Unless we are careful, the golden retriever will become an ivory-colored Newfoundland.
This dog is an exaggerated “English-type” dog. It is the future of the golden retriever, and it is nothing like what the Marjoribankses, Mrs. Charlesworth, or anyone else who founded the breed had in mind.
I feel like I’m one of those “original intent” constitutional scholars or jurists with whom I actually disagree.
But there is no way this type of dog is as fast or as healthy as the more lithe dogs that were once bred and can be still found in the working lines. My experience with this type is they are also lacking in intelligence, a statement their owners always take as offensive.
Well, working type retrievers have been bred for biddability almost entirely. They have the prey drive, which comes across as a mouthing behavior that eventually is matured and trained into a mouth and return behavior. The dogs I have had were almost obsessive in their desire to retrieve. They also learned their commands (the simple ones) in less than 10 (often less than 3) repetitions. I’ve yet to see one of these show types from English extraction really behave as a retriever is supposed to. (I don’t even think they look like golden retrievers, to be honest.)
The Labrador people are laughing at this dog. They can condescend that a golden isn’t a working dog, because this is the type of dog that they associate with the breed. It is not what I associate with the breed at all.
If someone offered me one for free, I’d take it, have it spayed or neutered, and rehome it. But they are nothing like the field bred dog, and they are nothing like the original breed.
Unless like-minded golden retriever people say no to this type dominating our breed, this is what we’re going to be stuck with. The golden retriever will have become an Ivory Newfoundland.
And for now on, that’s what this blog is going to call this type of golden. It is the Ivory Newfoundland!
Did this version of the breed diverge this much simply thru selective breeding or was their some out breeding involved?
If the latter, what breeds were involved and is there any behavioral likeness to the Newfie or is your description simply based on appearance.
BTW: I like both breeds, but don’t see any value in changing one into the other.
The ancestor of both was a dog like a black golden retriever. Different sources call this dog a St. John’s water dog, a Newfoundland, a Labrador, or a wavy-coated retriever.
They were exported from Newfoundland because the fishermen preferred to have short-coated water dogs. These short-coated dogs are the basis behind the modern Labrador retriever. The ones that were put to work retrieving game on shooting estates became retrievers. They were bred with setters and water spaniels to make the basis for the flat-coat/wavy-coat and golden retrievers and the curly-coated retrievers.
Those that were offered as pets were selected for very large size and these became the basis for the modern Newfoundland dog. There were large dogs among the original St.John’s water dog population in Newfoundland, but they weren’t as large as the biggest Newfoundlands bred in England or the United States.
The smooth-coated dogs remained retriever sized, and these were exported to England later on to found the modern Labrador retriever breed.
More on this here (and read the related posts):
https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/do-labradors-come-in-long-hair/
I found the first-hand account of the long-haired dogs being born in Newfoundland (well, Labrador, which is part of the same province) and then being exported to found pets and retrievers. During the nineteenth century, Newfoundland dogs were almost as popular as pets throughout the world as Labrador retrievers are today. Everyone who was anyone or wanted to be anyone had a “sagacious” Newfoundland dog.
Thanks;
I knew that the various breeds came from a common founder stock, but wasn’t aware of the background on the show Golden vs field Golden. Our breed (St. Bernards) can claim some ancestry here too as the monks interbred Newfies with their Saints (who were all smooth coats att) in the mistaken belief that rough coats would improve the breed’s cold tolerance. That’s where the black markings and rough coated Saints come from.
Oooh, Lots to say there.
There are Newfoundland dogs in St. Bernards, but there were long-haired Kuherhunde that red and white, sable and white, and brindle and white in that part of Switzerland. The monks preferred a smooth-coated dog.
These dogs are very closely related to the tricolored mountain dogs of Switzerland and the Rottweiler. (Rottweil was actually part of Switzerland for several hundred years.)
Neat! BTW the monks were right to prefer the smooth coats. I’ve had both types and can tell you that the long hair between a rough coat’s toes quickly ices up and forms painful (even debilitating) ice balls.
Our current Saint, Sammie, is the worst I’ve ever seen in this regard. We have to regularly trim the hair between his toes–looks like he’s wearing muffs. I assume that the webbing in a Newfie’s toes would prevent this problem.
The same thing exists with golden retrievers with really profuse feathering.
Heavier built head then on my Newfie,but then again mine isn’t breed standard. Yet he is still about the same size as a regular one,just the head is different.