This one is a bit darker in color than the yellow flat-coats I’ve seen, and he looks a lot like a golden retriever.
(The black dog is a curly/Labrador cross.)
The yellow pup looks a lot like this working strain golden:
The similarities exist because golden and flat-coated retrievers both descend from the old wavy-coated retriever. Until 1908, goldens were considered liver flat-coats. Then a special color variety was made for them called “Flat-coats (yellow).” However, this variety failed to be popular at shows, so the yellow and red retriever lovers moved to separate the breed from the black dogs. However, in order to do that, they had to make up a fanciful story about how the yellow dogs came from Russian circus dogs and were in no way related to those black ones. Never mind that the yellow dogs all had the best black flat-coat bloodlines behind them, and never mind that the one of the early top trial retrievers (Don of Gerwn) was a liver flat-coat with a golden retriever father. And also never mind that the three founding lines of golden retriever all were heavily interbred with black flat-coats. In the literature of the day, it is very hard to find any mention that these two breeds are close relatives.
I’d be the first to admit that the two breeds are different today, but they aren’t as different form each other as much as they are a theme and variation of a similar type. There are still blocky flat-coats and lithe goldens. It’s just that now the gene pools of both breeds have a tendency towards one form or the other.
In the eyes of my children and friends and family who know us our dogs and visit the dogs shows we attend… It seems the show Goldens tend to favor a Spaniel “type”, head is more domed and the snout is not so long, where the field Goldens favor a more setter “type. The field Goldens that often play with our dogs on the farm certainly look more flattie. And at shows the unstudied eye of the curious public typically will think the flatties are some type of setter. So it would sort of sit with the way some dogs don’t look the type yet are the breed they are claimed to be. Is it possible that even after so many decades of trying to breed for type that there is still some throwback to favoring the look of the many breeds that went into the base formula? For example… the Golden you pictured here that clearly looks like a setter.
That’s an accurate assessment, but the way you describe show golden heads, I would submit are actually more like Newfoundlands.
I believe it was Stonehenge or Idstone who thought that the retriever (meaning wavy or flat-coat) was nothing more than another form of black setter.
I agree. The fact that we live with American Cockers has that look sort of ingrained on us. But yes… more like a big Newfoundland mellon head. A high dome skull and a shorter muzzle. In profile I see a large Spaniel, since the newf’s are so beefy. But then again some of those show Goldens are pretty beefy too. Then again the skull shape on the Flatties seems to have a considerable amount of variation. Some have the more Newfoundland appearance and others the Setters. The trend now seems to be more for the Collie look since their are some extreme head shapes winning in conformation. Almost a triangle from back of skull to tip of nose.
This reinforces all that you’ve presented on fad breeding and it also sheds light upon the reasons for selective breeding from the produced litters to maintain the agreed upon type in the conformation ring. It seems that the perfect representation of a breed is really open to interpretation and that if left unchecked all the dogs would tend to look more like each other instead of the the “type” that is deemed one breed over another.
I’ve seen Goldens with long ears that are reminiscent of a Spaniel. I’ve seen Flatties with long Collie heads and both breeds that you could barely tell the difference between except for color.
By the same token I’ve seen Boykins that look like American Cockers. I’ve seen American Cockers that look more like the English type. And I’ve seen English Cockers that look more like the Field Spaniels.
Its apparent that there has been enough interbreeding over the decades that a retriever can vary in type no matter what the specific breed. Same for a Spaniel. Perhaps any dog breed if left unchecked by human intervention would eventually all look the same. Just like what you presented with the population of stray dogs in Russia.
Perhaps the human factor and the constant desire for the individual to have a dog that they can somehow identify with and that sets them apart from others is just as dangerous as the closed registry system? Maybe the bubble of elitism that seems to shroud the dog fancy has finally burst? And the rise in popularity of a mixed breed is the resulting fallout of a fancy running with the blinders on for over a century? The term “too little too late” applies in many ways to describe the situation for so many breeds.
But, the simple answer seems to be the one the fancy is pushing back against the hardest.
Open the registry system.
I just found your blog, recommended by a friend. I have a flat-coat, and i an interested in your writing about them.
My boy Kaleb actually has a yellow sister (though he does not carry the yellow recessive gene, his litter was tested and some of them do) – that pup in the video to me just look like a lab or golden (with no coat since it is young). Even a yellow flat-coat is distinct, the one piece head is a give-away even on a young dog.
i look forward to reading more
Sarah
Originally, Flat-coats had a less “one piece” head, and goldens were far less blocky. I do see some goldens that have flat-coat heads, mostly in the working lines. My first dog would’ve made a nice flat-coat, except that she was red with a white-tipped tail. Her coat was even entirely straight, and she didn’t shed like a normal golden.
My first dog looked a lot like the second dog from the right (Noranby Diana): http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/noranby-diana.jpg
The head and color are very different from what you normally see in goldens these days. I wish I had a good digital photo of my old dog, but she lived before the digital camera became widespread.
The pup in the video is definately a flat coat. There were 4 yellows born in his litter of 11. They have been placed on the limited register. Only his black and liver siblings can be shown but he could trial etc. I have a healthy flat coat who’s parents passed all their health checks. The only check they didn’t do was for the recessive gene that produces the yellow. His sister is already winning best gundog puppy.