I’ve gotten to the point right now where I can let something go.
One of the reasons I’ve had such a rough time writing about dogs lately is that I’ve had a hard time letting something go.
The thing I’ve held onto is an ideal, a dream dog, the kind I once knew but is now pretty darn rare.
I’ve had to let go of whatever dream I had of ever having a decent working retriever. I’m not in the position where I can have such a dog, and I’m such an incompetent dog trainer that giving me such a dog would be a total waste.
I know about dogs. I appreciate dogs. But I don’t know enough and I don’t have the skills to do what I thought I would do.
Further, such a dog would be totally useless here in the hinterlands west of the Atlantic flyway and east of the Mississippi flyway. I once talked to a bird watcher from New Hampshire who was looking for West Virginia waterfowl, and he said all we seemed to have were mallards and Canada grassmuckers. Virtually all duck stamps sold in West Virginia go to stamp collectors.
I see a dog world that is in a lot of ways flawed, but I’m no position to offer any kind of challenge or critique.
For my own sanity, I’m letting all of this go. I spent a lot of time chasing lost dogs through what I’ve written on this blog, but these dogs are gone.
Golden retrievers have become a cancer-ridden, structurally unsound, and often temperamentally unsound mess. I don’t know how this mess gets fixed, but I don’t think it ever will. This is the curse of popularity, and it’s not helped by the simple fact that these dogs are perceived to be inferior to the Labrador, and over time, this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a half century, will we think of golden retrievers the way border collie people think of Old English sheepdogs now?
It’s depressing to see something that once gave you a lot of joy fall apart before your eyes. It’s even more so when you know that there is nothing you can do about it.
I have to stop torturing myself.
I have to let this go.
I’ve found I like hunting deer to wasting my time with dogs.
And there are plenty of deer around here.
:) That’s what happen we touch the forbidden fruit.
Dog-world is toxic, and sometimes it’s better that we don’t know anything. Otherwise our cherished memories become corrupted and distorted.
I can understand your pessimism. The curse of over popularity. I’ve been in Goldens long enough to have “seen it all”. However, there IS still a core of people who firmly believe in the classic Golden, and who fully appreciate the sound, athletic, useful and versatile dog. Those dogs include not only hunting dogs, but SAR dogs, scenting specialists, guide and assistance dogs, and more, making use of the Golden’s natural talents in this modern world. As well as participants in various dog sports that provide so much fun and companionship for both dog and person.
The Golden Retriever Foundation is a leader in funding research into various of the health problems, including the ongoing Lifetime Study of some 3000 Goldens, and a number of other studies including genetic diversity.
There is still hope.
I’m not discounting those efforts at all, but the truth is this dog really should be treated like a rare breed. Most of the dogs outside the hands of core specialists really aren’t even the same dog.
I’ve seen you post some of these rarer goldens in your FB page, and I’ve looked at the sites. It’s truly shameful that access to one such dog would require extensive expense and paperwork and red tape in most cases.
Even though you can debate the practical use of any of your dream retrievers where you are, I still hope to see The Westfall retrievers someday. The world needs real thinkers for the sake of the dogs. You are one of them.
And I enjoy your expressions of outrage at it all. Not because I want you to be in a perpetual state of frustration, but because it’s nice to know I’m not alone.
Do you think that possibly you are feeling that Golden Retrievers are going through that 101 Dalmation syndrome/situation? Here in Australia, Golden Retrievers are one of the most popular breeds here.
Do you think that the breeding is focusing on the GR to be a house dog rather than a hunting dog? That may be true with some breeders, but there are always going to be breeders who are determined to keep the reputation of the ‘hunting’ side of this breed alive, very rare, but it’s just about recognising that such people do exist.
I believe that dog breeders, whatever the breed of dog they have, should be compelled to have a ‘Health Register’ on their websites. This helps prospective buyers know what the breeder is breeding for. If the breed has a propensity for cataracts or hip dysplasia, then the breeder does not breed until the dog has been examined by a reputable vet to ensure that the breeding pair are ‘cataract free’ or ‘hip dysplasia free’ etc., I only buy my dogs from a breeder who actually has a health register on all of their dogs and how each one of them has passed on. Don’t despair, there are honest breeders out there – it can take a while to find, but they are around.
