If you want a dog like "Shuttle," please consider it carefully.
Read this page by Bredekaer Goldens in Denmark.
This is good advice for anyone wanting any performance bred dog, be it a golden retriever, a Labrador, or a Jack Russell.
These dogs can be obsessive about using their predatory motor patterns. And if they are smart enough to learn so many things useful things, they are also smart enough to learn how to destroy the house.
With retrievers, getting muddy and dirty is fun, so you may have to clean up muddy paw prints on the carpet every once in a while. Goldens shed almost as much as Nordic breeds do, which is a good reason to buy golden-colored carpet.
Ultimately, though, the energy and intelligence of these dogs must be channeled and focused.
That’s why I don’t have one. Right now, I cannot give one of these dogs what it needs to thrive. In the future, I hope to be able to devote some time to my beloved breed.
The Lab inn the film and book Marley & Me was one of these dogs. His behavioral problems were actually not the result of the dog being stupid. They were the result of his owner not fully understanding what kind of dog he had.
Too many retrievers of this type aren’t getting what they deserve. Behavioral problems kill dogs. And in this type of dog, the main behavioral problem they will have ultimately comes from not having their drives, instincts, and brains fully utilized and focused.
I love the philosophy of Bredekaer’s goldens. They don’t want their dogs to wind up in the hands of neophytes, who want a “calm” dog. The show-lines of golden in Denmark are full of very calm dogs. What they want to do is preserve the working ability and working conformation of these dogs. And I absolutely agree that a dog bred for intelligence and ability isn’t the best choice for the casual dog owner.
I have been researching the idea of importing a golden from out of the USA. My Daisy is a product of an imported golden with lines from Russia, and I have never had such a great working Golden! She has the drive the want to hunt the need to hunt the more I train with her the smarter she gets, she just wants to do it! This is what I have always thought a golden should do, but the goldens I have grown up with here in the states were bad breeding. They were not bred to be hunting dogs, Americans breed for what the picture book Golden LOOKS like. Im so happy I found this site, It is opening my eyes to what a golden is ment to do, hunt, retrieve, learn, and please the person she is part of a pack with.
More on the field Goldens is great!