Culham Brass (b. 1904) is an example of what early golden retriever breeders thought was functional conformation.
I was digging through some GRCA literature online, when I came across this document, which includes some analysis and commentary from early golden retriever people in the US, Canada, and Britain.
It seems that a poison seed always existed in the early days of the golden retriever as a standardized breed.
I don’t know how to describe this poison seed exactly, but the best I can come up with is the “Irish setter inferiority complex.” The early people in the breed hated that their dogs were mistaken for Irish setters, so they decided to breed away from the setter’s conformation.
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Now, one must not forget that wavy/flat-coated retrievers came in two basic types: the setter-type and the Newfoundland-type. A very good illustration is these two can be found in the illustration of two wavy-coats named Paris and Melody in Stonehenge’s Dogs of Great Britain, America, and Other Countries.
Then, as wavy-coats evolved into the top working retriever of their day, the Newfoundland-type was deemed inferior in the breed. Writing about the merits of the working flat-coat in The Complete English Shot (1907), George Teasdale-Buckell contended that the flat-coat is “open to regeneration when he is bred more wiry and less lumbering.” In other words, one should breed away from the Newfoundland-type.
Teasdale Buckell continues his critique of heavily-built, lumbering retrievers. He writs that the “the old dogs were lumbering, and so no doubt the Newfoundland type of wavy-coated dogs were” (187) and again criticizes his own selection of the Newfoundland-type wavy-coat stud named Zelstone, claiming that he was the worst cross he ever made (188).
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Now, this information on flat-coated retrievers is very nice, but what does it have to do with golden retrievers.
Well, golden retrievers actually started out as a strain of wavy-coated retriever and then became flat-coated retrievers. Their original breeder, Dudley Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth, bred these dogs with the best black wavy-coated retrievers he could find, including some of the top wavy/flat-coated dogs in the strain. He never intended to split this breed off because it was a different color.
Good working conformation for a flat-coated retriever is based upon a very simply axiom “Power without lumber and raciness without weediness.” It’s actually a very good axiom for breeding any strain of retriever.
However, if you are breeding golden retrievers with this conformation and they happen to be towards the darker end of the spectrum, they will look a lot like Irish setters.
This makes a lot of sense when you realize that the main outcross for flat-coated/wavy-coated retrievers was the setter. In fact, Idstone thought that the wavy-coated retriever was a specialized strain of black retrieving setter!
In the nineteenth century, a very common setter was the red setter. In the US, we call this breed an Irish setter, but red setters also occurred in the gordon setter breed (and still do).
Because wavy/flat-coated retrievers were almost always black dogs at this time, it was very common for a black retriever to carry the gene for red, as was the case with Moonstone.
After the Tweedmouth strain had been founded, it was augmented through outcrossing to black wavy/flat-coats that had setter ancestry. And as the setter type became preferred in flat-coat, it also affected the golden retriever (How could such a preference not?)
That’s why the Noranby goldens in the 1930′s looked like this:
Yes, these dogs do look like Irish setters.
To which I say, “So what?”
Flat-coats have obvious setter ancestry. It is celebrated in that breed.
It is condemned in the golden, even though this is what the efficient functional conformation is for a retriever that has some coat.
If you scan to page 3 of that GRCA document, a person named E.F. Rivinus contrives a whole rationale for breeding away from this functional type. Basically, he wants to breed to look so distinct from the setter that everyone will recognize that it is not one.
I find it interesting that Winifred Charlesworth, the founder of the golden retriever as a separate breed, wanted to breed for a different head in her dogs. She produced the Noranby dogs in the above photograph, and their heads are not radically different from a flat-coat. Of course, she was one of those people pushing the Russian origins poppycock, but you can obviously tell that her dogs are derived from flat-coats and red setters.
I can’t imagine a sillier rationale for coming up with a conformation standard.
In fact, it is a reversal of what British golden breeders were trying to breed for as the golden became distinct from the flat-coat. Because the golden had been an estate shooting dog, it had been one of the last strains of wavy-coat to develop the lighter strain. The Reverend Needham- Davies wrote the section on the golden in A.C. Smith’s Gun Dogs-Their Training, Working and Management. In that section, Needham-Davies contended that the golden was more like an old fashioned retriever, which he incorrectly suggested was the Newfoundland (it was actually the old-fashioned Newfoundland-type wavy-coat). He writes that the golden was being developed that could move with more speed, and it would eventually be able to compete with the best flat-coats and Labradors.
Of course, that was in the working gun dog sphere. In the show ring, breeding away from the lighter-built dog and the darker colored dog was the goal, while in the working gun dog sphere, breeding for lighter-built dogs was the main objective.
And even early on, you the beginnings of the split that has since happened in this breed.
One set wanted a dog that could move efficiently and with speed, while the other wanted a dog that didn’t look like an Irish setter.
***
I’ve searched long and hard for the reason why the show-strain goldens developed as they did.
I can’t believe it was for such a silly reason as the lighter-built and darker dogs looked like Irish setters.
I’m sure stranger rationales exist for the conformation standards of many breeds, but I have not heard them yet.
It is possible that there were social as well as political considerations. With prejudices were everywhere the development of a different look could very well have been a means to win.
Plain and simple, once your “new” breed is accepted it’s a whole ‘nother game.
