The Golden Retriever has been around since the 19th century with the breed considered to be a Scottish breed. The true origins of the Golden Retriever has changed so depending on who you ask the answer may be different. The original belief is that the Golden Retriever are direct descendants of some Russian circus dogs that were purchased by a gentleman named Lord Tweedmouth, known as Sir Dudley Marjoribanks at time of purchase. They were purchased with the purpose of hunting deer and due to their skills being acceptable they were later bred with a sandy colored bloodhound to reduce their size (they must have been massive) and improve their scenting capabilities. This origin story has since been debunked after the studbook of Lord Tweedmouth had been released by a descendant of his. This studbook shows that Tweedmouth had purchased an unregistered yellow retriever named “Nous” who was an offspring of two black retrievers. This is relevant because at the time the belief was that black dogs were better hunters and offspring that were any other color would be disposed of. Tweedmouth then bred Nous to a Tweed Water Spaniel (now extinct) named Belle and that the Golden Retrievers today are descendants of Nous and Belle. According to one source there are some chromo-lithograph pictures (which is a type of color photograph where the term is mainly used for 19th century photographs) on the cover of a magazine that shows 2 dogs with one highly resembling what looks to be a Golden Retriever. This magazine is titled “The Game Keeper” by Edmund Walker and the photo was after a painting done by Richard Ansdell. This magazine was printed 11 years before Tweedmouth purchased Nous. With this evidence the origin story of the Golden Retriever is still up for debate. There is plenty more information so I do encourage you to read the sources, particularly the GRCA.org source. One thing that can be agreed upon is the Golden Retriever was bred as a 19th century gundog and water retriever. This breed is skilled in hunting both on land and in water for pheasant, quail and deer for example. They are hardy, multitalented and excellent swimmers. They have a gentle and loving temperament (so don’t get one if you need a protection dog). This gentle and loving temperament does not mean they do not have a desire to work and will be easy going apartment dogs. They will still require exercise everyday both mentally and physically. They also thrive on having the human connection so being able to have time for your Golden is a must for their mental and emotional wellbeing.

This week I would like to talk about something that has become very much on the forefront of my mind especially as of late and that is setting up your yard to keep your dog from practicing unwanted behaviors. I will explain my living situation/set up with my dogs and what I plan to do to help with my specific concerns. As you may know I have 2 vizslas, Csili and Káosz, who are young and full of energy plus a pitbull named Lucas who is 12 years old. The vizslas each have their own thing that they “care” about the most. Káosz has a thing for lizards and Csili has a thing for birds (Káosz does as well but his is more for larger birds as we don’t see those ones as often so less practice to counter condition). We live in an RV where we are blessed to be able to have a little fenced yard and a dog door was able to be installed in the storage chute of my RV. Thanks to @Paul Bunker for his help with the dog door installation and the building of the platform so they can safely go in and out! My current fence started out as just 4ft tall livestock fencing supported with some posts and a gate but soon Káosz learned that lizards were ripe for being stalked just beyond the fence. This then turned into him hunting for them with no decompression available so his mind was not able to quiet. Even being out of the yard was no help since the lizards are everywhere on property and their existence consumed his mind. A solution was needed to block his view so now the whole fence is wrapped with garden fabric (double layer) to keep him from being able to look out and have his attention be expended on seeking lizards as this made even going on walks difficult let alone training. Unfortunately, an upgrade is needed due to Káosz learning that a 4ft tall fence is not tall enough to keep him in (thankfully this only happened about 3-4 times and I was on property for all but 2 of them. Both times he was quickly collected and returned home without having gone far). With this newfound information on his athletic skills Paul and I are going to upgrade the fence to a 6ft tall chain link fence with a proper privacy cover (it is from Alion Home if anyone needs some. If you have questions their customer service was very good and quick to respond. Will update on privacy cover once installed if anyone would like to know).

