I love golden retrievers, especially when they are puppies! They are so darn cute! 
I agree, in my experience they are very nice looking dogs. I heard they were bred as gun dogs to retrieve shot ducks and game birds.
Really? That is interesting! I know they are great with kids!
Golden Retriever
The Golden Retriever is a large-sized gun dog that retrieve shot waterfowl, such as ducks and upland game birds, during hunting and shooting parties. They were named 'retriever' because of their ability to retrieve shot game undamaged due to their soft mouth. Golden retrievers have an instinctive love of water, and are easy to train to basic or advanced obedience standards. They are a long-coated breed, with a dense inner coat that provides them with adequate warmth in the outdoors, and an outer
to be hunted and are shot in great numbers in Europe, especially the U.K., where they are shot on the traditional formal "driven shoot" principles, whereby paying guns have birds driven over them by beaters, and on smaller "rough shoots". The open season in the U.K. is 1 October – 1 February, under the Game Act 1831. Generally they are shot by hunters employing gun dogs to help find, flush and retrieve shot birds. Retrievers, spaniels and pointing breeds are used to hunt pheasants.