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    "headline": "Golden Retriever breed began with Nous, a lone yellow puppy taken to a Scottish estate in the 1860s",
    "description": "The Golden Retriever began with Nous, a yellow Flat-coat pup born in 1864 and bred to a Tweed Water Spaniel at Guisachan in Scotland in 1868.",
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    "articleSection": "Pets & Animals",
    "keywords": "Dudley Marjoribanks, Flat-coated Retriever, Golden Retriever, Guisachan, Kennel Club",
    "articleBody": "Every Golden Retriever alive today runs back to a single odd-colored puppy. His name was Nous, he was born in June 1864, and he was the only yellow pup in a litter of otherwise black Flat-coated Retrievers. Sir Dudley Marjoribanks, later Baron Tweedmouth, bought him and took him north to Guisachan, his estate in the Scottish Highlands. There, through the 1860s and beyond, Marjoribanks set out to build what he considered the perfect retriever, and he wrote every mating down. The stud book that settled the argument That habit of record-keeping matters, because the breed’s origins attracted tall tales for decades. One early account had Nous bought from a Russian circus trainer performing in Brighton. Another said a cobbler sold him. The stud book tells a plainer story. His breeder was the 3rd Earl of Chichester, whose Stanmer Park estate lay just outside Brighton. Four years after his birth, Nous was paired with Belle, a Tweed Water Spaniel. Their litter produced four yellow puppies named Primrose, Ada, Cowslip and Crocus. Cowslip went on to be bred with another Tweed Water Spaniel and later with a Red Setter, and the lines were folded back together over several generations. A black Labrador called Tracer appears in the family tree too, and Marjoribanks later used a sandy Bloodhound. Puppies came out in every shade from jet black to pale cream, but only the golden ones were kept for breeding. The book covering 1868 to 1890 now sits in the Kennel Club library in London. Marjoribanks’s great-nephew, the 6th Earl of Ilchester, studied it with breeder Elma Stonex from 1952, and their findings, published in 1960, put the circus story to rest. A timeline from Highland estate to household name 1864: Nous is whelped, the lone yellow pup in a black litter. 1868: Nous and Belle produce the first four yellow puppies at Guisachan. 1903: The Kennel Club first registers the dogs, but files them alongside Flat-coats. 1904: A Golden wins a field trial; show ring appearances follow in 1908. 1911: A breed club forms and the dogs are renamed the “Yellow or Golden Retriever”. 1913: The breed gets its own Kennel Club register. 1920: “Yellow or” is dropped from the official name. 1927 and 1932: Canadian and American kennel clubs recognize the breed. Read as a whole, the timeline shows that it took roughly 45 years from the first Guisachan litter for the Golden to win a register of its own, and about 64 years before it was officially recognized in the United States. Why Goldens still bring you things Marjoribanks wanted a dog that would collect shot birds from Highland moors and rivers. That job left a mark. Goldens keep a strong urge to retrieve even when they have never seen a hunting field, which is why so many of them greet their owners holding a toy, a shoe or a stray leaf. We looked at that habit, and the gentle grip gun dogs were bred for, in our piece on a dog greeting her owner with a toy and the soft mouth of retrievers. The water work left traces too, though Goldens are not the strongest swimmers among retrievers, since their long coat makes them sit low in the water. Researchers have even filmed how retrievers move their legs in a pool, as covered in our report on the doggy paddle footfall study of six retrievers. Today the breed is a regular in the top ten for registrations in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia, and works as a guide dog and therapy dog as well as a family pet. For another breed whose job description changed over the centuries, see our story on Great Danes and their boar-hunting past. The stud book Marjoribanks started in 1868 is still kept in London, 158 years after Nous met Belle. Further reading Wikipedia: Golden Retriever Wikipedia: Retriever Image: Barras, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.",
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