Steve and I purchased our first Golden Retriever in 1979, the same year we were married. We purchased “Frodo” from Jungold Kennel in Dallas, Texas. Frodo became Ch. Jungold – Klassic U R The One CDX WC. We bred our first litter in 1982 and established our kennel name of “Benden”, taken from the Dragon Riders of Pern series written by Anne McCaffrey. Benden was the weyr which bred the finest golden dragons.

As we became more involved with the breed our philosophy of the Golden Retriever developed from the first paragraph of the Golden Retriever breed standard “A Symmetrical, powerful, active dog, sound and well put together, not clumsy nor long in the leg, displaying a kindly expression and possessing a personality that is eager, alert and self confident. Primarily a hunting dog, he should be shown in hard working condition. Overall appearance, balance, gait and purpose to be given more emphasis than any of this component parts.” 

Benden dogs have competed successfully in all aspects of competition including conformation, obedience, field, tracking and agility. We have also had dogs used in the breeding programs for The Guide Dogs For the Blind, The Seeing Eye Inc. and Support Dogs for the Handicapped Inc.

Each litter we produce has a specific goal and reason. Even though a particular litter may be more strongly suited for 1 particular area of competition we consider all aspect of the sire and dam before each breeding. A breeding may be more heavily bred on “show dogs”, but we also take into careful consideration as to the trainability and aptitude of a potential litter. Like wise when breeding with more emphasis on obedience competition, we also consider the structural strengths and weaknesses of the sire and dam. Competition is so strong in the Golden Retriever it is easy to become single focused, and breed only for one area of competition. We try to avoid the trap that is easy for breeders to fall into of breeding pretty dogs which lack trainability and field drive or breeding top obedience/ field competitions that lack  "breed type" the Golden Retriever should possess.