Golden Retriever Info & Golden Retriever Breeders

The ideal owner for a Golden Retriever

Goldens are highly intelligent playful dogs that ideally suit most families.  Whatever you’re doing they want to be part of it all, be that laying at your feet while you read a book, going for a jog or playing games.  If you’re off camping or to the children’s sporting activities, your golden wants to be with you.  Goldens adore children, again making them the ideal family pet.  Remember, retriever by name, retriever by nature; your Golden was bred to retrieve game over land and water, so if there are shoes lying around the house, the odd stuffed teddy bear, maybe even a book or a remote control left at mouth level rest assured it will be retrieved.  Don’t expect to get it back the way it was left.  If however you’re a home owner that wants everything spick and span, expects to have a perfectly clean floor then perhaps a Golden Retriever is not for you.

Training and Socialisation

A Golden Retriever is a highly intelligent dog that wants to please, that usually equates to a dog that is easy to train.  If you have never trained a dog before then it’s likely you’re going to make mistakes when training your first dog.  Some key things are: be consistent in everything you say and do when you interact with your dog.  Start training the day you bring your new puppy home.  Take your puppy to your local puppy pre-school, you will learn a lot!  Within a week of your puppy arriving home he or she should be sitting when asked, walking nicely beside you on a lead, know it’s name and be starting to understand that toileting is done outside on the grass.

If a Golden is left alone for long periods of time without suitable entertainment, they will, find their own.  Invariably this will be seen by their humans as destructive behaviour.  Goldens are avid gardeners and can dig huge holes in many locations while you’re at work, eating your newly planted Azalea could present a peaceful hour for a Golden while it lays in the sun.  If you’re planning on having your dog live outside most of the time and/or you spend a lot of time away from your home, then a golden retriever is not the breed for you and your family.

How much space and exercise do Golden Retriever’s need?  

A Golden Retriever should be walked daily, even if it’s just to the end of the street and back.  Maybe to the local coffee shop where you can sit outside and enjoy a coffee with your dog at your feet.  Walking your children to school.  Your back yard, needs to be a proper decent sized yard, not a court house with a tiny patch of grass, which will soon turn into a bare patch of dirt and when it rains it’s your dog’s personal mud bath.  Goldens do not suit apartment living.  

Golden Retriever’s and grooming 

They have a long thick coat that sheds golden glitter 24 hours a day, so Golden owners do a lot of vacuuming.  Goldens will also have two major coat drops during the year.  One at the beginning of summer when they drop their winter undercoat and the other at the beginning of winter when they drop the light summer coat and grow one that will keep them warm in winter.  Goldens should not be shaved, as their coat is designed to keep them warm in winter and cool in summer.

Goldens require a medium amount of work for grooming, a brush with a sturdy bristle at least once a week.  When they drop coat, you may wish to use a “slicker” brush to help remove the dead/lose coat.  Toenails need to be trimmed every fortnight and the hair that grows between their toes should be trimmed back flush with the toes every fortnight.  The tail can also be tidied up from time to time.  Bathing once every 4 – 6 weeks is desirable.

Golden Retriever History

When 'fowling pieces' (early shotguns) became available (to rich people) gamebird shooting became enormously popular among those who could afford it and retrieving dogs became the big movers in England's favourite dog stakes. No one wanted to have to actually go and find the bird they just shot and then bend over and pick it up, so a dog that could not only do that but also flush the birds ahead of the shooter or shooters was a very welcome addition to the outing.

England went retriever mad in the early 19th century and it was the water dogs from across the Atlantic that contributed to some of the English retrieving breeds. The lighter version of the St. Johns Water Dog of the Newfoundland type was crossed with English spaniels and setters of the day which produced a working retriever that took the fancy of Lord Tweedmouth. He bred them on his estate in Inverness in Scotland and his dogs were outcrossed to the Wavy-Coated Retriever which eventually became known as the Flat-Coated Retriever.

For a long time Tweedmouth's golden dogs were known as Flat-Coated Retriever, Golden, and was originally registered with the Kennel Club under that name. In 1911 the Golden Retriever Club was formed and the breed's official name changed to Yellow or Golden Retriever. The Yellow as later dropped.

The Goldie took its time gaining worldwide recognition. It went to Canada the land of its ancestors in 1881 and the United States in 1890. It wasn't until 1927 that the Canadian Kennel Club recognised the breed and the United States recognised the Golden Retriever in 1932. It didn't make the show rings of France until 1932 but in the middle and latter half of the century it became a global phenomenon and one of the world's favourite pet dogs.