I think that fear of the setter still exists in the UK standard where mahogany and red are “banned” colors.
Keep in mind that most of these people were promoting and were firm believers in the Russian Circus dog story. That story involves no setters.
Also, I think that we are correct to focus on the Tweedmouth strain, but I think we ignore something that was going on in flat-coats of that day. They were being crossbred with setters to breed them to make them lighter in build and straighten out the coat.
What’s the byproduct of breeding red setters to black flat-coats? Well, dogs that you can use to augment the golden retriever. In fact, breeding Tracer into the Tweedmouth strain was an attempt to bring in another source of this color, and it is very likely that the black wavy/flat-coats that were crossed with goldens had setter very close in their pedigrees.
Harding Cox writes in Drury’s British Dogs that all sorts of cross breeding with setters should be considered:
“Of late years the Labrador has grown in favour, and though the writer has no personal experience of his merits, there are knowledgable sportsmen who swear by him, by reason of his alleged possession of all the virtues which a Retriever should possess. Many of these dogs have been carefully bred and the strains jealously guarded; but to the writer’s eyes they appear, for the most part, rather coarse and cloddy; so that the element of the Setter becomes a necessity, if the quality of the modern Retriever is to be maintained. But first get your black Setter – no easy matter forsooth; though the cross of the red Irish Setter with the Labrador would probably produce a fair percentage of blacks. These could be crossed in with a high-quality, show, Flat-coated Retriever, and thus a fresh current of blood would be introduced, which not only would check the tendency to excessive inbreeding, but would probably increase the powers of scent, and induce that steadiness which, it must be regretfully admitted, is often sadly wanting in our modern dogs; for they are high-couraged creatures, and somewhat impatient of restraint.”
Of course, if the golden people admitted setter ancestry, then they would also be admitting a relationship to the flat-coat.
And I think the real purpose of the Russia setter dog horse-pucky was to give a good reason to separate this color variety from the flat-coat.
I mean all that had to happen is for the Marjoribanks family to release their kennel records, and that story would have fallen apart.
It is amazing how much politics and jockeying affects how breed standards develop and how we view particular breeds.
I think you may have missed my reference to social considerations, that these dogs were bred to Irish Setters and that while many English tolerated to some degree the Scots, they tolerated the Irish less. The Russian Circus story thus becomes a contrivance to divert attention away from Irish Setters. The Tsar was cousin to the King. Rub your nose in the muddy stuff and gain “favour” throughout the real. What a plan.
At that time, Irish setters were called red setters. In the UK, if you say red setter, everyone knows what you mean.
Perhaps it may have something to do with what you’re talking about, but keep in mind that Irish setters were the dogs that belonged to the mostly protestant landowner class in Ireland. The average Irish person didn’t own setters or any gun dogs.
Now, the Russian thing is also possible.
Russia and the Eastern Part of Europe had captured the imagination of some Victorian romantics of the day, especially after the Crimean War when Anglo-Russian relations improved a bit. One story about the Russian circus dogs is that they were brought over after the Crimean War.
And if you google the term Russian retriever, see how many different dogs you get. I’ve found three different dogs from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that were called Russian retrievers.
Working red setter: http://www.nrsftc.com/pics/Satned2.jpg
This is a strain derived from the Irish setter that has its own stud book in the US.
Compare that red setter with this golden: http://www.golden-feathers.com/LadProfile.htm
Most of the early imports to this country looked like that golden, and most of the Irish setters in the US were more like that working red setter.
So you can see where the confusion developed.
Another interesting coincidence is that the flat-coated retriever lost most of its popularity at roughly the same time that the golden retriever was split from that breed. I’m still trying to find a substantiated reason for the flat-coat’s demise as the top trial dog, and the ascendancy of the Labrador has to be only part of it.
Maybe they were also trying to distance themselves from the flat-coat for some reason.
I see that people can find parallel forms in setters and retrievers.
There is too much to follow some days.
Do you keep up with this site? http://redsetters.blogspot.com/
and once these dogs are in the field it all in the training.
I was looking for that blog!
I don’t follow it but I am going to add it to my blogroll.
Thanks for finding it.
One of the ways I think of goldens and flat-coats is that they are “setter-retrievers.” They have some characteristics that they Labs don’t have and with which they share with setters.
I’ve had the suspicion that this is why you see some of the ‘extremism’ in modern breeds compared to their older types. People want their breed to be as ‘unique’ as possible.
P.S. And I totally believe that’s why Chinese Cresteds look the way they do now, instead of back in the day when they were basically just Xolos with longer mohawks and tail plumes.
I remember you saying something about this, but I didn’t realize I would come across it so blatantly in my breed!
There are some people in Cresteds who refuse to believe they are basically long-haired Xolos. They will swear by the whole ‘They were bred by the Mandarin Chinese to guard treasure palaces and hunt rats!’ myth. ( http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=265&catid=12&subcatid=81 )
It’s really quite mind-boggling. I don’t know where people get these bizarre ‘creation myths’ from.
