Blond Retriever Or Golden Hovawart?

They do look a like, the blond Hovawart and the Golden retriever. I always wondered if both could have an ancestor in common that we don't know of. Not all Golden retriever "types" do look like blond Hovawarts, a german Golden is unmistakenly not a Hovawart also because of its smaller size. But when you look at the large North American Golden retriever, it gets a lot more difficult to see who is who.

These photo's from retrieverman's blog set an excellent example, who is the retriever and who is the Hovawart?

125-pound golden retriever, photo courtesy of retrieverman

blond hovawart, photo courtesy of retrieverman

Of course Golden retrievers and Hovawarts might look a like, they are completely different dogs, mainly because of the different type of ancestors in their lines and how breeders have been selecting individuals. The hovawart is a guardian, tied to his family and his estate. The golden is a social dog, and therefore quite different. Or as retrieverman wrote a little more direct on his blog:

"Say that you’re a burglar, and you want to break into a house that has one of these dogs in it? Which do want to burgle?

You want to burgle the house with the 125-pound golden retriever. The hovawart will tear you up."

When I research - google - the history of the Golden retriever I can't find any common ancestor. The Tweed Water Spaniel, St. John's Water Dog, Irish Setter and Bloodhound were used to create the Golden Retriever, versus the Newfoundland, German Shepherd, Kuvasz, and "farm type" dogs for the Hovawart.

Surprisingly, neither the Golden Retriever nor the Hovawart had any blond dog in their ancestry. Although it was long believed that Russian trackers - also called "Russian Yellow Retrievers" - were used in Golden retriever breeding, which could account for the blond color. It turned out to be a myth, debunked by the full disclosure in 1952 of Majoribank's breeding records from 1835 to 1890.

So no common ancestors after all.

But wait, the Russian tracker was used for herding and guarding, and was around in the early 1900's - the start of the Hovawart - before it went extinct. That sounds and looks a whole lot like a Hovawart type dog to me, could Russian trackers be the missing link explaining blond Hovawarts?

Coming up next, could the Russian tracker be a Hovawart ancestor, and why Kurt F. König, the mastermind behind the blond Hovawart, had his breeding records burned.