CH. Lorelei’s Golden Rip ** OS (b.1946). He was a dual purpose AKC dog. For that time period, it was a bit of redundancy to say they were “dual purpose,” for nearly all show goldens were also used in other activities. The breed splits we’ve since experienced are the result of economics–it’s too expensive to campaign a dog in so many activities– and the growing intensity of the competition in working and conformation events.
Dual purpose dogs exist, but they are very hard to find. The same can be said for the Labrador retriever, which has also split into different strains.
Any reason, besides the coat, that goldens were never particulary popular as gun dogs in the American South?
I mean, setters feather, and Labs have a double coat, but there have been thousands of great setters and Labs in GA, FL, AL, TN, MS etc. Goldens, even during their heyday here, always seemed concentrated in the North and Midwest.
Just seems curious.
Coat and skin issues. Subtropical climates and golden skin do not mix well. These dogs have issues with hot spots. I’m leery of clipping them, because it seems that it makes them very prone to hot spots. They just don’t do well in truly subtropical climates.
Also, not many ring-necked pheasants. Goldens were common in the Dakotas and Minnesota south to Illinois as pheasant flushers and retrievers. They still are, actually.
I think this also has something to do with it: Labs and Chessie do look more manly. They look they have had a buzz cut and just got out of the US Marine Corps. They are very good on waterfowl, much more efficient swimmers. And they can fetch doves in the heat far better than a golden can.
I’m sure I’m going to get flamed for that one, but goldens aren’t really good when it’s hot. Labs have a better all purpose coat.
A lot of waterfowlers call goldens “swamp collies,” because they often have so much coat that it bogs them down in the water.
I have a question about masculine image in dogs:
Which looks more manish, more straight:
a) A guy out with a manish male dog, or
b) A guy out with with a female dog?
To me, hanging out with other males seems less heterosexual than having a female companion.
Some really dangerous men love fluffy little dogs. And they are straight, not homosexual.
Don’t get me wrong, I find nothing wrong with the gay lifestyle (except that defending them with a comment just like that, once caused me trouble on a different blog from the one I posted it on),
but, to call it like it is, there are a lot of people who choose a dog breed that looks tough just so they (the owner) wont look gay.
I have heard a man say that his young daughter could not have a pet toy poodle because it might make him (the father ) look gay!
So which really looks like a man happy with his sexual identity, a man who has a pit bull, a short haired gun dog, or a man with a softer looking dog?
Of course the wiser person chooses a dog for its temperment, not by how other people see its image.
The image seen is brief and fleeting. The visual and verbal clues that the owner gives off immediately swamp any image associated from the dog.
At most, the image of the dog only affects strangers who do not know the owner, but just see him walk by.
Yet, many men insist on choosing a dog for it’s bad image! Or at least, in some breeds, for it’s tough image.
Reminds me of Straight: The New Gay sketch by Steve Hughes.
Clip is captioned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in9SiDtJLaU
LOL! Thanks Souggy. I had never heard of Steve Hughes, but I watched 3 of his vids just now. So funny, so true!
I liked his points about toughness and gayness not being the same, but that hanging out with women is less gay than hanging out with other men.
I’m wondering if, joking aside, he might be right? Like I think that Charlie Murphy gave the most accurate look into Cesar Millan, even though it was a joke.
Oh, I do talk a lot don’t I? Now am I going to have to worry that some bloggar, whose blog I might want to post on someday in the future, won’t like that I don’t want to lick CM’s boots?
Would it sound like sour grapes if I said that, not being a CM fan, such a blog probably wouldn’t be the type of blog which I’d like anyway?
And I like what Steve Hughes said on his other vid, about being offended. Makes so many dog breeders sound like 4 year olds.
Just to avoid confusion: I am neither gay nor male, and, sorry, I’m not young, thin, or hot-blooded either. Just calling it like it is.
Yeah — it’s the weirdest thing. A local pro hunt trainer works with Irish Water Spaniels — they have very curly coats, and are not overtly muscular like some field Labs.
For some reason, probably having more to do with insecurity of the guys pulling this crap, he gets a real ration of shit handling those “girly” dogs.
Stupid. Just stupid.
Goldens are really a Midwestern dog. I imagine them having Minnesota or Wisconsin accents if they could talk.
I think goldens were fist imported from kennels in British Columbia and through Colorado before they were in Minnesota or Wisconsin.
Dual purpose is an odd phrase that has been turned around by many of today’s breeders. These breeders show their dogs and get titled as a breed champion first then these show breeders get the basic performance titles on their dogs.
Time was when the show titles often came after not before the performance titles.
They got started in Winnipeg by a man named Bart Armstrong. Samuel Magoffin had a kennel in Vancouver, and when Armstrong died, they merged. The breed did exist earlier in Canada, when Dudley Marjoribanks’s daughter, Ishbel, brought some goldens with her when her husband, Lord Aberdeen, was governor general of Canada.
The Midwest became the center for goldens. They are regionally abundant, though not as common as labs.
The Midwest held the first and strongest concentration of working goldens for several reasons. Bart Armstrong (Gilnockie kennels) in Winnipeg was among the first, in the early 1920s. The Gilnockie kennel name was later given to Sam Magoffin and used for his operation in Colorado, managed by his brother John Rogers Magoffin.
Sam Magoffin’s wife was sister to Ralph and Ben Boalt, and Mrs. Henry B Christian. Ralph’s Stilrovin kennels in Minnesota (and his ex-wife’s Kingswere kennels), Ben’s Beavertail/Gunnerman in Wisconsin, Christian’s Goldwood kennels in Minnesota were primary, along with John Wallace in the St Louis area who imported a dozen or so Goldens before WWII.
In the early years of field trials, Goldens took a goodly share of placements, often a quarter of the total ribbons, in spite of being a “rare” breed. And that was on the weekends they weren’t busy hunting.