Secondly, by you saying you don’t have the skills to do dog training and you don’t deserve a great hunting dog, that’s rubbish, you know more than most people about dogs. I have learnt so much from your blogs, and as a dog trainer for many many years with one of the most challenging dog breeds around, the best advice i can give to you is to: trust your instinct, be consistent and reward the good stuff. It can be as simple as that and as uncomplicated as that – there is so much fluff around about training dogs and it really doesn’t need to be as complicated as they make it out to be. And if you love your dog, and your dog can only see you and no-one else, then you have done more than some so-called ‘dog trainers’ can ever aspire to.
What’s happening with these golden and Labrador retrievers is actually worse than what happened with Dalmatians. Dalmatians had a ton of popularity but only when Disney released those films. Golden retrievers and Labrador retrievers have undergone an extreme popularity explosion that has lasted for decades. I know why they are popular in Australia, I’ve seen Napoleon!
This actually brought tears to my eyes. I still don’t understand how hard would it be to get a good farm mutt, but the real issue probably is that you’re just done with dogs, dogs of any kind. And that’s okay.
First reaction to reading this was to think “He is just having a bad day, he will be OK again tomorrow”. But then I remembered Albert Titterington in Ireland, who was about the last man breeding working golden retrievers there, until he too gave up, for similar reasons. He now has setters, I believe
Sad, sad, very sad…….
I have thought about this blog post pretty much nonstop since I first read it. My first reaction was something like “Well, Scottie has said something along this line in the past, perhaps when he was feeling particularly frustrated or having a bad day”. I re-read the post several times (and the comments too of course), and I realized that I was not actually hearing your voice; I was just reading the words and making my cavalier little assumption.
I’m going to try to articulate what I’m thinking so as not to sound flippant or (heaven forbid) like a pompous asshole. I have been, mentally and emotionally, where you are, and though of course everyone’s experiences and perceptions are shaped by their own lives, I know and understand the place from where you are speaking.
You know that the Golden Retriever you speak of still exists, though in much smaller numbers than the lumbering mediocrity that the breed has become. There are hunters using Goldens, both for their original purpose as water-oriented retrievers and as upland bird dogs. You have said as much, so I’m not being presumptuous when I say that you do know that the dog you wanted could be found.
But – and this really might sound presumptuous – forgive me; I don’t intend it that way – I think that the man who inhabits your skin has changed. He has come to realize that his dream dog is not the dog that he really wants, because he himself has grown and changed. You realize that the hunting conditions for which your ideal Golden is created don’t exist in your piece of West Virginia. You’re as deeply bound, emotionally and intellectually, to the area where the history of your life has unfolded as I am to my Kentucky hills, imperfect though so much that surrounds us in our respective states may be.
You aren’t going to relocate, pick up your entire life and just move somewhere where you can spend all your time hunting migrating waterfowl with a fantastic hunting Golden. And you don’t want to feel that you’ve wasted the potential of a terrific dog by acquiring one and then not giving it the opportunity to fulfill that potential.
I believe that this sort of epiphany occurs in almost every person who has had a certain breed in their hearts, especially if that love of breed dates back to one’s childhood. Some people avoid it by becoming breed-blind and allowing themselves to be dragged along a breed’s downhill slide – which ALWAYS occurs when the dog fancy turns its attention to a breed. Other people take a step back and look at the heart-wrenching overall picture of the breed they have loved since their formative years riding in that proverbial handbasket to a canine hell, morphing into something that has the name, but not the game, of their dream dogs.
Some people deal with it by turning their backs on the show rings, turning their backs on breeding only to see their carefully bred dogs wasted, or turning to, for want of a better word, rescuing and/or fostering the castaways and misfits of the breed they have loved. This is more or less where I am at this point. The woman who long ago realized that conformation showing was ruining my heart dogs; the woman who saw too many of her dogs end up with people who did not or could not appreciate them; the woman who spent a small fortune importing from Germany thinking she was finally getting into “real” German shepherds and ended up with dogs so unlike the GSDs of her youth as to be a different animal altogether – that woman finally realized that she was not the same woman who wanted hard-hitting attack dogs, but who scuttled like cockroaches when they ran and who just happened to die of bloat at age 7 or 8.
