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Where does Golden Retriever (dog breed) come from?
The golden retriever comes from the Scottish Highlands. In 1868, at his Guisachan estate in Glen Affric, Sir Dudley Marjoribanks bred the breed's first litter, aiming to create what he saw as the ultimate retriever.
A yellow pup and a water spaniel
Marjoribanks, a businessman and member of parliament, bought Guisachan in 1856 and kept large kennels there. In the 1860s he acquired Nous, a yellow wavy-coated retriever, the only yellow pup in an otherwise black litter; black sporting dogs were then the fashion. In 1868 he mated Nous with Belle, a Tweed Water Spaniel, a now-extinct brown water dog from the River Tweed area. Their four yellow pups, among them Cowslip, Crocus and Primrose, founded the breed.
Written down in a stud book
Marjoribanks kept careful records. Over the next two decades he crossed the line with another Tweed Water Spaniel, a red setter, a black flat-coated retriever and a black Labrador, keeping only the golden pups. His stud book, covering 1868 to 1890, is preserved at the Kennel Club in London. Research on it, published in 1960, countered romantic tales that the breed descended from Russian circus dogs. The Kennel Club gave golden retrievers their own register in 1913.
Why people say North America
Golden retrievers are such familiar family dogs in Canada and the United States that many people assume they began there. Two of Marjoribanks's dogs did cross the Atlantic early: his youngest son, Archie, took a male called Sol to his ranch in Texas and a female called Lady to Canada; she came back to Britain with him in 1895. But the breed spread through the Western world only in the 1920s and 1930s, and the American Kennel Club recognised it in 1932.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Golden Retriever ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Dudley Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmou… ↗ · akc.org ↗
