Origins Goldens

04/24/2025

The weather is warming up, and I really want to get Ivy, and maybe a couple of her brothers 🤞🏻, back to the pond to practice their water retrieves. 🤔 This was last summer with Ivy, Kal, and Boone.

04/21/2025

(Photo of Kyra from a couple of summers ago.)
All this warm weather makes it feel like summer is just around the corner. ☀️ It was in the 80's over Easter weekend!

04/15/2025

04/15/2025

Generalizing "place" command -
Place usually starts out on a dog bed or a place board, but can be generalized to platforms, the scale at the vet, the back of your vehicle, or... a big stump in the woods. 😆

When I tell Ivy "place", I want her to hop up on to whatever surface I'm gesturing at, sit, and look at me. I need to work on a down stay on place with her, too.

04/15/2025

🥺 I've looked up to Mary Burke so much as I've gotten into raising and training Goldens. One of Kyra's ancestors (her 5th great grandsire) is Asterling's Wild Blue Yonder, Mary's famous top winning Golden.

Many of you know of or have heard of Mary K. Burke, a prominent breeder of the outsta… Marcelyn LePique needs your support for Assist Mary in Her Time of Need

04/14/2025

It's National Dog Bite Prevention Week! What is most important to note is any dog can bite: big or small, male or female, young or old. Even the cuddliest, fuzziest, sweetest pet can bite if provoked, so it's important to know how to avoid escalating risky situations and to understand when you should and should not interact with dogs.

Here are a few scenarios when you should avoid petting a dog. You can find more helpful tips at avma.org/DogBite.

04/04/2025

Ivy has wings on her mind. 🐦🐥🦆
She's proving to be the "birdiest" of our bunch. Time to get back to her gun dog training!

04/03/2025

Ivy thinks I can put the water bowl down while she sits in the exact spot that it goes. 😆

04/03/2025

Did you know lilies and daffodils are toxic to pets? Be mindful of Easter flowers and Mother’s Day bouquets. The entire plant, including its bulb and water from its vase are poisonous. Exposure to any type of lily can be fatal for cats.

04/03/2025

Somehow we ended up with a couple of baby rabbits last month, and Kyra is intrigued watching them in their pen outside. 😅👀
Ivy and Boone are more interested in the chickens, however. 🐔🐓

03/25/2025

Spring is in the air! 🌷☀️🐾

03/21/2025

Back in the day, retrievers were classified according to the texture of their coat: Flat coated retrievers, wavy coated retrievers, and curly coated retrievers. Early retrievers were also black, but some dogs had a recessive yellow gene. In fact, at one time, Golden Retrievers were considered a color variation of Flat Coated Retrievers.

Conversely, some people believe there is such a thing as a black Golden Retriever. Note to them: There isn’t.

A purebred Golden Retriever’s glorious color is the a result of two recessive alleles. The MC1R gene (or the E-Locus) controls the production of pigment in melanocytes which controls the color of a dog’s skin or coat. The dominant allele, “E”, allows a dog to produce the black pigment, eumelanin. The recessive allele, “e,” turns all the eumelanin to phaeomelanin which means that the coat will be yellow or red in color. Since all purebred Golden Retrievers have the recessive “e/e” genotype, it’s impossible for a purebred Golden to pass along the dominant “E” allele. They’ll always be some tint or shade of gold or red, but they will never be black.

Genetic mutations do occur, but a color mutation in a Golden Retriever will appear as a patch of black hair like a pigment somatic mutation. If a somatic mutation takes place during the development of the embryo, black patches can appear on recessive Golden Retrievers. It won’t show up as a pure black coat, and this is underscored in the AKC breed standard which reads, “Rich, lustrous golden of various shades…Any noticeable area of black or other off-color hair is a serious fault.”

Unfortunately, there are plenty of websites that say otherwise. One site writes, “Black Golden Retrievers are a variety of the Golden Retriever dog. They have all of the same characteristics of a Golden but come in a midnight shade… They can even be purebred! They are likely black because of genetic diversity that was added to the bloodline in the development of the breed.”

No where does the site mention “genetic mutation” or somatic mutation, possibly because a potential buyer hears “mutation” and runs away from a possible sale. Disingenuous or ignorant breeders (or both) hawk “black Golden Retrievers” as rare and even charge more for them than a heritage Golden Retriever breeder does for a well bred, health tested puppy.

Black marked Golden Retrievers can make marvelous pets, but potential buyers should know that their “purebred black Golden Retriever” either isn’t a purebred, that its “rare” color is a mutation, and that the parent club considers it a fault.

03/18/2025

Boone had another title added to his name last week - but it's not exactly "new". Back in June of 2023, Boone finished the AKC S.T.A.R. Puppy class with our local kennel club. He earned the S.T.A.R. certificate, however, at the time, S.T.A.R. was not a "title". It wouldn't show up on your dog's registered name for completing it. You did receive a cute medal and a certificate for the wall, and the class is so valuable. This year, however, AKC added the STR title and allowed anyone who's completed S.T.A.R. Puppy to apply to have that title added to their dogs records.

Boone's official registered name is now
Origins Conquer The Wild STR VHMA FITB

03/16/2025

I got to visit two of our boys from the 2023 litter this week (the boys that went to relatives! Haha) Kal and Remi, two of Ivy's full brothers. Aren't they handsome? 🥰

Kal is going to be starting his OFA testing this spring/summer and earning some AKC titles soon!

03/05/2025

Updated April 4, 2024 – Hip dysplasia affects millions of dogs worldwide. New treatments and new diagnostic tests are on the horizon. Learn the latest to keep your dog active and pain-free.

03/04/2025

Deacon is out of our first litter, and it's very exciting to see him passing his health tests and to see what a good dog he's grown up to be!

02/28/2025

Ivy's first title! 🫶🏻🐾 This also happens to be the first title I've received with my name under "owned by" AND "bred by"! 🥹