The Labrador Retriever
"One of the most blameless and good-natured of animals, neither the natural nor intentional enemy of any other. On the contrary, instinctively and voluntarily the friend of all, seeking every…
From: 1832 C.E. To: 1907 C.E.
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“The Labrador,” by F.E. Schofield, from The New Book of the Dog, 1907.
Among sporting dogs the Labradors are unique. In the evolution of flat-coated Retrievers they played a most important part, yet they themselves remain to-day very much as they were when the former were neither defined nor definable. It was not till the year 1903 that the breed was recognised by the Kennel Club, and special attention drawn to them.
Of their common origin with the Newfoundland there is no doubt. It must be remembered that previous to the foundation of the Kennel Club in 1873 the classification of many varieties of dogs was very indefinite. When the Newfoundland was first introduced into this country I do not know. It is quite certain, however, that in the early years of the nineteenth century even the large dogs were frequently used in field sports, and equally certain that many of the references in The Sporting Magazine and other publications to Newfoundlands in the field were really meant for Labradors.
In Scott's beautifully illustrated "British Field Sports," published in 1818, mention is made of the Newfoundland dog, "so well known of late years in this country," being used for the "purpose of fetching and carrying game." He adds: "This noble animal….appears to be specifically the same, or a variety of the Great Dog of the north of Europe, perhaps imported thence into the island of Newfoundland on its first colonisation."
In his article on the Newfoundland (p. 74) Captain Bailey quotes McGregor (1832): "The smooth short-haired dog so much admired in England as a Newfoundland dog...is a cross breed," and, I think, rightly assumes that the reference was to Labradors. McGregor was not a reliable authority on such a subject, and sufficient of him is quoted to show it.
Much more to the point is the extract from Youatt (1845) which immediately follows it. In The Sporting Magazine of July, 1832, appeared a picture of "Rufus, a celebrated Retriever," reproduced in this column. Of him it is said, "Rufus is a mixed breed between the Pointer and Newfoundland dog. His portrait has the character of the latter very visible, small eye, visage rather long, small ear, and stern well flocked; but his legs have that of the first, clean and well formed. His name is a misnomer, being decidedly a black dog." It requires small effort of the imagination to picture the type of Newfoundland dog which played such a prominent part in the production of "Rufus."
The philosophic Elaine, in his "Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports" (1852), drew a distinction the opposite, be it observed, from what is commonly accepted to-day; "The Newfoundland dog is a Spaniel much employed on the southern coasts of our kingdom, and there appear to be two distinct breeds of them one from Labrador, and another from St. John's. The Labrador dog is very large, rough-haired, and carries his tail high....The St. John's breed is that to be preferred by the sportsman on every account, being smaller, more easily managed, and sagacious in the extreme. His scenting powers are also great." Then he goes on to say: "Some years ago these dogs could be readily procured at Poole." It is interesting to find that the principal branch of business at Poole at that time was in connection with the Newfoundland fisheries.
I have an old sporting paper with a report of the Crystal Palace Show of 1872. This is an extract from it: "The Retrievers….were most extensively represented; and there were good specimens of almost every description, game and Newfoundland, curly coated and wavy coated!" In the champion class the late Mr. S. E. Shirley's well-known Paris (K.C.S.B., 1839) got a special prize. Paris was by Lion (alias Hercules) out of Bess both imported Labradors.
Even in "Cassell's Illustrated Book of the Dog" (1881), Mr. Vero Shaw, in dealing with Retrievers on p. 419, speaks of Labrador and Newfoundland in convertible terms!
As Poole--the south--so Shields on the "coaly Tyne" supplied the north, and Labradors were certainly well known as sporting dogs in Northumberland in the 'fifties, probably earlier. Mr. Joseph Jobling, of Morpeth, a well-known authority in his day, who not only owned the winning Setter at the first dog show in 1859, but who was one of the judges for Pointers, was much interested in shipping at Shields. He had rare facilities for importing Labradors, and through him many others were supplied.
I am not aware of any dog of consequence to the breed having been imported in recent years. Without the assistance of shows or imported blood, however, they have survived marvellously, thanks especially to the kennels of such breeders as the Dukes of Buccleuch and Hamilton, the Earl of Verulam, Lords Wimborne, Home, and Malmesbury, the Hon. A. Holland Hibbert, Sir Savile Crossley, Mr. F. P. Barnett, Mr. C. Liddell, Mr. O. L. Mansel, and others equally enthusiastic.
To the Duke of Buccleuch's kennel, under the able management of Mr. John Bell, we are probably more indebted in the last twenty years than to any other. Its foundation was laid in two bitches by a dog of the Duke of Hamilton's from a bitch of Lord Malmesbury's. At Drumlanrig, as well as on the Duke's other estates, they have been most particular in preserving the purity and working qualities of their strain. And the same may be said of the Hon. A. Holland Hibbert, whose principal dogs are not only typical in appearance, but broken to perfection.
It is perhaps not within my province to show the part played by Labradors in making the flat-coated Retrievers. A sentence or two will suffice. Elaine, already quoted, says in 1852: "The Retriever is rather an indefinite dog, i.e. he owns no fixed parentage, but may be generated by any congenial varieties as the Spaniel and Newfoundlander." Later on he says, for certain shootings: “The Retriever employed should be a cross breed between a Setter and Newfoundlander."