I believe such mythology is actually harmful, because I think it makes people resistant to the idea of outcrossing because they don’t believe some breeds are actually related. How else do you explain the hostility to the Pointer-cross Dals by their AKC club? There’s no rationale for it unless you honestly believe Dals leaped fully formed out of the mind of God, instead of very likely being an offshoot of a Pointer-type dog bred for fancy spots. The fact that early Dals had tan spots mixed with the black ones really seems to make that fact obvious ( http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v485/Pietoro/Dog%20Breed%20Historical%20Pictures/1905Dals2.jpg ).
Or lemon spots.
Or long-haired like an English setter:http://www.paisleydals.com/color.html
And they are most likely English, not Croatian.
Gosh, Chinese crested dogs have the most fanciful “creation story” than I ever heard!
Pai, you might find this interesting, don’t remember where I got it: http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/6401/breednotes1941.jpg
I even read that crested were on Chinese junks.
The dogs killed the rats.
And when the sailors got hungry.
They ate the dogs.
And during the period in which China’s ships were sailing everywhere, the dogs wound up in Southern Africa and Latin America (because we know the Chinese actually discovered the New World.)
You see this in my breeds as well. People want their breed to be unique and special and different, and I think that’s why you see resistance from some quarters to the Saluki/Tazi/Afghan/Taigan landrace ‘theory.’ Even I used to buy the mountain type/desert type divide in Afghans, until I started looking closer. I have seen pictures of COO Salukis that you could glue some hair on and pass for COO Afghan; same tilted pelvis, same high set hips, same general conformation. Same with COO Afghans that have very little hair. There is a wide range of type and a lot of overlap in both breeds.
I do think that if it grows hair there is a certain subset of enthusiasts that will over do it. It seems to happen with all coated breeds, or sort of coated, in the case of the CC :)
If you told the CC breed founders that in a mere 40 years, their carefully bred hairless dogs would be turned into this ( http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v485/Pietoro/webjunk/CH_StormDamageNCo_HHL.jpg ) by their own breed club, they would’ve called you nuts. But that’s ‘improvement’ for you. =P
(And no, that’s NOT a Powderpuff…)
Oh, speaking of shaving dogs… is the ‘patterning’ on most show-line Afghans shaved on, or do they still have it naturally?
I only consider a dog to be patterned if it has short, slick hair on the lower legs. A saddle that comes down the dog’s sides but fully coated legs does not constitute patterning, to me. There are several kennels here in the US known for producing patterned dogs. Many Afghans actually have shorter hair on the pasterns and below the hocks, but it’s not slick hair and gets covered up by the long hair on the legs.
The saddle is the only kind of patterning required, the standard states that the mature dog must have a short haired saddle. I do not own *any* purebred Afghans that have a slick saddle all the time. My bitches typically have one only after their post heat coat blow. One of them will have a saddle halfway down her sides after a heat, but carries about two inches of fuzz there the rest of the time. Were I to show them, I would have to strip the fuzzy hair off the saddle. Some of mine would have to have hair stripped off the sides of the face. Stripping is common enough that you sometimes see advertisements where the dog is touted as having a ‘natural’ slick saddle. You also sometimes see puppies with a face full of fuzz (monkey whiskers) that have had a saddle shaved into the back fuzz. I have also been seeing some dogs where the hair under the neck has been stripped or clipped to make the neck look longer and cleaner. Even though the standard states: “The Afghan Hound should be shown in its natural state; the coat is not clipped or trimmed;”
JIM HICKIE’S FAIRY TALE “THE COAT MUST BE ALLOWED TO DEVELOP NATURALLY”: http://www.afganosdereyes.com/tips/
A true patterned dog is less likely to need the saddle stripped. IME, dogs that lose their puppy coat before sexual maturity will be patterned to some extent.
A good deal of the appearance of a show Afghan is artifice.
The Crested standard also says ‘grooming should be minimal’. I swear, the dog fancy is overrun with obsessive hair dressers that can’t help but turn breeds into huge, fluffy monsters with ridiculous grooming requirements that no normal person would ever want to deal with.
I’ve never seen what the original Chinese crested hairless dogs looked like.
Some pictures of founding dogs are here: http://www.chinesecrested.no/en/registry/oldies/?offset=8
There was no real consistant physical type or size in the breed until the 1970s; they were basically just a long-haired Xolo variant (or pila dog). In my opinion, the breed was the closest to the ideal of the standard in the 1980s. But as it is now, people breeding ‘true hairless’ Cresteds are in the minority. Judges and most breeders just love the ‘flashy’ shaved dogs more, and think the true hairless dogs are inferior. Many breeders do not even understand how the genetics of their own breed works, so we’re losing the strong expression of the hairless gene.
http://www.chinesecrested.no/en/registry/45174/Staround+Cresta.html
That dog looks like the ond that was in Hotel for Dogs:
Yep… ‘Romeo’ from Hotel For Dogs is a real cutie pie. THL are still out there, but they are in the minority now. A lot of the movies I’ve seen that use Cresteds use THL, because honestly they are so unique and you can tell they’re not artificial (shaved that way). The ‘average person’ tends to prefer ‘real’ dogs to artificially sculpted ones, regardless of the breed. It’s only in the show fancy where the values are the opposite.
I’m surprised at how much our breeds have in common, even though they are nothing alike in terms of heritage, history, or utility.
Not only do both of our breeds have a bizarre creation origin myth (which has been thoroughly debunked in both cases– although GR people accept the real story now far more then Chinese Crested dog people), but we have essentially changed the way the dogs are in order to make the story fit better.
