Our first hunting golden was like that. She had to be dragged out of a cactus once because she could not reach the bird and my husband didn’t want to pull massive amounts of thorns out of her. She was very unhappy about not being able to get that bird. She didn’t notice the pain, because she was in serious hunting mode. She had a very high prey drive, but it was directed at small animals and birds (she did do in several gerbils—she was a master at getting them out of their cages)
Sadly, the majority of people don’t understand dog behavior.
By the way, I got the results back from the U.Minn. genetics lab yesterday - my young Ruby is a double positive for the gene for Exercise Induced Collapse. They just isolated the gene and a test became available last year, so it's nobody's fault - nobody knew. Both her parents must at least be carriers (could be double positive).
I've spoken to a local trainer and to her breeder -- I was thinking about just going ahead and having her spayed, and the local trainer thinks I should, but her breeder said wait and see. If she is bred to a negative dog, then the pups would be carriers but not affected.
Apparently the gene is so commonplace in Labs that it cannot be bred out - at least not without breeding out a lot of desirable qualities because it seems to go hand in glove with the very high-drive field dogs.
She doesn't have what I would call a bad case -- she collapsed once in conditions of extreme heat and stress but has never gone down again despite doing hunt tests and field trial type long retrieves (200+ yard multiples). And as her breeder said, there are plenty of affected dogs with FC titles . . . .
So I'm sitting here scratching my head wondering what to do. "Wait and see" seems like the best option right now. I have two sires in mind for her, a yellow and a chocolate (she is tri-factored), so we need to see if either of them tests positive for EIC. Her hips are 'good', not quite 'excellent', and her eyes are clear.
Ruby of course doesn't care. All she wants is "another duck, please!"