From Biographical Sketches and Authentic Anecdotes of Dogs (1829):
The Newfoundland Dog is a valuable and faithful friend to man, and an implacable enemy to sheep. When born or reared from an early age under the roof of man, this dog is the most useful domestic animal in the island of which he is a native. He answers some of the essential purposes of a horse; is docile, capable of strong attachment, and easily pleased in the quality of his food;—he will live upon scraps of boiled fish, whether salted or fresh, and on boiled potatoes and cabbage; but, if hungry, he will not scruple to steal a piece of salmon or raw salt pork from the tub in which it has been left to steep. He is likewise fond of poultry of the larger kind; but he seems to prefer the blood of sheep to every thing else.
Both the Greenland and Newfoundland dogs, however, in a wild state, agree in the dispositions and habits of the wolf. They hunt in packs the animals of the country for the sake of prey; and this circumstance has led to the supposition, which by others is deemed groundless, of there being wolves in the island of Newfoundland (pg. 202).
I have encountered several nineteenth accounts of the water dogs from Newfoundland being impossible to keep near sheep.
Often, there is a suggestion that at least some fishermen let their dogs roam when they were not being used on ships or to assist in hauling or hunting. Any settlers who had sheep would likely suffer attacks from these hunting and working dogs.
To promote the grazing of sheep in Newfoundland, the colonial government passed The Sheep Protection Act of 1885, which allowed for local governments to ban dog ownership and charge hefty dog license fees. Many of the water dogs were killed, but several were exported to Great Britain. The smooth-coated retriever breeding program of the Dukes of Buccleuch was augmented with several smooth-coated water dog that were imported in the 1880’s and 1890’s. Those dogs would eventually form the basis for the modern Labrador retriever.
Surprised the British didn’t trade the St. Water Dogs and Newfoundland curs to Jamaica for screech.
“several accounts”…first hand, or all repeating the same story?
No. Here’s another, much later account:
http://books.google.com/books?id=nSjOAAAAMAAJ&dq=untrodden%20newfoundland&pg=PA146#v=onepage&q&f=false
Devil’s Advocate here-
Let me get this straight, dogs were let loose by their “owners” when they returned to Newfoundland at the end of the fishing season. In this state they either hunted alone or formed packs that attacked sheep on the island. To protect the sheep a law was passed to ban ownership or heavily tax (license) the dog owners. One means to protect the sheep was to ship these dogs off to England, if they weren’t killed first.
So you’re saying that, from these 19th Century accounts, the people of Newfoundland and possibly Labrador, in a large part, had let the descendants of the original Cao de Castro Laboreiros imported to Newfoundland from Portugal devolve from a guardian dog into a feral scavenger and the lucky ones were sold off to England to become part of the breeding program for Labs?
It doesn’t make sense to me.
There likely weren’t many Caos– just a dozen or so could have gotten the brindle gene introduced.
Anyway, the Caos themselves are often allowed these sorts of liberties in their homeland and some of them kill sheep.
Whether a dog kills sheep or not isn’t genetic. Livestock guardians have to bond with sheep. They aren’t born with it.
Actually, there were very few sheep on Newfoundland. The had to be dragged kicking and screaming into agriculture. Most people who lived there wanted to trap and hunt and fish– even today.
I think you missed my point.
Well, write it again.
I just find it hard to believe that the foundation stock of the Labrador was developed from “curs” that ran free. Dogs were bred for a purpose long before the retriever breeds. The Cao in the Maritimes was repurposed over several centuries to work as an intergral part of the fishing operations. Their innate retrieving abilities helped minimize loss of the catch and nets.
Breeders would know where the dogs were coming from and hired agents to look for suitable dogs to bring back for the breeding program. They would not be looking for feral stock. Word about free running dogs probably travels as fast as the dogs, so I doubt the agent would take a chance on loose dogs. Rather he would seek out dogs that were kenneled and not let loose.