I’m surprised they didn’t claim the breed came from Africa, because there was a similar breed in England that was said to come from Africa: http://www.messybeast.com/history/1800dogs-3.htm
I personally subscribe to the theory that all those dogs were just transplanted/crossed Xolos. Sailors were known for collecting ‘exotic’ pets (birds, monkeys, etc) and trading them around. Folks just assumed that because a dog they found was in African or Chinese port, that it was a native breed there. But remember, the hairless gene is dominant, so I’m sure many sailors’ pets spread it around in various places. That doesn’t mean that there may not have been (like American Hairless Terriers) recessively-hairless dogs living in isolated pockets here and there, but they disappeared long before the modern Chinese Crested was ever created.
People DO mention the ‘Africa’ theory, but usually leave it at “It’s all just a mystery!” and seem satisfied with that. But for me… I don’t like -not knowing-. It’s a character flaw of mine. =P
I’ve just recently ordered a very rare copy of the first Crested breed books ever published in 1964. I’m hoping to get some insights into the early breed and whether the creation myth started from the breed’s founders themselves or was a more recent development. Plus, I can’t wait to see more photos of the dogs of that era!
hi, i just got into the breed and am running into that problem…every breeder i talk to gets mad when i say i would like to take cresteds back to the less hair state that they originally had, yes there were hhl from the beginning but back then the less hair a dog naturally had the better they were judged,..and i think thats as is it should be, but you’d think i’d told them i want to drowned they’re dog by the way they react to me saying that..lol
I raelly like the look of the Noranby Goldens!
Sammy.
An argument I have heard for continuing to disallow the yellow color of flat-coat: It would look took much like a golden, and THEREFORE in order to make the distinction clear there would be pressure to breed a more extreme type, one way or another (whether build, height, color, shape of head, etc).
The flat-coat’s distinctive feature is its moderation (“power without lumber, raciness without weediness”), so (re)introducing an element that would tempt people to breed for an extreme would be antithetical.
I buy that.
Not only that–
The golden retriever was originally registered under the category: “Flat-coats (yellow).” They took that category out when the golden became a separate breed. However, as I’ve pointed out the split between the two breeds was not complete, and that’s why you still get yellow flat-coats.
That flat-coat axiom is actually what we should be breeding for in all retrievers. You want a dog more substantial than a setter, but not like a smaller version of the Newfoundland dog.
And in the reverse, golden people think the same way.
However, for efficient movement in the water and land, they have exactly the same needs for conformation.
Just because the people who had these yellow dogs got angry at the flat-coat people for not putting up their dogs at shows, doesn’t make them fundamentally different animals.
There are differences now, but originally, the difference between the two breeds was the same difference as exists between yellow and black Labs.
My nature says, “Aw, heck, let the yellows in the ring,” but that argument to keep them out makes a whole lot of sense when it comes to human nature and show dogs (and flat-coats ARE show dogs, and always will be).
Dual purpose show dogs.
Kudos to you Retrieverman. Whenever I do a search for something having to do with Golden Retrievers, I get some Google listings for your blog. I love the fact that you research and discuss your findings.
That being said, I have to disagree with Goldens in the beginning being the same as flat coats. According to his stud book, Lord Tweedmouth bred what many feel was a yellow flat coat with a Tweed Water spaniel to produce what became the first litter of Golden Retrievers (not named as such for a few years.) He also bred in a Labrador Retriever and a red setter. Others bred in other setters and retrievers subsequently so the breed was not just a yellow flat coat at any point in time.
Oh, I see that this is a very old post… that makes sense since you have since blogged much about the Tweed Water Spaniel, Belle…
Cool! I must read on to the end of this post. This is part of the history to your more current GR blogs. Hey, how do you like that? I am now reading the history of your current hypothesis… I guess there is a beauty to this blog stuff!
-Jan
Well, here’s the thing. In the kennel records, there are only two Tweed water spaniels/Tweed water dogs that were used in the program– Belle and an unrelated male dog.
As for goldens being flat-coats: They have more of that ancestry than any other breed. Granted, the old wavy or flat-coated retriever as it existed was never a closed registry breed. Collies and setters were very common outcrosses. And by collie, I mean something like an English shepherd or a border collie, not Lassie.
I have found old depictions of black flat-coats that look just like modern conformation goldens, including the very influential flat-coat stud, Zelstone: http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/zelstone.jpg
Two of three foundational lines of golden were heavily interbred with black flat-coats (Ingestre and Culham).
I’ve done a lot of research on this. Here are some posts that might be of interest:
1. http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/the-origin-and-evolution-of-the-wavy-coated-retriever/
2. http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/heavy-bodied-flat-coats-from-complete-english-shot.jpg?w=378&h=622
(Those are flat-coats).
Goldens probably didn’t have another Tweed crossed in after 1880ish, but there is evidence of them having some curly crossed in: http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/curlies-in-the-foundational-pedigrees-of-the-golden-retrievers/
There is a bit more curly-coated retriever in this breed than Tweed water dog/water spaniel, but no one makes hay about that.
But it is clear that these dogs were originally registered as flat-coats and were regularly bred to them. There are still yellow flat-coats– all of which can be traced to goldens being interbred with black and liver flat-coats.
