The Red Rocket

When this girl joined our family three years ago I hadn't any advance knowledge of the variation found within the golden retriever breed.  Our dog was just a pup.  At the first vet visit the doc correctly identified Ruby as a red golden retriever; also called a field trial golden or simply a field golden.

What I've come to learn is that this subset of the golden family is a dog bred for athleticism, endurance with a strong prey instinct and desire to retrieve.  As a previous Labrador retriever household this has been a terrific fit. 

Unlike the larger, fluffier, blockier-built show line goldens our Ruby is leaner, lighter-boned and smaller; weighing-in as a 48 pound female.  She's outfitted with a shorter, denser  double coat with less feathering to collect cockle burs and stickers.  She's also less "golden" and more mahogany-red.  

Our black lab had a narrower skull along with a longer muzzle typical of an English lab; while her niece, our blonde lab, sported a square face; she was a block head.  Ruby exhibits more of the former physical attributes unlike the heavier-boned, broader-headed show goldens.  While they are the exact same breed, they have split into two distinct lines.

None of the foregoing is to suggest that show goldens are couch potatoes and field goldens are hyper; both excel in their intelligence and skill set for which they've been bred.  And they make for terrific family members.  

Meanwhile, at almost three and a half years of age our Red Rocket continues to burn-up the trails...