Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell … Or say with princes if it shall go well’

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 14

Hello Visitor!  Welcome to Our Website

This is the Website for the Shakespeare Goldens!

Shakespeare teaches us a great deal about life.  He is also funny and interesting, as are our dogs.  But Shakespeare believed we could reach for the stars.  Perhaps we would catch them.  Perhaps not.  We could only try.

We embrace Shakespeare’s eager willingness to risk.  We are part of a small experiment among Golden fanciers:  the beautiful dog who is also a hunter.

Here is the challenge:  Can we have dogs who are beautiful, who meet the breed standard, are competitive in the breed ring and who also have strong hunting instincts?  Or, said differently, can we have a hunting dog who is also beautiful?  That is the question.  If we can do that then, like Shakespeare, we will have reached toward the stars.

A small number of Golden Retriever fanciers are reaching toward those stars.  Here at Shakespeare Goldens we are part of that grand experiment.  So are our dogs, who also draw their names from Shakespeare.  Puk’s name comes from the lead character in Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Quince’s name comes from Romeo and Juliet.  Liam’s name is from Henry V.

We are Leslie Anderson and Larry Dodd.  We love Golden Retrievers.  We are scholars, writers and university professors and our dogs are our friends and companions.  Larry is the support system for all of us.  Leslie is the trainer.  Right now we have two dogs:  Quince and Liam.  We lost Puk in September, 2022. Leslie is an amateur who trains and handles our dogs.  In the obedience ring she is an exhibitor.  We also show our dogs in the breed ring but we use professional handlers there.