I have decided to start posting facts/history about Golden Retrievers every week for as long as I can find facts to post! I hope you all enjoy it and maybe learn an interesting thing or two along the way!

Origin of The Golden Retriever

The Golden Retriever breed was born in the Scottish Highlands in the late 1800’s. The founding of the breed is credited to Dudley Marjoribanks (picture below) who was later known as Lord Tweedmouth. Quite the name, right?

Lord_Tweedmouth,_Naval_Secretary,_portrait_bust (1)

Lord Tweedmouth was an avid hunter and owned an estate in Scotland called Guisachan where he kept his hunting dogs. On a trip to Brighton England he came across a cobbler who had been given a yellow wavy-coated retriever as payment. This was the only yellow puppy from the litter and Lord Tweedmouth purchased him, brought him to Guisachan and named him Nous.

nous20r
Nous and the Lords Gamekeeper.

Good old Dudley…I mean Lord Tweedmouth, was very interested in the breeding quality of his livestock and dogs. His goal was to create the ultimate retriever, one that would be perfect for the Scottish weather and terrain. He decided the best way to achieve this goal was to breed Nous with his Tweed Water Spaniel, Belle (tweed water spaniels are an extinct breed).

Tweed_Water_Spaniel
This painting is of the extinct Tweed Spaniel.

The combination resulted in a litter of yellow pups which would become the base for the breed as we know it today. Lord Tweedmouth also mixed in a few wavy and flat coated retrievers as well as a red setter with the descendants of Nous and Belle and he predominantly kept the yellow dogs in order to further his line. The results are the Goldens you see today!

29568556125_464437ac4c_z
Only fitting to use an image of Oshie in front of an Estate and wearing a bow tie when discussing Lords, right?

Comeback for a new fact next Wednesday!