There was a notable winner of the International Gun Dog League’s retriever trial in 1904. He was a liver flat-coat, and his mother had also won this trial. However, his sire was one of the Guisachan dogs, a light gold one named Lucifer. This dog’s name was Don of Gerwn. He was a liver flat-coat, though we’d say he would have been half golden retriever: http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/don-of-gerwn.jpg
Flat-coats don’t vary in type the way they once did. Flat-coats very nearly became extinct. The modern dogs are derived from the survivors, and don’t have the variance in type that they were once known for. They have also been bred to a standard that is supposed to make sure they don’t look like goldens– yellow is a disqualifying color.
But the original dogs often looked very much like goldens.
The golden itself retains the diversity in type that was once part and parcel of the old flat-coated and wavy-coated retriever. And unlike the flat-coat, it still has the very dense undercoat, which is very useful for a working dog on land or in the water. Modern flat-coats have an inferior coat in this respect.
I guess it all is a matter of perspective. If you regard the first litter to be Nous and Bell for the Golden Retriever, then you have to consider the origin of the breed to have 50% of each breed. Even though there were other flatcoats bred in, there was also the red setter and Labrador Retrievers bred in. That would mean that the Golden might be considered largely flatcoat (if one feels that Nous was a flatcoat) but did the flat coat have the same spaniels, setters, and Labrador Retrievers bred into their breed?
I was unaware of the curlies bred in before reading your blog referring to them. Were they bred into the flatcoat as well?
It really seems that the breeds were really much more open originally mostly serving as a way to distinguish one dog’s traits from another with a much different mindset than today. I suppose that many of the “breeders” were hunters who felt that they were breeding together two great hunting dogs so that they would have more great hunting dogs and that each hunter had his own preferences.
Facts are objective.
There was some cross-breeding between flat-coats (which were called wavy-coats) and curlies. But this crossbreeding affected only wavy-coat/flat-coats because the curly coat would lose its coat through cross-breeding. Originally, there were only those two types of retriever, and they were interbred in the early years.
You can’t use the modern flat-coat as a reference. It is just a vestige of what it once was. It was more of a type than a breed.
You have only evidence of two Tweed, but there are scores of black wavy and flat-coats being bred to goldens. I’m sure you can find black wavy/flat-coats that had Labrador and Tweed ancestry too. I’ve seen a painting of a wavy-coat that has a water spaniel’s coat.
Don’t put too much emphasis on the Tweeds. They were part of the foundational strain, but that strain didn’t create the golden retriever. That strain existed within the wavy and flat-coated retriever culture and evolved with it. The golden retriever as we know it today is only about 100 years old.
The strain that founded the goldens includes all of the elite Sewallis Shirley flat-coats. Shirley was the founding president of the KC and popularized this type of retriever over the curly and Labrador.
Now, even though the golden as we know it today is new. It actually represents the old wavy/flat-coated retriever as it once was. The only difference is the color.
I am just trying to see if I am understanding what you are saying. Are you saying that Lord Tweedmouth’s litter and the subsequent litters that out-crossed very soon to red setters, Labrador retrievers, and flat, wavy, or curly coated retrievers were pretty much the same as other people’s litters of flat coats since the flat coat of that day contained pretty much the same mix of dogs only in darker colors?
I am not disputing what you are saying, just asking questions to understand what you wrote better. I thought a flat coated retriever meant that the dog had a flat coat and was a retriever but that the Nous/Belle dogs were not quite flat coated…
I am confused about what you are saying….
Okay. It is confusing.
The original breed was called the “wavy-coated retriever.” And it became very popular throughout England as an estate shooting dog. Nous was of this old wavy-type. There were two basic types of this dog. One that was called “pure Labrador” (meaning long-haired St. John’s water dog, not what we call a Labrador retriever) and the other that breed crossed with a setter. In the early days of that breed (1860′s 1870′s), they preferred the “pure Labrador” type in the show ring, and the setter cross in the field. These dogs were not closed registry breeds at all, but they were still shown. Nous was of this “Labrador type” and was quite wavy-coated.
They began to show these dogs in earnest, and at some point, they decided to show the setter type more often. And the trials preferred the setter type. They also decided to breed out the wave to the wavy-coat and call it the flat-coat. The dogs could have a wavy-coat but were called flat-coats. These were dogs that were long-haired and feathered like a setter, unlike the curly and what became the Labrador retriever. The modern flat-coat had a bit more setter crossed in, and it lost its very dense undercoat.
Goldens are unique in that they retain both the wavy and flat-coat phenotypes, and they still have the undercoat.
They still vary in type between the “pure Labrador type” and the setter type.
And they have retained their very high trainability– a trait that they old breed became famous for. Modern flat-coats are quite trainable, but they don’t have the same eager to pleas temperament that goldens have.
For that reason, I consider the golden to be more like the old wavy/flat-coat breed than any other living retriever.
Oh, now I understand where your comment was coming from. I misunderstood you.
I have to agree with what you are saying from all of the photos leading to today’s breeds.
I guess you were saying that the flat coat from the 1800′s time period (which became very rare and was later revived) was very much like the Golden Retriever and that today the flat coat is minus the undercoat and “trainablilty” of the Golden since the focus has been to breed a dog that is distinguishably different from the Golden…
Do I have that right now?
