Sounds so much like our first golden, Sandy. She was a rescue of sorts (not from an official rescue, but headed to the pound and a friend asked me if I wouldn’t like to take her instead and in a moment of weakness I, who had never SEEN a golden retriever and thought she meant a lab said, “sure!”. And a love affair started.
Sandy was an AWESOME hunting machine after my husband managed to get her over gun shyness. She was a late starter, we didn’t even get her until she was about 18 months old and she never saw a bird for some time after that. She was not anything anyone would look at in a show ring, but she was wonderful. I did put an obedience title on her, and that opened a whole new world to me. But she had allergies, which also required pred, unfortunately in fairly large doses as time went on. I need to find some photos of her to scan and put on my page so I can post them. She was quite a girl. Who cares if they can win in the show ring, they have golden hearts. Would love to see a pic of your boy. :)
Max is a no-talent retriever, unless you count that he is able to manipulate his “parents” to give him anything he wants. His other talent is to always be aware of what our next move will be and to always be right at our heels. He doesn’t particularly like to retrieve and he’s not interested in birds at all. But, we don’t need that. He wasn’t keen on agility either (hated the dog walk after he saw his GSD friend fall off during one session.)
Seriously, this dog has adapted his behavior so that he is the perfect dog for us. He goes to work with us every day and patiently waits in the corner office all day long, raising his head only when another employoee comes up front to get a cup of coffee. He’s hoping that they’ll give him a bone out of his jar, but he never barks, or whines.
He walks himself on our acreage and never leaves the place. He tags along on every outdoor task that we do, except the mowing. He caught on really quickly that it is useless to chase the lawn mower. He just waits up on the porch in the shade until I am done.
We tell him that he is Best in Show every day, and he understands every word we say.