Everyone Said a Golden Is the Easy Family Dog. Ours Dug Under the Fence in Week Three.

You were probably told the same thing we were.

"Get a Golden. They're the easy family dog."

Our vet said it. My mother-in-law said it twice. So with two kids under eight and a house in the suburbs, we brought home Murphy. A fluffy golden puppy with feet too big for him and a face like a teddy bear.

If you've got a Golden, or a Lab, or a Doodle with a lot of retriever in it, you might already know how this goes.

I'm Jess. Eight months ago I was sitting on our back step next to a hole, wondering what we'd done wrong.

We hadn't done anything wrong. We just didn't know what kind of dog we'd brought home.

Here's how the "easy" part went.

The easy family dog, month by month

Week three. My husband had just built a new side gate. It took him a whole weekend. Murphy dug under it in one afternoon and got out onto the road.

A neighbour carried him back, muddy and thrilled with himself. I didn't sleep much that night.

Month two. The plasterboard by the back door, chewed down to the paper. My daughter's school shoes, one at a time. And a sock a day, carried around the house like a trophy.

He never ate them. He just carried them. Remember that. It matters later.

Month four. The kids and I planted a veggie garden. Tomatoes, beans, a row of lettuce they watered every afternoon.

Murphy dug it up one seedling at a time. And every single one, he brought to the back door. Like a present.

Month six. I did the school run. Twenty minutes there and back. I came home to a couch cushion gutted across the living room, stuffing on every surface, and Murphy in the middle of it, tail going.

And the holes. Along the fence, behind the shed, in the middle of the lawn. I stopped counting.

If you've had that feeling, you're not a bad owner. It isn't your fault. And, as it turns out, it isn't his either.

We did everything they tell you to do

Every one of these came from someone who meant well.

Look at that list again. It's all more of the same thing. More moving. More stuff that sits there and waits.

None of it touched what was actually going on. I found that out from the one person I hadn't asked.

The phone call that explained everything

In the end I rang Murphy's breeder. She's bred Goldens for 30 years and she still runs them in field trials. I half expected her to tell me I was doing it wrong.

I went through the whole list. The gate, the plasterboard, the socks, the seedlings, the cushion. She listened to all of it. Then she laughed, kindly, and said:

I told her about the walks, the dog park, fetch until my arm hurts. She stopped me there.

Nothing, I said.

Then she told me the fix. I wrote it on the back of a school newsletter.

Her five things, as a checklist

Turn what she said into a list and you get this. Check any toy against it before you spend another cent.

1. Moves on its own. Nobody throwing it, nobody dragging it.
2. Random, not a pattern. If he can predict it, it's fetch, not a hunt.
3. Stops, then bolts. So he has to work it out all over again.
4. Works on carpet. Because half our house is carpet.
5. Survives a Golden's mouth. Soft mouth, my foot.

The Amazon ball had already failed three of the five. Try it on a toy in your basket.

A week later, a woman in our local Golden Retriever Facebook group posted a video. Her dog doing laps of the living room after a blue ball with rope arms that kept changing direction.

Murphy watched it on my phone with his head tilted. It was the Chase Buddy, from a small brand called FloofyPups.

Five for five, point by point

Moves on its own? Yes. Three modes: Slow, Fast and Interactive. You switch it on and put it down. Nobody throws anything.

Random? It cuts sideways, spins, stops dead and bolts. He can't learn the pattern, because there isn't one.

Stops, then bolts? When he catches it, it stops. When he noses it, it takes off again. Like a bird that's still running.

Carpet? Carpet, rugs, tile and hardwood. It doesn't stall on carpet the way our Amazon ball did.

Survives a Golden? The shell is chew-resistant. Nothing is chew-proof with a Golden, and I won't pretend otherwise. Eight months in, our shell is fine. The rope arms are another story.

Five for five. Rated 4.7 stars from 1,400+ reviews. Buy one get one free. And a 30-Day Happy Dog Guarantee: if your dog isn't happier in 30 days, send it back for a full refund.

I ordered it sitting on the back step, next to a hole.

Day one. Asleep by 10 a.m.

The kids were at school. I put it on the living room rug in Slow Mode and sat on the couch with a coffee.

Murphy froze. Head low, tail going, staring at it like it owed him money.

It rolled a little way and stopped. He didn't move. He was working it out.

Then it rolled sideways. And he went.

He chased it behind the armchair and pinned it. It stopped. He let go, stared at it, nosed it, and it shot off the other way. You could see the penny drop. This thing runs. This thing has to be found.

Twenty-five minutes later he was asleep on his back in a patch of sun, legs in the air. At 10 a.m.

I sat there with a cold coffee and nearly cried. For the first time in six months, he looked done.

What the next eight months looked like

These days the after-school routine goes like this. Bags on the hook. Shoes on the rack, where they stay now. Then a fight over whose turn it is to press the button.

My eldest does the commentary. The little one does the screaming. Murphy does the hunting.

Then he lies on the kitchen floor with his chin on somebody's foot while they do their homework. That's the dog we were promised. He was in there the whole time. He just had a job to do first.

Why the toy basket never worked

Looking back, every toy we'd bought failed for the same reason. None of them ran away from him.

• Ropes and plush wait on the floor until you pick them up.
• A thrown ball is three seconds of fetch. The easy half.
• Puzzle feeders are a problem with one answer. Solved once, solved forever.
• Cheap moving balls roll in a straight line at one speed and stall on carpet. A pattern isn't a hunt.

Ropes and puzzles are fine. Murphy still has both. They just aren't the hunt, and the hunt was the half that was missing.

It's not just Murphy

I'm one mum with one dog, so I went looking at what other owners say.

If you think your Golden is the extreme case, he probably isn't. He's not naughty. He's a gun dog with nothing to hunt.

The maths

One day of daycare was $65. One hour with the trainer was $150.

The Chase Buddy is $54.99 AUD incl. GST. Right now it's Buy 1 Get 1 Free, so that's two for $54.99 AUD. Less than one day of daycare, for two. Over a year, under 16 cents a day.

Why two? One lives in the cupboard while the other charges, so there's always one ready after school. Or do what I did. The second one went to my sister's Golden for Christmas. She sent me a video on Christmas morning and hasn't stopped thanking me.

If there's a Golden on your Christmas list, that's the easiest present you'll buy this year. Free shipping on every order.

The guarantee, in plain words

Two ways this goes

The first way, you keep doing what everyone says. Longer walks. More daycare. Another pair of school shoes. Another bag of garden soil. And a Golden at the back door with a seedling in his mouth, doing the only job he can find.

The second way, you give him the hunt. Keep the walks. Add Slow Mode on the living room rug, day one. Watch for the freeze. Then see what your backyard looks like in 30 days.

Your Golden isn't a bad dog. He's a gun dog in a teddy bear's coat, and he's been waiting for something to hunt.

Questions other Golden owners asked me