The breeder would probably know something about the dogs of the Maritime provinces, both the Newfoundland and the St John’s Water Dog, and he would have heard of the pros and cons of all the water dogs from both sides of the Atlantic.
Nor do I think a breeder would seek out any dogs that went after sheep if they were coming back to Scotland.
In Labrador, the Inuit had a tradition of turning out their dogs when they weren’t being used. The sled dogs were left to roam and fend for themselves during the summer. There are several accounts of Newfoundland fishermen doing this when the dogs couldn’t be used on the ships. My guess is this was the tradition.
Newfoundland was not settled to be wool province. Most people in the early days of Newfoundland just wanted to hunt and trap and fish. Raising sheep wasn’t on their minds.
So they likely followed the Inuit tradition of letting their dogs roam when they weren’t being used– just as the Inuit in Labrador did.
They didn’t care if their dogs killed sheep, because the colony was not a major wool producer. They did care that they retrieved and swam well.
But one thing they selected for by letting their dogs roam for some months was to encourge the dogs to develop their hunting skills.
Modern retrievers have been known to pack up and kill deer, which isn’t all that different:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2008875176_dogsattackdoe.html
I think you’re buying a bit into Raymond Coppinger’s theories that retrievers can’t learn to kill and still be retrievers. I had one that would kill rabbits and retrieve like a fool. She knew when to use her jaws to kill and went to tendermouthed.
I think this is an old superstition within retrievers. The Germans rely upon dogs that can kill rabbits, boar, foxes, and other game and retrieve birds.
It’s just in the Anglo-Saxon world we assume– and Raymond Coppinger unfortunately promotes– that if a dog is retriever it is too specialized to be a real predator.
Simply not the case.
I thought all dogs are suppose to be trained not to hunt squirrels in city parks? :P
Chesapeake Bay retrievers have been raised with sheep and have proven to be good livestock guardians.
Yellow Cao.
“Both the Greenland and Newfoundland dogs, however, in a wild state, agree in the dispositions and habits of the wolf. ”
That could be interpreted as dogs who became wild… That is how I read it. It sounds to me like the author was referring to dogs that escaped into the wild.
Eh. I would say they went qausi-feral, not so much “escaped into the wild.” Anyone with a primitive dog who is allowed to roam can testify they can easily flip between domestic life and a self-sustaining lifestyle.
This sort of off topic, but related.
I was in a flyball tournament with my Irish Water Spaniel (very curly coated), during which a particular Border Collie continually tried to herd my IWS.
Apparently, the BC thought my IWS was a sheep. An odd sheep, probably, being brown and smelling like a dog. But still curly like a sheep and about the same size…
Or, perhaps the BC was just crazy.
Patrice
The Cooper Project: Life with Cooper and Tooey, the Irish Water Spaniels
http://patricedodd.wordpress.com/
HA! Patrice! Maybe your Irish Water Spaniel SMELLED like a sheep!(Just a shepherd’s joke, there!) But back to the feral lab bit–I’m sure the Newfoundlanders were like ANY people who keep dogs–some were responsible, and some were not! Also, the modern politically correct ethics involving keeping dogs confined and only loosed under close supervision(if even then!) is VERY NEW–when(1960’s)and where I grew up, anyone who tied or penned their dogs were the ones considered “cruel”! This is not even a full generation past! Those people had little way of confining their dogs anyway, other than tying them up. No one who cares about their dogs is going to want to keep them tied up all the time. Heavy taxation is levied to control the peasants–it has little effect on the wealthy. Remember the old medieval laws that required any peasant who owned a greyhound-type dog used for hunting, had to cut a tendon in a rear leg to purposefully lame it to lawfully keep it anywhere near a forested hunting area of the nobility–and this was in regards to wild game animals, not even sheep!…And yeah, Coppinger’s notion that NO retriever-type dogs ever kill anything shows just how INCREDIBLY ignorant this supposed canine “expert” is…..