The History Of Retrievers (A Vintage Dog Books Breed Classic - Labrador - Flat-Coated Retriever - Golden Retriever)

BAXENDALE

INTRODUCTION.

In the spring of 1914 a firm of publishers invited me to write an article upon the Flat-Coated Retriever for inclusion in an illustrated book on sporting dogs. As illustrations, portraits of the late Colonel Weller’s Meeru and Mr. Lewis Wigan’s Sweep of Glendaruel were painted, but, owing to the outbreak of war, nothing more was heard of the venture. A friend to whom the manuscript was shown urged me to go ahead and write a complete record of Retriever Trials. To this it was not possible to devote the necessary time, but the suggestion has now borne fruit, and, in addition, I have persuaded Mr. Walter Baxendale, the Secretary of the International Gundog League, to contribute a summary up to 1920, which is printed here as an appendix to my chapters in the belief that it will prove of interest to those to whom the doings of twenty years ago seem already to belong to a far-distant past.

Save for a few alterations, such as the words necessary to indicate that those two good friends of working dogs, Captain A. Glen-Kidston and Mr. G. T. Teasdale Buckell, are now no longer with us, the chapters upon the Flat-Coated Retrievers are printed as written six years ago.

The work of writing the story of the flat-coats involved the collection of a good many notes upon retrievers generally; since the armistice this material has been arranged and embodied in the chapters which form the rest of the book.

In addition, Captain Harry Eley kindly consented to write a chapter in which consideration is given to the prospects of the future as seen by the light of the past.

Old hands and old friends will please believe that these chapters are intended for grandsons and are not a proverbial attempt to teach grandmothers.

Above all, it is hoped that the outcome may be to show future generations what good times some of us enjoyed before the war, and incite them, in their turn, to join in a game in which tricks are scarce and honours never easy. Anyhow, Great is Diana!

CHARLES C. ELEY.

THE

HISTORY OF RETRIEVERS.

CHAPTER I.

THE FLAT-COATED RETRIEVER.

I hope I may be forgiven for expressing the opinion that the Flat-Coated Retriever is the most generally attractive of all the sporting breeds, and this attractiveness, the result of a charming temperament, secures great popularity for this breed and the admiration of man, woman, and child, whether interested in his capability as a sportsman or not. The opinion of feather-bed admirers as to his appearance and general character may therefore be accepted as unbiassed, even if we have to admit that the verdict is so frequently favourable.

It is therefore not surprising that, with a form and character at once so appealing, the Flat-Coated Retriever has always received the attention of those breeders of sporting dogs whose chief interest in a gundog is its capacity for good work in the field, and to whom the final proof of the pudding will always be in the eating.

And it is a very pleasing fact that the flat-coat, with his charm, with his ideal qualities as a companion and as an ornament, has, through all his vicissitudes, which will be shown to have been many, continued to keep his position in the ranks of British Gundogs; and the present moment finds the Flat-Coated Retriever as firmly entrenched as ever in the minds as well as in the hearts of sportsmen.

The history of the breed, in common with the history of all breeds, is not very easy to trace with certainty at the outset, for, although the main outlines may be clear enough, an examination of the types evolved suggests possibilities of outcrosses which, unsupported by any records handed down to us by the early breeders, must for ever remain subjects of conjecture, and, as such, the cause of controversy.

The breeders of pure strains are well known to be very sensitive upon the subject of the origin of their favourites, and the Canine College of Heralds—the Kennel Club—founded in 1873, does not carry its records far enough back to put these matters beyond reasonable doubt. It is therefore only right to state at once that the following brief account of the origin of the Flat-Coated Retriever can only be based upon imperfect information helped by observation of the types evolved. The deductions have been made in all sincerity by the writer, who yields to no one in affection for a breed which has interested him from boyhood.

The setter and the pointer being not uncommonly used for retrieving in Scotland in the ’sixties and ’seventies of the last century, everything points to the retrieving setter as being the forerunner of the Flat-Coated Retriever, and in order to improve his powers as a water dog, thus bringing him to a reasonable equality with his then great rival the Curly-Coated Retriever, there is little doubt that sportsmen crossed their retrieving setters with the small (or St. John’s) Newfoundland dog, which species, curiously enough in view of modern developments, is called the Labrador by several of the early writers. The result was to produce a heavy wavy-coated dog—the name flat-coated was not used until much later—with a broad, shortish skull, very heavily stopped : an animal big in bone, and frequently showing weak quarters and a rolling gait.

