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31May

Golden Retriever: A Nineteenth Century Dog

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by Carol Matthews

One of the most obedient and intelligent dogs, Golden Retriever dogs are famous for offering their services in a wide variety of domains including hunting, field trials and conferring guidance and companionship to blind masters. In the early decades of the 1800’s, hunting was popular among natives of England and Scotland. During that time, hunting was considered both as a way to gather foods and a mode of entertainment. With their flexibility and a medium-size, the Golden Retriever has the ability to move through the wild-fowling, both upland and waterfowl, in a smooth fashion.

In 19th century, Lord Tweedmouth at Guisachan estate, Scotland, kept the records of the development of the Golden Retriever for the first time. These records were published for the first time by Tweedmouth’s great nephew in the year 1952. It was during the mid of 19th century when Lord Tweedmouth purchased his the Golden Retriever Nous. In his estate, he put the effort to breed the dogs with desired characteristics.

During the early days, Tweed Water Spaniels were predominantly used as hunting dogs, since they were marked for their true intelligence, courage and vitality, the factors most essential for hunting. Tweed Water Spaniel dogs were of great importance for the development of the ancestors of the modern Golden Retriever. Lord Tweedmouth encouraged breeding between his yellow puppy Nous and Belle, a female Tweed Water Spaniel and this couple gave birth to fours golden puppies. However in later days, Irish setter and Bloodhound in addition to Tweed Water Spaniel were used for the breeding of modern the Golden Retriever.

The popularity of the Golden Retriever increased significantly during the last decades of 19th century. The Golden Retriever officially appeared to the public for the first time in 1908 at Crystal Palace, England. In the year 1913, the Golden Retriever Club in England was established and with this establishment a separate recognition for this breed was marked. It was 1920 when the Golden Retriever reached to North America and loved by many people.

In the year 1925, American Kennel Club (AKC) gave the breed recognition to the Golden Retriever. The time between the 1930’s and 1940’s is identified as the most flourishing years of the popularity of the Golden Retriever. This dog is so obedient that it won the Obedience Champ Title from the AKC in 1977, where it competed with other breeds as well.

While in the early years of breeding, the efficiency of this truly intelligent dog was only limited to its hunting ability, but later on the Golden Retriever was recognized for its versatile characteristics.

In the initial days, the dark shade of the coats of the Golden Retriever was predominantly preferred by people, however, the preference has changed dramatically in due course of time.

ollowing the years of first breeding, the popularity of this breed has never failed and today this dog has obtained the utmost popularity as a truly intelligent, obedient and courageous dog throughout the world.

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Categories: Dog

Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 9:46 pm and is filed under Dog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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