Handsome was as handsome did

There’s something so solid, so reassuring, about a labrador that it is hard to appreciate that there was a time when they didn’t exist. You can almost imagine Julius Caesar, black lab at heel, walking to the Forum. He didn’t, of course. Designed in Victorian England and patented in 1904, the labrador is a relatively new creation, only as old as the breech-loading shotgun that the first labradors were bred to work with.

Most of our familiar gundog breeds were developed and refined in the 19th century, while the very idea of a breed was a later development. Ciara Farrell, the Kennel Club’s library and collections manager, explained the concept of pedigree succintly: “Pedigree, in the strict modern sense, developed from the mid-19th century onwards. It involves adherence to having a detailed breed standard and documented proven ancestry. The definition is much looser before the mid-19th century, so I find it useful to say ‘breed type’ rather than ‘breed’ – still, these breed types