by Scottie Westfall

Created on: July 18, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Sometimes it is the dogs of your childhood that have the most impact on your views of dogs as an adult. I grew up in central West Virginia, a land where people the natural world is just a few feet from the back door. There was always something to explore. Long walks in the woods usually yield all sorts of finds. I would bring home my treasures, including a hummingbird's nest, a snail's shell, and box turtle skull, and display them with great pride. It was as if I had my own little natural history musem. I kept pet fence lizards, which I caught off the woodpile, but these were largely unrewarding companions.

I knew that I had to have a dog to share my life with. In my part of the world, dogs are used for practical purposes. People are often unsympathetic towards dogs, leaving them tied to dog houses for days on end. Most of the dogs in my area were usually scent hounds with surly characters. Their only utility was their ability to tree raccoons. My father had been researching dog breeds, for he knew it was time for his son to have a dog, which he would care for, of course. He knew that smaller dogs would probably be eaten by coyotes, and that scent hounds were hard to keep at home. Collies, his first breed, were by then so severely inbred that they had lost most of their characteristic intelligence. He decided to buy a golden retriever, which he had read were intelligent dogs with excellent dispositions.

Her name was "Goldie." She was the first golden retriever I ever knew, and the first that my family owned. She had been purchased from a breeder over a hundred miles away in hope that they had better stock than what was locally available. She was from working retriever bloodlines. She was a very dark coppery gold, except for the tip of her tail, which was white. She was already retrieving her toys when she first arrived at the family farm, as one could expect from a dog that had a few field champions close in her pedigree. She would begin my love affair with the working-type golden. This type differs somewhat from the show-type golden in that is usually darker in color, even approaching a deep red, and is more lightly built. The working type golden tends to be more easily trained and more "biddable," as the working retriever people say.

My father unimaginatively named her Goldie. I am sure that there are thousands of golden retrievers with same name, but it seemed to fit her sunny, agreeable disposition. She was housebroken within just a few short weeks, and she

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Next Page >>