Tip was an imported “Labrador” whose descendants were top field trial flat-coated retrievers, Pitchford Marshal and Monk.
He was born in 1832 and was imported.
His coat, if one looks closely, might have been feathered. I note a plumed tail, rather than the more typical brush tail of the St. John’s.
I could be wrong about what I’m seeing (and I do NOT want to have a discussion about it).
It’s just very unusual that we see depictions of the ancestral St. John’s water dogs that went onto found strains of retriever. Normally, we find out through some unusual scholarship that a particular retriever was an import, but normally, this information isn’t provided.
This image comes from The Complete English Wing Shot (1907) by George T. Teasdale-Buckell.
And Teasdale-Buckell does provide depictions of his descendants, and they are clearly flat-coated retrievers, though much more robust than the current incarnation.
So he may have been a feathered dog.
One aspect of retriever history that has been overlooked is that St. John’s water dogs came in both smooth and feathered varieties. At least at one point, they did. The settlers were eager to get rid of the feathered dogs, so they very readily exported them, where they were used to found strains of retrievers. This explains why the long-haired wavy-coated retriever was the most common retriever in the British Isles through much of the nineteenth century.
Unfortunately, most of the research on retriever history that has examined these water dogs and their role in founding retrievers has been performed by Labrador retriever historians, and at least subconsciously, they have tended to ignore the feathered variety. If they mention them at all, they assume they must have been crosses with collies, setters, or spaniels, but when one reads of feathered retriever-liked dogs actually being born in Newfoundland, this assumption doesn’t appear to have much validity.
It’s true the Newfoundlanders preferred smooth-coated dogs, and the last remaining “pure” St. John’s water dogs were smooths.
But that doesn’t mean that they always were this way.
See related posts:
- Paris was a long-haired St. John’s water dog
- More long-haired St. John’s water dogs
- Windham and Jet
- Half-wild “Labrador” dogs
- Cora, a “Labrador”
- Paris was a long-haired St. John’s water dog
- The origin and evolution of the wavy-coated retriever
- Parisian water rescue dogs
- Teasing apart the history of the Newfoundland dog, the St. John’s water dog, and the retrievers
Where do you find all these wonderful old books . . . and the time to extract and share their content ? I hope others in the retriever community are as grateful as I that you have the resources and take the time. This post is particularly useful in linking as well to several prior posts, which allows developing wider context.
I love retrievers more for temperament than looks. They’re good looking dogs to me because they’re such great animals to live around. From this perspective, the big riddle is: how did the strong characteristics that mark the descendants of the St. John’s dogs evolve? What was the force of selection? We know a lot about events after dogs were transported back to Great Britain, cause many (most) went to literate people who kept records, painted portraits and took photos. But what was a fisherman’s life like in Newfoundland and how did dogs fit in? I read somewhere that many dogs were self-provisioning . . . also suggested in your “Half-wild” blog post. Roger Abrantes, writing about another, modern group of fisher-folk and their dogs: “The pressure of natural selection for dogs in Thailand is on kindness. The kindest dogs have a greater chance of survival and pass on their ‘kinder’ genes to their progeny.” Was there a similar dynamic in the cold, wet northern coasts? If only a minority of the fishermen over-wintered, what happened to the dogs? Did the most easy-going, most biddable, and best hunting companions get to come inside and share provisions and warmth with the over-wintering community . . . while the rest were left to their own . . . presumably in circumstances where mortality was high? Where were pups whelped? Were they given shelter? Did fishermen in a very cold land take advantage of the fact that dogs body temperature is almost 2 degrees C warmer than our own body temperature? Have they been close companions as well as workers?
It’s been my hobby since I was in my late teens.
We just don’t know.
In the accounts, the landrace varied a lot from outport to outport and from decade to decade.
Looks like a handsome, robust dog. Why were the fisherman partial to the smooth coats? Easier to keep clean? Like the Saint Bernards – the long-haired ones collected snow balls, so they were sold and the smooth ones were kept at the hospice.
The smooths swam faster, and their feathering would collect ice. It also takes a long-haired dog a longer time to dry.