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 never cried out on her first night away from her litter. She was already showing a great deal of retrieving instinct when she arrived. This instinct would later blossom into a full-bore obsession with retrieving objects. I can still see her quartering out after a thrown retrieving dummy, casting herself into the wind to best catch its scent.
The tawny puppy matured into a beautiful dog. Her fur grew straight and flat against her body, almost like a flat-coated retriever. She was rangier than the show-type goldens, with a narrower head. She was weighed about 65 to 70 pounds, and stood about 25 inches at the shoulder. In fact, she really closely resembled a flat-coated retriever, except that she was dark gold in color instead of black or liver. She never would have won a dog show, but that never really mattered. She was as clever as was beautiful. Even to this day, I think of these old rustic looking golden retrievers as beautiful animals, even though the dog show fancy prefers the heavier-boned and blocky light-colored dogs.
She was as intelligent as she was beautiful. She learned all of her commands quickly, but most retrievers are good at learning commands. Her brilliance showed itself when she figured out how to open doors at the tender age of 7 months. She opened the door in the same way that human does, using her paw to turn the knob, just as we use our hands. She had not had her dewclaws removed, so she was able to grip the knob rather well between her paw and wrist. She got so good at it that she often let herself out or brought herself in when we were unable to come to the door. Her only problem was that she did not know how to shut it.
Her retrieving ability became her defining trait. She would retrieve equally well from the water and from land. I can also see her thundering into the coldest streams and ponds, charging in with a red-hot intensity of hawk swooping down upon its prey. She was the perfect dog for a budding naturalist, because she was excellent at spotting the hiding places of all sorts of game species, like cottontail rabbits hidden in brush heap or a wild turkey's nest at the edge of a clearing.
We had no intentions of training her to be a working retriever, but she could have been among the best. She could mark thrown objects well, and if she didn't see one land, she would instantly start quartering. While quartering, she would also take direction from us as to where the object was. Anyone who has seen a retriever trial knows that retrievers are handled from a great distance, as they quarter out for the birds they must retrieve. They find the birds using both their own noses and the direction of their handlers. If we had trained in that discipline, I am sure she would have been among the best.
She had very high energy when she was young. I am sure that many neophytes to retrievers would have called her hyper, but she was not. I know this because when she was about two, she was joined by Dalmatian belonging to relatives who tried to keep him in a suburb. Unlike many of his breed, "Pepper" had a good disposition, but as is more typical of his breed, he could not settle down. He had the attention span of a gnat. He would bound off in all directions, just because he was so excited. Now, that was hyper dog. He would wear Goldie out, trying to play her fetching game. She eventually became the brains of the operation, with dear Pepper following her every command. He was severely smitten with her, but Pepper had been castrated as a very young puppy. There would be no romance between the two.
Goldie did have a litter of puppies when she was almost three years old, after the scare of hip dysplasia had been put to rest. The first stud dog she was offered was light-colored, show-type male, but she ignored his advances. She would have nothing of this dog. She wound up having no puppies because of that heat cycle. On the next heat cycle, she was introduced to another male, this one of working bloodlines, like her. She liked him. In fact, the two had gone swimming together as young dogs, with Goldie teaching "Jasper" that the water was fun. When it came to romance, though, Goldie was still unsure about Jasper. It was decided that perhaps the best thing to do was to take the pair swimming at the farm pond. It worked like magic. No sooner had the two finished their swimming than the two were successfully bred together.
Fourteen puppies were the result of that pairing. Four were born in our laundry room. The rest were delivered by emergency Caesarian at the animal hospital. For some reason, she just could not have them all. The vets were confused. The puppies were all a lovely dark color, but two were rather dark, approaching a deep red in color. One of these was chosen as the pick of the litter by the stud owner, which he truly was. He resembled a dark version of his mother in temperament and intelligence, already deeply interest in retrieving object and tried to go swimming his mother, as did two of his sisters. If it had been entirely up to me, I would have paid for the puppy myself and kept him, but it was not up to me. He went with the stud dog's owner eventually became a great family pet for a geometry teacher who lived on some acreage. I think if she had been a city dweller, the pup would have driven her insane with his active nature.