There is now no means of knowing how these early dogs compared with their curly-coated rivals for work, but it is probable that they adequately met the requirements of many shooters whose particular countries they could negotiate, and to whom the somewhat untameable character of the old curly-coated dog was very distasteful. But the subject of this article was not long allowed to remain in this stage of development, and a new type of gundog, that unquestionably filled a vacant space among the requirements of shooters, soon found many supporters and enthusiastic breeders.

The early specimens had frequently shown tan and brindle; this glaring evidence of their forefathers was at once made a point of attack, and pure black was ordained as practically a sine qua non for any self-respecting dog who was destined to take a place amongst the leaders of his society. Dr. Bond Moore, of Wolverhampton, had much to do with fixing the type which held sway in the early ’seventies, and it appears that it was from him and from Mr. George Brewis that Mr. S. E. Shirley, of Ettington, acquired the animals which laid the foundation of his famous kennel, although previous to these acquisitions Mr. Shirley had purchased from J. D. Hull, gamekeeper to Mr. J. H. Whitehouse, of Redditch, some of the progeny of Old Bounce and her son Young Bounce, who are rightly regarded as the original strain from which all Flat-Coated Retrievers are descended.

No more remarkable man than Mr. Shirley has appeared in connection with retrievers, or indeed with dogs in general. He was inspired by great love for the new breed, whose improvement he sought regardless of time or expense. He was anxious to maintain and improve its capacity in the field as well as to fix a type which would satisfy his ideals of canine beauty. Above all, he was gifted with imagination to foresee an immense future for the breeding and exhibition of dogs in this country, and possessed the energy and determination necessary to undertake and nurse to success the specialisation of dogs in England.

With these ideals in view, Mr. Shirley founded in 1873 the Kennel Club, over which he presided until his death in the early years of this century.

It is difficult at this distance of time for people who have grown up to find the Kennel Club and its Stud Book the established factor in all matters of control, to realise the greatness of the task which had been accomplished by Mr. Shirley and his supporters, and the far-reaching effects that this movement has had upon retrievers and, indeed, upon all gun-dogs. So dominant was Mr. Shirley’s Kennel that, in the ’eighties of the last century, it was quite usual to hear a Wavy-Coated Retriever spoken of as a Shirley Retriever. But this was not allowed to continue, because the popularity of the breed increased by leaps and bounds, and soon there were several kennels which were serious rivals to that at Ettington. Mr. Shirley commenced to breed out the faults which were primarily due to the Newfoundland cross, and, in the process, he was probably the first to introduce the collie cross, which was undoubtedly resorted to also by later breeders, in order to eliminate the wavy coat and feather of the setter in favour of the straight or flat coat as it now exists. The more famous of Mr. Shirley’s early dogs were Paris, Zelstone (a purchase from Mr. Farquharson of Blandford, that sired Moonstone and many winners), Trace and Dusk. The two latter were true to a type of heavy coat, free from wave, short of leg, and probably of only moderate pace, as pace goes nowadays. In looks they were a great advance on what had gone before, and bore but few marks of their origin.

An important event at this period was the purchase by Mr. Shirley of a dog as an outcross that he renamed Rightaway, which was much used at stud ; but the strain came to be disliked by many as time went on; indeed, Mr. Shirley himself discovered, when the mischief had been done, that Rightaway was not really an outcross at all. The first field-trial of any note for retrievers was held in the autumn of 1870 on Mr. Assheton Smith’s shooting at Vaynol. Tradition says that the entry was very small, only about three or four dogs, and that the winner was not beautiful; but tradition does not say whether the winner made up for lack of beauty by the quality of his work in the field. At any rate, the experiment did not catch on ; indeed, it was so little noticed that few of the now numerous supporters of field-trials for retrievers would ever have heard of the meeting but that the pen of the veteran critic of gundogs, the late Mr. G. T. Teasdale Buckell, has so often called attention to this early step in the right direction.

A second attempt was made about 1873-75 in August on Mr. Lloyd Price’s moors at Rhiwlas, near Bala, in conjunction with the pointer and setter trials, but the meeting, so far as retrievers went, was not a success, as might well have been anticipated; and, in consequence, it attracted but little attention. By this time a number of breeders and exhibitors had established a name for themselves and their kennels, and in this and the succeeding period the successes of Colonel C. J. Cotes, Rev. W. Sergeantson, Colonel Henry Cornwall Legh of High Legh, Mr. Harding Cox, Mr. L. Allen Shuter, and Mr. A. B. Freeman Mitford (later Lord Redesdale) were perhaps the most noticeable. These owners between them pretty well swept the board as far as prizes at the shows were concerned, and it is a great misfortune, both