Your dog being able to engage with you is probably the one skill that will set up the rest of your training for success. When your dog is to highly distracted by the environment they are unable to learn what you are trying to teach. Sure, you can ask your dog to sit or down when distracted but do they really know or care that you are there? Even if they do sit or down they could very well still be focused on the distraction. I saw this many times in the veterinary field with people and their pets waiting in the lobby. Their dog would be focused on another dog (sometimes vocally) so the owner ask/tell their dog to sit and then shoves a treat in their mouth all while their dog is still not engaged with their human. Congratulations you just rewarded/reinforced your dog ignoring you and staring at the other dog. “But my dog sat when I told them too”. That is true but that is not what your dog interpreted that reinforcement for at all. Dogs will pair a reinforcement with what is spiking their dopamine at that time which is why behaviors repeat when rewarded (even self-reward) and those that are not rewarded tend to decrease. What the dog learned is if he stares at that dog intensely and all he has to do is sit (not ignore) then that is reinforcing and my owner agrees. This can also be done on accident with classical conditioning and your dog goes into that mindset. Could be a sound or that last turn before you step into the vet office that puts your dog in that mindset of disengagement with you. I have an example of my youngest dog Káosz being very distracted by something in the dunes at the beach. We were there to do a survey with @Paul Bunker and Poppy and were letting our dogs run around a bit after the ~3 hour car ride down to the coast. Káosz and I were standing on just where the dunes started and I was going to let him run around where it dipped between dunes. He saw something apparently on the neighboring dune and was overwhelmed with wanting to go check it out. I, of course, was not going to cut him loose since I needed him to realize that even when he is overwhelmed with the urge to go check something out that I am still an important part of the equation. So, I did a low key version of the Check In Game where I just marked every time he looked at me and gave him a treat. Visual engagement with me, mark, treat and repeat. I kept doing this until he wanted to engage with me more than whatever was out there and felt confident that he remembered I existed in his overwhelmed moment.

Definitions: Arousal: a physiological and psychological state of being awake or reactive to stimuli Stress: a physical, chemical or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension With the words defined we can now begin to differentiate the states of being. This is something that not everyone can recognize and identify. Whether it is due to lack of understanding or they just don’t like the idea of a dog having negative feelings and so they choose to relabel it. Arousal in dogs is something that is typically a more positive feeling, they are still in the mindset of learning and are still aware of what is around them. This can, of course, go “overboard” and when the dog is overly excited they are unable to regulate themselves. This can cause us, the human, to also have heightened emotions and cause us to react in a way that suppresses our dogs instead of them actually learning to relax. Most people think this approach works and in a way it does because the dog stops the behavior that we don’t want them to perform. What it doesn’t do is change their mindset about the situation. They will still experience this heightened arousal but will restrain themselves (albeit after displaying the unwanted behavior) and only when their owner says something. The trigger has not changed the response. This is where we must be able to stay calm, cool and collected and teach our dogs how to relax in certain situations. Our dogs are quite in tune with us and how we feel in certain moments so how we react helps our dog’s way more than we may think it does. Adding distance if possible is a great way to help our dogs be able to get into a mindset of true relaxation about a situation. You can also utilize treats, a stuffed KONG or a lick ‘em mat in those moments to help facilitate calmness and a reward them for the calmer behavior at the same time. Stress in dogs is a whole other thing and while arousal must also be handled correctly I personally feel that stress, in its own way, is even more important to understand. If a dog is chronically stressed either in general or just certain scenarios (such as the car or vet) how you respond and handle the situation can make or break your dog being able to work through the stress. If your dog is in this stress mentality and something happens that would be otherwise benign (such as a person/dog walking by or a car door being shut) the dog may think that those things are something to stress about and become fearful of it.

When people imagine what having a dog is like most times it is the glorified and romantic version that enters people’s heads. This can be due to meeting mostly well behaved dogs through friends and family and perhaps the only dog a person has had was their family dog growing up. Due to this they did not experience the full grasp of what being responsible for another living creature is like. Another big inspiration for wanting a dog is the movies: 101 Dalmatians, Homeward Bound, Turner and Hooch, Lassie, Benji or Rescued by Ruby just to name a few. Many times movies like these will get people interested in a certain breed without ever doing their research on whether or not this breed is right for them. If this happens to be the case the dog may end up displaying some behavioral issues that the family cannot handle anymore and off to the shelter they go. It is a sad and unfortunate reality for some very good dogs who are just misunderstood and not in the right environment. Do not fret this is not a doom and gloom post. As much as it is a sad reality it does also show the other side of people which are those who step up for these misunderstood and cast aside dogs (and other animals) which is a beautiful thing to see. There are also some working groups who rescue these “high energy” and “out of control” dogs and give them a purpose which is what they were bred for in the first place! I say all of this to mention that it is so vitally important to understand what type of dog you have that way you can approach them as understanding as possible. That way you can understand them for the individual that they are. Not every high energy dog likes to play fetch with a tennis ball and even some high energy dog will not do a gosh darn thing for you for a treat. This is where doing a reward selection, even once every month or as needed, especially for puppies, can really maximize the joy of playing the game of detection for your dog. A quick example would be that when Chiron K9 first acquired Csili her reward with the other party was either a KONG or ChuckIt ball and through reward selection I have found out that she actually really enjoys playing tug and in particular with a fuzzy tug (NOT a rope tug). Her long standing favorite at the minute are the tugs from OneFitK9 who I found on Etsy (great place for unique dog toys) but they do also have their own website.