I'm going back to our wee trip to Glen Affric last week.
This statue sits in the very small village of Tomich where the Golden Retriever was first bred by Lord Tweedmouth in 1868 on the Guisachan Estate. Seemingly they were bred as gun dogs, suited to Scottish Highland terrain.
There was a Guisachan Gathering in July this year, to celebrate 155 years of the founding of the Golden Retriever. Seemingly, over 500 humans and their Golden Retrievers attended the meet in the grounds of the ruins of Guisachan House in Glen Affric. Quite the event, it would seem as humans came from all over the world to be there with their Golden Retrievers!
!! 500 golden retrievers, or more—as some of the 500 humans may have brought more than one dog! Of course, there may be couples or families who only brought one dog between them…ANYWAY, that’s a lot of dogs! I hope it’s a sizable estate—and everyone brought a little plastic bag for cleaning up.
How about that?! I never knew the Golden Retriever was a "Scottish" dog. That is a lot of dogs to pick up after, but I imagine it was overwhelmingly fun and exciting to have 500 dogs all in the same area! Good shot.
Lovely photo and very interesting story. It's a lovely part of the country and familiar place names though now bypassed as we now cross the Kessock Bridge. Maybe time for a revisit.