Goldie never had another litter. She was spayed during the Caesarian. After the puppies were gone she stabilized as a lovely family pet. While she was pregnant, we had added another golden retriever puppy to the family. This dog was the daughter of Jasper, the father Goldie's puppies, and a dog from show lines. Her temperament was rather different from Goldie's. She had no retrieving instinct and a very mellow temperament. She matured into a very heavy boned female with really long, curly hair, which was a moderate gold in color. She was intelligent, but not in the same ways that Goldie was. It almost as if she was of a different breed. She also had bad hips, which may have resulted from her heaviness in bone. "Strawberry," as she was known, may have been a nice dog, but she really soured me on show-type goldens.
Goldie could run circles around Strawberry. She was always in motion, looking for things to retriever or birds to flush. She had a particular love for flushing ruffed grouse, which she always seemed to find lurking the brambles and rose thickets that cover much of this part of West Virginia. She also would try to flush wild turkeys, which would take refuge in the nearest trees, clucking out all sorts of turkey curses at the dog staring up at them from below. Dogs cannot be used for hunting turkeys in West Virginia in the spring, however, and our county had no fall turkey season. Goldie's bird dog talents never got used for a practical purpose.
Strawberry might flush an odd turkey or a grouse, but her main thing to do was to run a chipmunk to ground and yip at it. Strawberry had a deformed larynx and could not bark. All she could do is make a squeaky yipping noise. When the chipmunk would go to ground, she would go to its burrow, lie down and yip at it for hours. If there was ever a need for chipmunk dog, Strawberry was it.
Strawberry was so mellow, though, that she usually gave up on chasing the chipmunk after about a half hour, and then she would go home and eat. Unlike many dogs that eat standing up, Strawberry always ate lying down. Perhaps it was too much a strain on her hips to stand and eat or maybe she was just too mellow to stand up. I am sure she would have made a nice pet for a suburban dweller, but as a good farm dog, well, she was wanting.
Goldie lived for thirteen good years on our land in central West Virginia. She enjoyed fetching, swimming, and flushing for most of that time. But as time progressed, Goldie got older. Her muzzle turned white, and she began to slow down a bit. One October evening she was found staggering around in the backyard. A trip to a local vet said that she had vestibular disease, and she was put on medication for that. She was fine for about a month. Then on day after Thanksgiving, she had a bad seizure. A trip to another vet confirmed that she had an advanced brain tumor. He put her on anticonvulsants.
It was tough saying goodbye to a dog that seemed so invincible, so full of life and vigor just a few months earlier. The anticonvulsants protected her from seizures for about a month. On Christmas day, she appeared almost normal. She was a happy dog who took a great deal of interest in her family once again. She even tried to retrieve a few things. But the next day, she had a bad seizure. She was moved to the laundry and placed on a soft mat. For the next few hours she had seizure. No vet could found on the holiday to ease her suffering. She died in her sleep that night.
A few years later, when I was in graduate school, my father decided to get another golden retriever. Strawberry was still living, fourteen years old and still going at her slothful pace, but the place was empty without an active, wily retriever on it. He discovered a litter not far from us, and we went to see them. Only one female was left, and she was light colored. He mother looked like a working-type golden, dark and lightly built. The father of this litter was a light-colored dog, which had me deeply concerned. Light-colored goldens often lack the retrieving instincts and working ability of the darker ones. It was decided that we would take this pup, because she was a nice little puppy and her mother was so beautiful.
It has been nearly four months since we bought little "Miley," but she had matured into an obedient, active golden with a deep intelligence. She is developing her retrieving instincts, and her instincts for flushing game. She resembles Goldie so much, except that her coat is a pale gold in color. The vet believes that she will mature at about 80 pounds in weight, somewhat larger than Goldie. I think she will do fine as a companion, but I am trying to avoid comparing her to Goldie. I want her to have her own story with our family. She has so much to teach us about life. I can only imagine what her stories her life will impart.
It is because of Goldie that I am convinced that dogs bred for their intelligence, temperament, and instincts are far superior to those bred for capricious breed standards. One day I hope to start my own line of working golden retrievers, with an emphasis on producing retrievers that are very easily trained to be natural retrievers. A dog with these characteristics has great utility, not just in the procurement of shot game. They can be used as search and rescue dogs, sniffer dogs for bombs and drugs, and assistance dogs for the mobility impaired. Those dark goldens have a place in my heart, even though the fad is now to breed "white" ones. They are the dogs of my dreams, and I hope one day to honor Goldie's memory when I get my own dogs.