Where I live the ticks get so bad that I shy away from owning a black dog because I can actually see a tick on my gold dogs but I would most likely miss them on a black dog. I do think the flat coat is good looking and the ones that I have known have that same clown like quality that the Golden has… very lovable.
All of these breeds were interbred regularly. It’s just that there were more wavy/flat-coated retrievers around than any other retriever breed in nineteenth century and early twentieth century Britain. Goldens were considered part of that breed– just a color variant.
The original distinction was between wavy and curly-coated retreivers, but they were originally thought of as varieties of the same breed. The smooth-coated Labrador is actually a younger breed than all of these, and even though they were around by the 1880′s, they were very rare until after the First World War.
Strange, isn’t it?
Yes, I don’t have my copy of the stud book out right now but one of the early dogs bred in was listed as a labrador… but of course there are no pictures and everything is in handwriting written in fountain pen and not easy to read (I just have a photocopy that is not always very clear)
It is fun looking through all the books available now on-line that contain information.
Looking forward to reading more about what you have read and looking at the pictures that you post.
Absolutely positively. :)
People who have never heard of a flat-coat make this observation all the time. They think Woody is a “golden mix” and McKenzie is an “Irish setter mix.” The reason: Woody is bulkier and McKenzie is sleeker, especially in their heads.
You’ve observed that yellow flatcoats look like field goldens. I realize I have been looking at these breeds a long, long time, but to me a yellow flatcoat looks like a yellow flatcoat:
http://media.lifeofjalo.com/images/2009/Vimg_50311.jpg
When you gonna grow up and get a flatcoat? You know you want one. :)
Another. more focused on the head:
http://media.lifeofjalo.com/images/2009/Vimg_50311.jpg
I meant this one, sorry:
http://media.lifeofjalo.com/images/2009/Vimg_50160.jpg
My current dog looks a lot Ramin’s yellow flat coat, but she has some Tweed water dog characteristics (heavier ears and a more conical head). But she’s built like one. She’s also about that same color, although the lighting in one of my videos makes her look almost white. Her retrieving instinct is crappy, but they are a lot better than my show-type golden that only put things in her mouth that she was going to eat.
Ten years ago, it was somewhat common to find field line goldens that had the flat-coat conformation.
You can still find them, but they are not as common as they once were.
If you look at Gertrude Fischer’s book on the golden, you can see lots of photos of the early imports to the US and Canada
(1920′s-1930′s). They look like red flat-coats, which I suppose look something like Irish setters.
I do like the flat-coated breed. Their mannerisms and conformation remind me of my old golden retriever, which looked like a tawny flat-coat with a white-tipped tail. She was obsessive and slightly neurotic, but she was also the easiest dog to train I’ve ever had. Her head was more like a flat-coat’s than you typically see in goldens. The best way I can describe her is to look at the photo of the Noranby dogs. She looked exactly like the second dog from the right (Ch. Noranby Diana) but she was a bit lighter in color.
Her coat had no wave to it whatsoever, and today, she’d be mistaken for a golden/setter cross.
Coulda fooled me…I would say this is a Golden!
She was and, at the time, she was recognized as one.
If she were alive today, I don’t think she would be considered one, even though she had AKC papers and was derived from Holway Barty.
in Belgian herding dogs, it becomes truly bizzare. Initially you had dogs in a range from big to small, and in a variety of colors, with a “type” more or less associated with each small region and but with plenty of overlap. In trying to create a “national” dog, the Belgians initially decided on three types (combined as “one” breed but not to be interbred) – a shorthaired fawn, a longhaired black and a grey wire hair. Almost immediately, the fawn longhair (the Tervuren) fanciers disagreed. For almost 100 years, two clubs existed in Belgium, one recognizing fawn longhairs and the other not. Brindle, which occured in Belgians, was found “objectionable” and most brindles became “Dutch” shepherd dogs. Over the years, the on again, off again “interbreeding” allowance and rules have caused confusion and disagreements – as an example, longhaired blacks can’t breed to shorthaired fawns because a shorthaired black isn’t “ok” in the show ring — making for a long term differential between the black dogs and the fawns. Then the “wire hair” (the Laken) can’t be LONG haired, so it can only be bred to a Malinois (and even then the “coat” isn’t always “show”.) — as a result, the dogs have sometimes been “one breed” (but not, since interbreeding isn’t always allowed) or seperate (as in AKC) where “mismarks” occur and breeding for performance dogs becomes a real difficulty (breeding to a working Malinois is not allowed for a Groenendael breeder – in several of the FCI countries and in AKC, registration would be denied). It has always been my view that for the sake of the dogs, the registries need to either allow unfettered interbreeding (and acknowledge the results in the show ring) or ban it entirely and seperate the dogs as seperate breeds. As it is, almost all “intervariety” breeding is conformation and has been to the most popular sires — with the result that any faults or genetic problems these dogs have becomes almost universal in the dogs, especially since none of the Belgian “types” or “varieties” or breeds (depending on one’s point of view) have a large number for their gene pool. Amazingly, because some breeders have maintained an interest in working, there is a good percentage of working Belgians out there, but maintaining this is very difficult, particularly if you have the “black” version, since one can’t use fawn shorthairs, shutting one out of a little over 1/3 of the gene pool compared to the fawn longhairs, who can breed to either fawn shorthairs or black longhairs. From a Darwinian standpoint, this is a major genetic advantage for the fawn dogs.
vr, Peggy Richter
Don’t Dutch shepherd also fit into this?