I actually spent several years without a GSD, even a couple of years without a dog at all, but that didn’t feel right either. Now, I wait for them to come to me. I’ve realized that I no longer have either the strength or the desire to train and handle a “manstopper”; my perfect dog is one who is approachable, gentle with children, and alerts me to people coming up the drive without trying to bite the ass of the UPS guy. I watch with dismay as the show crowd morphs my heart dogs into misshapen monstrosities, but I also know that, should I want one, there are active, healthy, athletic GSDs still being bred and worked. But it would be unfair for me to take such a dog for the placid life it would live, with the woman who lives in my skin now.
I saw a similar change in my dad when he finally let go of his coonhunting; it tore his heart not to be able to hunt anymore. He found that he could not live without dogs though, and ended up keeping small, happy-go-lucky miniature schnauzers and a couple of JRT after he gave up coonhounds. His last personal dog was a little 3/4 Chihuahua, 1/4 MinPin who went with him everywhere. He told me that he had to give her away when he went to an assisted living facility for veterans & that he cried for two weeks. (That still infuriates me. Veterans should be allowed to keep their pets, wherever they have to live.) When he moved in with my brother’s family at the end of his life, he was surrounded by their dogs & especially loved Bindi, a little old JRT, and Duce, the old GSD I had taken in as a hairless mangy reject and given to my brother when he was healed. My dad had never liked GSDs before, even though he allowed me to have one; he considered anything that wasn’t a feist, a cur, or a coonhound “useless”. But Duce stayed right by his side, all through his cancer, and my dad made my heart soar when he told me one day “Now I know what you’ve always seen in those dogs (sheps)”.
I think that Wayne has been through something similar with his Saints – the realization that his life situation has outpaced his heart breed. And many of the other people who follow you and participate here and on facebook probably have had a similar experience.
You may even come back to Goldens one day, Scottie. Or if you want a dog that is an all-around hunting partner, possibly consider one of the German pointers or other upland bird dogs. I especially like GSPs myself, but as a breed they also have a lot of health concerns. Perhaps a GWP or one of the Vizslas would be a compatible purebred for you now. Or one of the loves of your youth, an elkhound. Maybe raise a puppy alongside Miley so that she can help teach it how to be Scottie’s dog. Mixed-breeds can be great companions too, and often are surprisingly good hunting dogs. And, as someone said in a comment, it may just be a time in your life when you want or need to take a break from having a dog. Though I suspect that, like so many other people for whom dogs are a part of your soul, you will come back to them in time.
If you’ve read this far without saying to yourself “Jesus Christ, she’s full of shit!”, I thank you. I know I’ve rambled a bit. I suppose the whole point of my ramble is just … empathy. If the idealistic young man who wanted that dream Golden no longer inhabits the skin of the slightly older and possibly more circumspect man you are now … you are among friends who understand and who care.
Just incidentally, the original what-were-to-be-called-Goldens in their birth land, were not primarily retrievers of waterfowl, but of the pheasant, blackcock, ptarmigan etc of the Scittish Highlands. As well as deer tracking, and on occasion, rabbit and hare. The list of Head of Game Taken in the Guisachan record book is astonishing to us accustomed to modern bag limits– some two to three thousand most years. (Note that all these were taken not for merely for sport, but were used as food. None was wasted).
Another side note– the hills and mountains of the Appalachians aren’t so very different from much of the Highlands. You’d feel right at home there, Scottie.
Actually have a few ancestors on my mother’s side who come from Renfrewshire and from Fife. Not really the Highlands, but I am (partially) of Caledonia.
We just don’t have red grouse (a subspecies of willow ptarmigan). Ruffed grouse go in cycles here. I know where I can find at least one though, even a bad cycle year.
West Virginia doesn’t allow people to use dogs to blood track deer, although with the popularity of archery hunting, I think that time is long due.
I am so sorry to say that I have to agree with you Scottie. I have been down about the situation as well.
I think the Golden Retriever is in a really bad place. Top breeders breed for: too much fur (first on many’s list) Blocky heads (why not get a New Foundland?) heads jacked up straight on their necks, and they think that breeding what they like over and over and over again is the answer to winning in the breed ring (and it is.) I think the leg is getting short because they want everything else so big and they want to fall into the correct height for the breed. Such a shame that only the height is important.
I could go on but I won’t. I feel very depressed about the breed.
