1930’s. The working type dogs in both Europe and North America trend toward that darker color.
This is a Dual Champion from the US in the 1940s: https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/tonkahof-esther-belle-ii.jpg
And another early Dual Champion in the US: https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/stilrovin-rips-pride.jpg?w=433&h=554
posted this one last year: http://www.grca.org/events/field/push.html
Yeah. He’s an interesting dog. I’ve seen his breeder’s page before.
Field dogs in the UK run a considerable range of colors. While none would be considered “cream” nor as light as some of the very pale show-bred dogs, there are many of true “golden” coloring. And even a “light golden” dog, FTCh Holway Corbiere, well known as a sire of good working dogs.
Not many of the British working-type are as dark as the darkest American field-bred dogs.
There are working light golds here, but we also have that very dark color that looks almost maroon.
I’ve seen a very red golden in Germany, but I didn’t inquire of its origins. They do a lot of importing of working-type dogs from here.
Which is strange, because it’s about the only working dog I know of in which the working type dogs are imported from North America to the Old World. Normally, it’s the other way around.
The above dog looks bred more toward the Newfoundland direction than any of the Guisachan dogs look. The head is very boxy and if you were to shorten its coat, it looks like it could win in the Labrador Retriever ring.
I guess my question is, will a cream Golden lean more like this one and so be better suited for one set of things and will a darker Golden that is dark lean toward different set of aptitudes because they might have more spaniel/setter? …meaning that the color itself doesn’t affect the function… but there may be differences due to the mixture of dogs in the pedigree.
It varies so much. I’ve seen creams that are built more like the field type, and I’ve seen cinnamon and Kodiak bear-type goldens, too.
That’s right, I know those too… no generalizations to be had there.
Well, in thinking about it though, the head structure on the English boxy head quite often differs from the dark Golden Blocky head… The dark ones seem almost like a kodiak bear. The head shapes seem very different…
The color and the form are really not connected… I just think the above dog’s head looks nothing like the US Golden but does look like the US Labrador only with longer fur. There were various dogs bred into the Golden and different types evolved. I’m not saying one is more correct than the other, just that they are different.
I like the differences in the Golden and hope that the English type Golden does not become such a fad in this country as to oust the American type Golden. I like the variety.
Some breeders are breeding in English lines because of the cancers that are seen here due to inbreeding… The English Goldens have a different type of cancer… what happens over time when breeders are breeding at 15% COI and above? For a number of decades, the average COI was around 25%… that was a mistake.
I’m a believer in low COI and variety in the breed. I can’t get into this tight conformation stuff. I just need to stay away from the conformation ring.
Don’t like them too much becouse my favorite are newfoundland dogs becouse they are perfect for family,etc..