The wikimedia description of this photograph says:
“A hybrid mixed-breed dog. A real mongrel in which not a single contributing breed is recognisable.”
I’m thinking that this dog has some working strain golden retriever in it.
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I think I can guess something about this dog’s parentage
October 27, 2009 by retrieverman
12 Responses
Maybe. But since I’ve done over eleven years of rescue work, I’ve learned that you can’t rely on just one photo…
Now I see border collie, shepherd…
Or how about this –
I see all of those breeds, but the face looks too much like golden to me. It’s one thing that tends to survive cross-breeding.
I’ve seen Australian red BC’s. This dog is far darker than that. My guess is it’s an Aussie Red BC crossed with a golden retriever, which some numbskulls think is the smartest dog around. (I’ve actually been asked this– why not cross goldens and BC’s and make a “super” dog? I’m like, how about no on that one.)
We see what we want to see. I see golden, but I also see toller. In the second alternate shot, I see nordic breeds. I’ve seen dogs that in photos were dead ringers for flatcoats, talked to their owners to find that they were lab/border collie mixes. Or Newfoundland/Samoyed mixes (that was the weirdest.) I’ve seen pure-bred labs at hunt tests that were so close to flatcoats in head type and facial expression that except for the lack of feathering, I wouldn’t look twice if they were at the FCRSA national.
In the photo at the top of this entry, you are looking at the expression (intensity and desire and focus) of the dog. Those things define the dog as a working golden to you. To me, I see countless working retriever breeds (O.K., not the poodles) that I’ve watched excel in hunt test or run toward the end of a dock, or chase a tennis ball across a park.
This dog’s ears are a big thing for me.
This dog doesn’t have drop ears. Which is dominant – prick ear or drop ear?
Well, check this out: http://www.steynmere.com/GENETICS.html
They were trying to get a bob-tailed boxer using naturally bob-tailed corgies.
Ear carriage is very different from what I expected. I thought drop ears were dominant. Well, they had a few F1 corgies with erect ears! And it was very hard to get the boxer ear in their line of boxer/corgis, even through cross-breeding.
I have seen a chow-golden cross (a definite one) with fully erect ears. And here’s a photo of one: ttp://www.dailypuppy.com/dogs/allee-the-chow-mix_2008-10-24
I also saw a dog in Animal Cops Detroit several years ago that was basically a golden retriever with erect ears. It was light gold with a really wavy coat. Its mannerisms were that of a golden, but its ears stuck straight up.
Some red and white border collies —
http://www.gis.net/~shepdog/BC_Museum/Permanent/BCColors_Red/BC_ColorRed.html
I’ve run agility with some BCs that are exactly this color.
Those eyes aren’t anything I’d recognize as being distinctly a shepherd breed (the nordic breeds seen by Patti come to mind), but the structure and coat say shepherd to me.
c.f. eyes: http://www.dogsindepth.com/nonsporting_dog_breeds/images/finnish_spitz_h02.jpg
That being said, I have seen BCs with sinister eyes like that, I just don’t find it very indicative.
I wouldn’t call someone a liar if they said full blooded English Shepherd.
I changed the coat color, and I think the impression is more collie family:
Could be a BC/ES x ?? cross. NOTHING about the dog save the color, says Golden to me. The structure is all wrong, the head shape, muzzle, eyes, ears, coat…. nothing really.
The face says working strain golden. They have that look.
The show-bred ones have round eyes.
My own dog is built rather strangely for a golden.
My first dog had exactly that same muzzle and head shape, just not the ears.
My first dog had a head and body type like Ch/FC Tonkahof Esther Belle (center front row):
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZU0EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA29&dq=tonkahof%20esther%20belle&pg=PA29#v=onepage&q=tonkahof%20esther%20belle&f=false
That type of golden is called a “swamp collie” for a reason. That’s actually how I tend to think of the best ones. They are like collies that don’t herd.