The Golden Retriever is a gundog from Great Britain. The FCI describes it as symmetrical, balanced, active and powerful, with a kindly expression.[1]
The breed standard
The FCI standard gives a height at the withers of 56–61 cm for males and 51–56 cm for females. It sets no weight. The coat is flat or wavy with good feathering and a dense, water-resisting undercoat. The colour is any shade of gold or cream, neither red nor mahogany. The temperament is described as biddable, intelligent, kindly, friendly and confident.[1]
Name and origin
The Royal Kennel Club (UK) credits the first Lord Tweedmouth as the founder of the breed. It says he bred a yellow dog from black Wavy Coated Retrievers crossed with a Tweed Water Spaniel, and that the Bloodhound and the Irish Setter were added later. This is the club’s traditional account.[2] The club recognised the breed as a “yellow” or “golden” Retriever in 1913.[2] A DNA study of breed relationships estimated that the Golden Retriever separated from the Flat-coated Retriever in 1895, and noted that written history places crosses between several breeds between 1868 and 1890.[3] The American Kennel Club recognised the breed in 1925.[4]
Health and lifespan
No population-wide lifespan study of Golden Retrievers is cited here. In a study of Golden Retrievers examined after death at one US university between 1989 and 2016, the median age at death was 9.15 years, and 424 of 652 dogs (65.0%) had died of cancer. The commonest cancer type was hemangiosarcoma, a cancer of blood-vessel cells, in 22.6%.[5] These dogs came to a referral centre, so they were more likely to have been ill than a typical pet. The figures do not show how long Golden Retrievers live in general.
Behavior
In an owner-reported survey of 181 Golden Retrievers, 1.1% were reported to have snapped, bitten or tried to bite an unfamiliar person in the recent past, 0.6% a member of the household and 7.2% an unfamiliar dog. The averages across the 33 breeds in the survey were 4.7%, 2.0% and 10.7%.[6] The authors list Golden Retrievers among the breeds least aggressive towards both people and dogs.[6] Breed explains only about 9% of behavioural differences between individual dogs, so an individual’s behaviour can differ a lot from the breed’s average.[7]
Popularity
The Golden Retriever ranked 3rd on the American Kennel Club’s list of most popular breeds in 2025. The list counts US registrations only.[8]
Sources
- FCI breed standard 111, Golden Retriever
- Royal Kennel Club (UK), Golden Retriever breed page
- Parker et al. 2017, Cell Reports 19: 697–708
- American Kennel Club, breeds by year recognized
- Kent et al. 2018, PLoS ONE 13: e0192578 (Golden Retrievers necropsied at one US university)
- Duffy, Hsu & Serpell 2008, Applied Animal Behaviour Science 114: 441–460
- Morrill et al. 2022, Science 376 (breed and behaviour)
- American Kennel Club, most popular dog breeds of 2025