Natural History

Posted in designer dogs, dog breeds, golden retriever | Tagged golden retrievers, retrizsla, vizsla | 24 Comments

24 Responses

1. on July 7, 2011 at 9:43 pm Bill

   The adults look pretty great, actually. Not sure what you’re supposed to do if it won’t point and doesn’t care to retrieve, but I’m sure 99% will just chase tennis balls and go on jogs (which is as good a use of a dog as any).

   
   
   • on July 7, 2011 at 9:45 pm retrieverman

     I don’t think they would point, but most viszlas will retrieve.

     From what I’ve read, pointing is a recessive trait and would be lost through crossbreeding.

     
     
     • on July 8, 2011 at 12:10 pm M.R.S.

       “…pointingis a recessive trait and.would be lost through crossbreeding.” That would probably depend upon what breed is used for the cross. There are plenty of Goldens that have pointing instinct, although in most cases it is not deliberately developed into steadiness on point. Many Goldens will “flash-point” a bird before flushing it– a handy alert for the hunter. And then there is APLA, the American Pointing Labrador Association.

       A retriever with pointing instinct could be a useful outcross for producing HPR candidates.

       
       
       • on July 8, 2011 at 12:55 pm Jan

         I have a Golden who has pointed since she was a little puppy.
         My Goldens have very low COI. They also have legs.
         Both dogs are driven when it comes to retrieving. When it comes to performance, they are such naturals. The female took 5 years to mature. She had puppyish fur up until then. The male is still young. He has more mature wavy fur along his back but it still is puppyish on the sides although he has typical feathering and a mane. I don’t know yet how their low COI has affected their health. I also don’t know how you came up with 50% of Goldens retrieve. I’m skeptical about that number. Do you mean retrieve as in field trials and hunting? …or do you mean retrieve as in natural desire and ability…

         
         
         • on July 8, 2011 at 1:20 pm Dave

           He probably meant innate.

           
           
           • on July 8, 2011 at 1:26 pm retrieverman

             Of course, I meant innate, but there are retriever people who don’t think it is inherited.

             These people are found only in North America.

             
             
             • on July 8, 2011 at 1:51 pm Jan

               I think that the retriever instinct is very strong in the Golden Retriever breed. Even more mellow Goldens and many conformation style Goldens have the retrieving instinct… some are much better at it than others but I really don’t think that the breed is that far gone when it comes to the natural skill set. JMO

               
               
               • on July 8, 2011 at 2:15 pm retrieverman

                 I don’t think it is at all.

                 A significant minority of Labradors won’t retrieve, and I stand by my estimate on goldens.

                 There are many, many goldens that won’t retrieve at all.

                 
                 
                 • on July 8, 2011 at 2:47 pm Jan

                   Well, you may be right… we’re back to that supply and demand thing. Cute puppies that grow into low drive dogs may be what this country wants… it seems that many working breeds have performance dogs and pet dogs. Maybe there should be a true division… I’m sure that has been debated many times between field and conformation owners.

                   
                   
                 • on July 8, 2011 at 2:51 pm Jan

                   You had mentioned that maybe pet owners can’t handle the hunting dog. I know many Goldens that are driven in the field and laid back in the home but maybe that’s because they have great owners who provide plenty of exercise and many pet owners think that exercise is walking up and down the street a couple of times a week… that could make a dog that was bred for field work go pretty nuts.

                   
                   
         • on July 8, 2011 at 1:22 pm retrieverman

           But not all dogs are like that. Many, many goldens are not being bred for any purpose other than to look cute. Not everyone is breeding for drive or retrieving behavior, and if a dog really has a lot of both, they are usually too much for the average person. I know from personal experience that a dog that has been selected for nothing more than drive and retrieving behavior can be as inappropriate in a suburban home as a border collie or Dalmatian– unless the person is willing to work with the dog.

           Really, you get trade-offs.

           When I said the 50/50 comment, I was referring to the breed as a whole, not the ones that have been carefully selectively bred for it.

           And yes, some goldens do point (like the one in the header, she points!), but the vast majority do not.