I’ve seen brindle Malinois/Mechelaars, and it’s the same kind of brindle you find in Dutch shepherds, which are a heavier dog than the typical Belgian shepherd.
LOL…
But honestly, after following both breeds (goldens and flatcoats) I must note that there are differences in general temperament that can’t be explained by show/working line distinctions. Even the working type goldens that I’ve seen and met are calmer than flatcoats – our golden is perceived as hyper by many golden fanciers, but he has grown up with three flatcoats. But even then, he doesn’t have the same joy of life and energy as a flatcoat.
I have a hard time in thinking how yellow flatcoats should be treated. On one hand I don’t see any real reason why the standard couldn’t be changed to allow them, but there are so many risks… The novelty factor is a definite danger. Also, the yellow strains are in fairly limited bloodlines and allowing yellow might lead in the over use of these bloodlines (and the bloodlines have already seen quite a bit of use).
And yes, flatcoats are true dual purpose dogs – show and working ability go very much hand in hand. And keeping it so is certainly worth fighting for.
On the conformation of yellow flatcoats vs. field goldens: Luka is certainly clearly a flatcoat, but many field type goldens have similar heads and such. So much so, that a couple of long-time flatcoat breeders thought that Luka was a golden among all the flatcoats in this year’s Finnish flatcoat championship (which includes show and trial portions). And Luka was behaving like a *very* typical flatcoat at the time ;)
My first dog was not calm at all. She had as much energy as a border collie. The only dog I’ve seen that could wear her out by playing with her was a Dalmatian.
She had no “off” switch.
Do they have this type of golden in Finland?
It used to be very common in the US.
Goldens also are more “old-fashioned” in that they have characteristics of the old wavy-coat, which might explain some of the difference. The modern flat-coat has evolved in a different direction for Sewallis Shirley’s line.
yes, the Dutch dogs were largely formed from the same basis as the Belgian dogs — they inherited the brindle “NQ” dogs from Belgium when that country decided that brindle was no longer allowed. The Dutch, who mainly focus on police/protection work, do have a slightly heavier dog than the Belgian version — and to make things even MORE weird, the Dutch “police dog” is a working type, where the breeding is based on function, not pedigree, so in their system, if a pup in a litter is fawn, it’s a “malinois” and if it’s brindle, it’s a “Dutch Shepherd”. Since FCI often accepts such dogs as being purebred, in the working Malinois lines there is often a fair amount of question as to if the dogs have “Dutch” in them or not if they come from Dutch registry. Or, for that matter, some GSD, Great Dane (for size) and even pit bull (for theoretical aggression).
As for color and behavior, there actually are a number of studies that show color is more than appearance. The genes controlling color also affect the nervous system and even the autoimmune system. As a consequence, yes, on AVERAGE (the dogs as individuals will form an overlapping bell curve), your black dogs are slightly different than your reds (the Golden or yellow lab color “e” gene) or your fawns (AY). And of course, black differs based on K dominant or a /at recessive black. It also, in the longhair dogs, makes a difference (again an overlapping bell curve but with the median differing for each) for coat length and texture in longhairs. The black is reportedly a slightly shorter and harsher coat than the red or fawn. This seems to hold true in the Herding dogs, I would think it would hold thrue in the Sporting as well, since it’s the same genes.
VR, Peggy Richter.
There were yellow Curly Coated Retrievers bred as well. But they were given the kibosh by other breeders.
Are these yellow curlies or misidentified yellow wavy-coats?
Or are they the Tweed water dog, which is incorrectly called a water spaniel? It’s actually a dog that has the same ancestry as the curly-coated retriever– a mix of St. John’s water dog and the various types of dog called English water spaniels.
I’ve never heard of yellow curlies, but I have (obviously) heard of yellow flat-coats and the historical strains of yellow wavies (which are now a separate breed.) I must admit that I’m not as familiar with their history.
There is also another curly retriever from Norfolk, called a Norfolk retriever (which is not a Norfolk spaniel). The Murray River Curly actually looks more like this dog than the larger curly.
Oops – now I seem to have two different wp-nicks. The other one will be my blog.
I red in an old book, that in the end of 1800s, there were yellow curlies and that “the white ones are coming into fashion”.
Well, that we never saw.
[...] setter, red setter, working golden retriever, working red setter by retrieverman In addition to my post on the move to breed out the setter features in the show golden retriever in the 1930’…, I’m going to show how easy it was to confuse goldens and [...]
This chapter of J.D. Walsh’s book from the year 1882 shows the very same “avoid the setterism” – manifest in the Golden-breed:
“The Wavy-Coated Retrieves. It is generally supposed that this breed is a cross between the Labrador dog, or the small St. John’s, Newfoundland, and the setter; but in the present day the most successful on the show bench, as above remarked, have been apparently, and often admittedly, pure. In the belief that the nose of the pure Labrador is inferior to that of the setter, I certainly should advise the cross-bred dog for use; but to be successful on the show bench, under such judges as Dr. Bond Moore, Mr. Handley, and Mr. Lort, the competitor should display as little as possible of the setter. In all other respects Major Allison’s Victor was perfect, his symmetry being of the most beautiful order; but Dr. Bond Moore could not forgive his setter-like ears – - – ”
In the old paintings and photos we actually see many of those “setter-like ears”.