Idstone, twenty years later, says: "The Black Retriever was a Setter originally....He was thickened, strengthened, and improved by the Labrador blood." It would be easy enough to trace through Wyndham, Paris, and several other of the early Retrievers the permanent influence of the Labradors upon the breed. While, chiefly owing to the influence of shows, these "indefinite dogs of no fixed parentage " have been evolved into the magnificent fixed breed as we now know it, we have the Labradors now just as we had them fifty years ago just as we had, in fact, nearly all sporting dogs fifty years ago. That is to say, we have a distinct breed, maintained by a comparatively few enthusiastic individuals, primarily for its sporting qualities, according to a recognised, unwritten type, and modified in a few non-essential points to individual taste.
That the Labrador will ever be appreciated by the rank and file, and become a popular show dog, I very much doubt. He somehow does not lend himself to it, and if aristocrat he be, he represents much more appropriately the garb and "get-up" of the sportsman than the dandy in the drawing-room.
Hexham, some seven or eight years ago, was the first show to give classes for them. Now half a dozen including the Crystal Palace, Cruft's, and Southampton cater for them, and the classes are generally well filled.
Colour of eye is the most important point yet raised by their appearance in the show ring. On this feature let me quote from my review of the breed for 1906, in The Kennel Gazette of February:
"Brayton Swift, the winning dog at the Crystal Palace, has a dark eye, which in my opinion improves him greatly. This is precisely one of the points where opinions differ. Several devoted breeders look upon a dark eye as almost a disqualification. No doubt from the time of their earliest introduction the majority of them have been light in eye. Their intimate relations, the Newfoundlands, despite all endeavours to eradicate it, and with no difference of opinion upon the subject, in many of the best bred specimens show the light eye to this day.
“If breeders were unanimous to-morrow, therefore, as to the desirability of the dark eye, it would take years of careful selection before anything like uniformity could be obtained in this respect. On the other hand, one has seen occasionally dark-eyed specimens all along the line, and will continue to see them. On one point let there be no mistake: we want no Retriever crossing to darken eyes! In judging I would not for a moment consider colour of eyes if I felt the Retriever coat in a Labrador. Therein lies the real danger of attaching too much importance to a dark eye. It is largely a matter of individual taste, of education, if you like to put it so, and I am willing to admit that mine has been sadly neglected. But according to my light, I have a right to say while I like a dark eye in a dark dog, you must give me a pure, distinctive Labrador first, and afterwards preferably that one with a dark eye."
It is through their merit as field dogs that the Labradors have been so carefully and persistently maintained. While, as far as possible, using only dogs typical in appearance, breeders have unanimously considered work the sine qua non in the selection of a sire. In this county of Northumberland one has been accustomed from boyhood to hear occasionally wonderful tales of their sagacity in the field. Midge, a famous bitch of Mr. Jobling's over forty years ago, has long been a saint in my memory, recalling as she does many a rollicking, youthful day over her master's farms with the younger Joseph, when she invariably contributed largely to the bag.
In recent years Mr. F. P. Barnett's Stag has often surprised a shooting party by his wonderful finds where all the other dogs had failed. The Hon. A. Holland Hibbert was, I think, the first to run pure Labradors at the field trials, and with success; Munden Sentry, M. Single, M. Sandfly, and M. Something all having done well. But the most conspicuous performer hitherto is Mr. J. M. Portal's Flapper, a worthy son of Stag, who in a stake of twenty competitors at the Kennel Club trials of 1907 got second, and shortly afterwards second in a stake of seventeen at the International. The success of these dogs will, no doubt, induce other owners to patronise the trials.
In his "Book of the Dog" Mr. Vero Shaw mentions that in 1876 or '77, Dr. Bond Moore showed him a pair of Retriever puppies of pale golden colour. In "British Dogs" Hugh Dalziel confirms the statement, adding that they were out of Midnight, a black bitch of Labrador breed. It is abundantly evident that the early Retrievers were by no means fixed in colour, and this is attributed by many writers more or less to the Labrador blood.
Black has always been the prevailing colour of Labradors. It is interesting, therefore, to find in this connection that there is a breed of yellow Labradors at the present day in the possession of Captain Radcliffe, at Wareham. They are not to be confused with the yellow Retrievers we have had for long enough on the borders, but are pure Labradors, bred and selected with great care. I am told that their working qualities are also of the best.
How can I better finish this short article than by quoting Scott's beautiful "Eloge" on the sporting Newfoundland, in "British Field Sports"?
"One of the most blameless and good-natured of animals, neither the natural nor intentional enemy of any other. On the contrary, instinctively and voluntarily the friend of all, seeking every occasion to assist and oblige, and in his attachment to human nature equal even to the Spaniel and inferior to him only in the qualifications of a courtier. To finish the strictly well-merited eloge of this wonderful brute, where are we, whether among bipeds or quadrupeds, to find his superior for kindness of heart, susceptibility of attachment, voluntary industry, and proffers of service, courage, fortitude and perseverance?"
Schofield, F.E. “The Labrador.” The New Book of the Dog. Robert Leighton, ed. Cassell. 1907.
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