           
           
   • on July 7, 2011 at 9:53 pm retrieverman

     They are HPR’s. The R is not universal, but it’s not universal in retrievers either.

     I bet that a higher proportion of vizlas retrieve than golden retrievers.

     Goldens, I’d say it’s 50/50 on whether they will retrieve or not.

     And that may be a high estimate.

     
     
2. on July 7, 2011 at 11:38 pm Carstel

   I don’t see the point of these dogs. The “What will be the characteristics of a Retrizsla?” bit on the linked page is hilarious for the qualities they say a Vizsla doesn’t have. Cracker’s “impressive family tree” has very few titled dogs, and she was bred before she could’ve had the proper health tests done. The same goes for the father. Some of their V breed history is wrong.

   They look like poorly bred Labs but are of course fancier because they’re a crossbreed (certainly not a mutt, as the breeder points out!) and hybrid vigor and blah blah.

   
   
   • on July 8, 2011 at 12:01 am retrieverman

     They look like field line Labradors, which are faster than the beef cattle type you see at shows.

     I actually support this kind of crossbreeding. The two breeds aren’t from different planets, unlike the golden/Scottish terrier crosses I’ve seen promoted as “Scolden terriers.”

     Golden retrievers have real problems with being too short-legged and overdone. Vizsla blood or other HPR blood could stop some of this insanity.

     I also support goldendoodles and people who breed golden retrievers to Irish setters, which makes a nice looking dog.

     But they could introduce Vizsla diseases into goldens if they were allowed to continue on, but the F1’s would have less chance of developing conditions resulting from inheriting deleterious recessives. They likely have greater MHC diversity than they would otherwise, so all and all likelihood, they would likely be healthier, even without the tests.

     It would be more of a problem if you bred these into the parent breed as a planned outcross, and you have the line-breeding issues that could concentrate some bad disease.

     But all dogs– and all sexually reproducing organisms– have bad recessives. They just don’t get homozygous for them unless you closely breed.

     That and the greater MHC diversity are where heterosis comes from.

     
     
     • on July 8, 2011 at 12:04 am Dave

       Most people who actually hunt with their dogs don’t really care about purity anyway.

       
       
       • on July 8, 2011 at 12:06 am retrieverman

         The only thing they might care about is that this cross is unlikely to point.

         If they retrieve, though, they will be much faster dogs than pure goldens. Especially in the water, and they will likely have an actual undercoat if they retrieve from water.

         They do look like performance-bred Labradors, though.

         
         
     • on July 8, 2011 at 1:30 am Carstel

       I’d support it if they were an ethical breeder and had a point for the breeding, just like I support the doodles in Australia that were originally created for seeing eye dogs and are now becoming an established breed.

       Both parents of the linked litter have multiple names repeated several times in their pedigrees. The Vizsla’s sire: http://www.gundogpedigrees.com/vizsla/modules/animal/pedigree.php?pedid=33241
       There’s no record of her dam anywhere online, other than the linked site. The golden’s pedigree is equally as colorful.

       
       
       • on July 8, 2011 at 2:02 am Christopher@BorderWars

         The two parents could be very highly inbred and it wouldn’t matter in the offspring. That’s the benefit of an outcross, it blunts the harms of past inbreeding transgressions. The COI of these dogs would be 0%. Even if you could find a theoretical shared ancestor, it’d be so far back as to negate any ability to drive up the COI.

         And any shared disease genes in the two parents would be no more likely than staying within either breed.

         
         
     • on July 8, 2011 at 11:43 am M.R.S.

       I would guess that most people are probably not fully aware of the range of variation that exists within the Golden Retriever breed. There is a goodly proportion that is not shortlegged nor exaggerated, that has good working aptitudes, soundness, and other desirable characteristics. One just has to know how and where to find them. There are superb Goldens of very diverse bloodlines all over the world, as well as right here in North America. But it takes some effort, and sometimes the courage to buck the fads and fashions.

       If people want to produce purpose-bred cross-breds, that’s OK with me, as long as they put the requisite study and knowledge into the project, are doing it for valid reasons, and stand behind what they produce. Unfortunately, such seem to be a minority these days.