However, focusing on the history and showing photos of older Goldens, could help those who are trying to improve the breed. I urge you to continue posting when something comes along. There are many Golden Retriever lovers who read your blog. Even if you sway just a few, you have made an improvement.
I know that you have influenced my thoughts about the breed. I know there must be others.
There’ll be other heart dogs come along buddy–maybe not GRs, but good dogs just the same. Just look for the dog, not the breed, and it’ll happen. And ‘dog training’ depends at least as much on the dog as it does on the trainer. Some dogs come easy to it, some don’t. Watch what people like Connie, David and Erin do w/ their animals. Each has a unique style, but in each case it works. Take what you think will work from each of them and develop your own style.
As I would say to my 50-plus-year partner: “Buck Up!” or “Change your attitude.” (and smile with love). He has a tendency to see the worst, while I am an optimist. While I don’t believe you will find what you have been looking for, focus on the next think that might be possible. I have a good friend who upland game bird hunts with his hunting English setter (a small and active little gal), in Wyoming, where he moved to be closer to sagebrush country and trout fishing streams. Yes, he has to drive a ways to see his college-going daughters and friends like us in Montana, but as I also remind myself and my husband, “Change is good, change is good.”
They still breed a few Rymans around here.
They are still out there, but very hard to find. I train field Labradors, but I have a friend focused on Goldens. Now I’m a Lab person so it’s saying a lot for me to say that there are very nice goldens that can compete with labs in the field both trial-test & hunting-wise. Those with correct water-resistant coat, that don’t take half the pond with them when they exit water. Those with proper structure, bird drive, that live to a healthful old age. Yet this girl has 6 of them, 4 of which are 12yr- 14yrs of age no cancers, no health issues. Have other friends that have always insisted on running Goldens, that have campaigned and hunted these dogs into retirement that have put up well their whole lives. Are they easy to find, do such breedings take place often? heck NO!! but they are out there. I’d look for the field lines, with proven breed traits and longevity over the show style, and you just might luck out. Still if your not gonna hunt them or at least hunt test-trial them, (which you can do in any part of the country ;)) seems like a waste to have that type of dog, laying on a couch. Your also right in the breeders of that type of dog are pretty particular about making sure their dogs work ;).
I’m pretty partial to this guy, and I’m not a golden person https://www.facebook.com/227577400586419/photos/pcb.1004242596253225/1004239876253497/?type=3
They would be hunted, but as a spaniel, not a retriever.
This photo of Simon Monroe, Guisachan Gameskeeper, shows those early Guisachan Retrievers (as seen on the Friends of Guisachan website.) When I see photos like this, I can understand some of your sentiment as today’s needs for dogs has changed so much from the middle 1800s. These dogs were being bred to retrieve because rifles were able to shoot accurately further. There are still a lot of hunters but the necessity to hunt has changed. Golden Retrievers are being sold mainly as family and companion dogs. There are still some Goldens retrieving and there are Goldens guiding blind people and assisting handicapped people, tracking, helping those with PTSD and other therapy assistance. There are a lot of Golden Retrievers being bred for a number of different reasons – for varying purposes.
The frustrating part is that when you look at these early photos, you can see the cross-breeding in that there are sometimes a white mark or other random trait showing through. That makes that time seem so exciting. These dogs were being bred to fulfill a need and they weren’t being made with a cookie cutter. The breed hadn’t yet been “sanitized” and the AKC wasn’t even in existence to say no to cross-breeding.
There still are a lot of photos and information out there about Goldens from the past. I would love to know that you were still researching. Just look into your Golden’s face. If us blog readers can’t sway you, just look at her pretty brown eyes. This is a breed worth fighting for.
The photo of Guisaxhan stalker with three dogs was taken in 1903, years before the Kennel Club recognized the Golden as a separate variety. The dogs are Comet (the darkest), Conan (in front) and Ginger. Conan’s name can be found in early foundation pedigrees. The bit of white on Comet’s head can still be found in many modern Goldens (also white toes and a splash of white on the chest).
These are handsome dogs. There’s no law that says good working dogs can’t also please the eye!
As M.R.S. so correctly pointed out, this is Simon Fraser, not Simon Monroe.
Hi, I fully understand your position. I would like to thank you for your excellent contribution to the history of Retrievers. R.