Yes, but S. E. Shirley and George Teasdale-Buckell disagreed..
..And a couple of more judges.
This was the judging standard, what comes to the ears, in the 1880s, according to Walsh (or Stonehenge):
“The ears must be small to suit the ideas of the Labrador fancier. With the setter cross they are considerably larger. In any case they should lie close to the head, and be set on low. With regard to the hair on them, it must be short in the Labrador; but in the setter cross it is nearly as long as in the setter itself.”
That’s correct for the Labrador.
Actually that short chapter is about all the “Retriever Proper”-types, not only the lab.
Or rather, if you take a look at that the Dogs of British Islands – book, the chapter is about the ears of the Wavy-coated-type.
It is another thesis of the time, against the “setterism” in the Wavies.
But eventually, setterism took over in the wavies.
If you read Idstone, he thinks that the wavy is actually a big black setter that retrieves!
Oh yes.
But there is another line, the show-type of the golden breed, which is very similar to the type once called “Russian Retriever”.
The first to show that dog was E. B. Southwell; but I dunno if it was the same Col. W. Le Poer-Trench owened.
The dog wasn’t from Russia – it can be seen from ther old pics. It looks like a gorgerous bench-show-winner!
I can’t beleive that those dogs, were they that or that, were lost and the strain was lost – as you claim.
That line was directly derived from the Tweedmouth strain, as were the early “yellow flat-coats.”
That particular line entirely disappeared.
The three foundational lines of “yellow flat-coat” were Ingestre (the Earls of Shrewsbury’s line), Culham (1st Viscount Harcourt’s line), and Noranby (Winifred Charlesworth’s line.) These were never bred to Trench’s strain.
The line simply died out when he did.
BTW, I would hardly call Trench’s dog’s gorgeous. If you think golden retrievers should look like sheep…maybe.
Oh, and Souhtwell’s dog was another form of dog called a Russian retriever. That dog was more like a giant poodle.
By “gorgerous” I mean the show-type exellence the dog clearly has. I point the old photograph named “the Russian Retriever”, presenting actually a modern show-line golden in it. Can you say, that dog wouldn’t do well in the modern shows?
I bet Mr. Trench gave him retrievers to some people, so the line didn’t die out. No one just has admitted having his dogs in the strain – for some reasons.
They were so slow that no one bred from them.
Only one that I know of was of good quality to be presented to the King:
http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/st-huberts-peter.jpg
Peter was a very different dog from the other dogs of the line.
Ps. You are right about the “sheep-fur”. But you have to admit the coat is really OUTSTANDING – compared with the other retrievers of the time (or today’s). Even the big Newfounlanders didn’t have that kind of mega-coat.
Have you ever thought was it purely by selection – or by crossing with some special element?
I have no idea where it came from.
Maybe they really were from Russia (yeah, right!)
Yes, there were yellow curlies and all white curlies. The Yellow curlies were even bred into the 1930′s. I have an old article about them, but, more importantly, an answer about them from my mentor, whom I imported my first Curly Coated Retriever from England over 30 years ago.
There is a white Curly Coated Retriever taxidermy in an English museum. You have inspired me and I will try to actually do my web pages with a review of curly history.
I found even more about the “coloured” curlies,
when W.D. Drury says in his 1903 book:
“The writer has bred dozens of these puppies, but he has never reared one that he considered up to the standard of first-class show form. On one or two occasions he has seen fawn or cream-coloured specimens, and he has been given to understand that these have their origin in a “throw-back” to an ancient strain which is, or was, in the possession of the Dukes of Leeds.”
So, I bet you it will make an interesting story.
No one has mentioned that the Flat-Coat has an incredibly soft and silky coat. I’ve yet to pet the Golden whose coat can even remotely compare.
My Flat-coat swims everyday that the lake isn’t frozen and plays in snow when it is. The vet complements me that Elvis is in astounding shape for an eight year old dog. But it’s him, not me. I just provide him with opportunities and balls.
He’s such a fun and happy dog. His tail wags even when he drinks water. Joyful is an apt description of his personality.
People generally call him a Golden/Setter mix that turned out black!
Even at 85 lbs he is “trim”. Not slender in any sense, but less bulky in his limbs than a Golden.
Although I think Flat-coats are the most perfect dog ever, I seldom recommend them because of what the “Backyard Breeders” have done to the Golden.
It would be so cool to have a Black, a Liver, and a Yellow Flat-coat after I’ve retired and will have time to hunt!
(Like the blog alot. Good info, plus you recognize that the Flat-coat is wonderful.)
Goldens still have a lot of the “Newfoundland’s” coat. I bet your dog doesn’t shed half as much as mine does (I’m sure he DOES shed, though). In goldens, there has been a tendency to breed for a very thick undercoat. It may be something that had to develop because goldens were derived from dogs native to the Scottish Highlands.