       
       
       • on July 8, 2011 at 1:01 pm retrieverman

         I agree.

         Just because goldens are popular, it is doesn’t follow that they are spectacular.

         There are lots of crappy goldens being produced all over the world.

         I’ve seen a vizsla acting as a guide dog, so it would make sense that these crosses could have a purpose.

         
         
   • on July 8, 2011 at 12:18 am Jess

     There is nothing wrong without pointing out that a cross, bred on purpose, is different than a mongrel or a mutt, a multigenerational mix with no known background.

     I cross-breed and people frequently use mutt or mongrel as a derogatory term in reference to my dogs, regardless of the fact that I can trace their lineage back to the original imports from Afghanistan and the Middle East.

     Of course I know some multigenerational mixes that have a known pedigree for many generations.

     Heterosis is a fact, btw. You can’t escape that, it’s far too well-documented.

     
     
3. on July 8, 2011 at 8:56 am Ruth

   I didn’t watch the video’s, and only glanced at the website, but personally I have no problem with a purpose bred cross-breed. That is afterall how we got most (if not all) the current breeds we have, someone needed a dog with similer but slightly different traits, found another dog that had the missing traits, and crossed them. Now the whole “doodle” thing has gotten out of hand, but the originial concept was sound, and the breeder’s who follow it I have no problem with. There are lots of “uses” where the pedigree of the dog isn’t an issue, what matters is what it can do: Hunting (of pretty much every kind), handicap assist dogs (there’s a school, I forget where, crossing Labs with Bernese Mountain dogs, it gives them exactly what they need out of the two breeds), police and government work (there’s another European country that’s breeding its own line of sniffing search dogs, for the better too), and I’m sure there’s more I can’t think of.

   
   
4. on July 9, 2011 at 8:42 am Jan

   There are quite a few Goldens out there in the world. It seems that there are Goldens already that are bred to be better retrievers and Goldens that are bred to be better service dogs. A breeder can choose a breeding pair that has a very low COI and also have great attributes for field work. Those dogs are out there and available. The Vizsla is a great dog, they are tremendous in the warm weather… I’m not sure why someone would want to breed in a Golden except to maybe get a little more coat? If Vizslas retrieve so well, then I don’t see any reason to mix the two. Vizslas have nice Velcro natures. Their personalities aren’t as extraverted as most Goldens but they are smart and extremely loyal. My Goldens do very well in the winter but get hot in the summer… A Vizsla does well to wear a coat in the snow in the winter even when running hard. They are both great breeds… not sure if they need to be crossed though.

   
   
5. on October 2, 2011 at 1:01 pm emma

   I thought that i would add that my dog (featured on the discussed website) does point and is an excellent retriever. I don’t care for either point, in the sense that she isn’t a working dog but a pet dog. I do enjoy the fact that with minimal training (my first dog since i was 11) she will pick up anything i throw and bring it back to me. She just seemed ‘to get it’ from the start, which i was assured was because it was inherent not because my training ability was actually natural!
   In all seriousness, she is the loveliest dog and is fantastic with everyone she meets. She does love the water and people regularly note that she is a particulary strong swimmer although she does feel the cold so i have to take a coat or blanket on winter walks where she might go for a swim. She is still very clingy and cuddly like the Vizsla but doesn’t mind being left on her own and hasn’t chewed a thing since i got her at about 12 weeks. She is also exceptionally good at finding lung treats hidden in the house and will open cupboard doors to find it when we are playing this game.
   I have been stopped several times by people with working dogs who would see her out on walks/retrieving etc and they were always very impressed with her; her general behaviour and they way she looked (there is also a retrizsla facebook page with more photos etc of the 2 litters). I also spoke at length with someone who works with police dogs and they told me that they had a very successful cross but vizsla x lab although it didn’t take too well to being told off, which is definitely the same as mine.
   I don’t profess to have any knowledge about breeding or what’s useful etc but just added this as the owner of one – just to give some insight into what the cross is like.

   
   

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