Canis lupus hominis

I often get requests for posts.

I usually do my best to meet the request, and when I had more time on my hands, it was usually done within a week of the request.

I don’t mind doing posts that readers request.

You are the readers, and I’m not writing a diary.

However, over the years I have noticed that I do get a lot of requests for posts on the history of retrievers.

I’ve noticed that those posts tend to be popular, but they generally are only transitory.

Not only that, I have often found where I have been wrong about some of the things I’ve written, but because the post was written so long ago, I don’t have time to go back and fix it.

There are also posts I no longer stand by. Ignore all my posts that talk about the “original appearance” of golden retrievers. At the time, I was under the delusion of “original intent,” which I now believe is simply a fallacy.  The original wavy-coated retriever from which golden retrievers descend varied from heavily-built and beefy to lithe and settery.  The lighter built dogs did eventually win favor because they were more agile on land and faster swimmers.

Also, ignore this post on the history of water dogs. It was based solely upon various historical research that was later largely debunked through genomic studies.

I am willing to admit that I’m wrong.  However, there are so many posts that it would take me several months or perhaps a year to fix all of them.

Such is the hazard of producing nonfiction at volume.

But I still do get requests about these history posts, and I’ve occasionally been asked when I was going to write a book on the history of these dogs.

The answer was always, “I don’t know.”

But I am wondering if maybe there is a market for such a book, and if there is, I think I’d like to write it.

I don’t want it to be as breed blind as Richard Wolters’s amazing (though somewhat flawed) history of the Labrador retriever.

It obviously must contain the history of Newfoundland water dogs, but I don’t want people to have a narrowly construed understanding of what this sort of dog was (or is).  Wolters focused heavily on smooth-coated St. John’s water dogs in the literature, assuming that they were the only type available. They were the only that could be found in Newfoundland during most of the twentieth century.

What I found interesting is that all these Labrador retriever historians quote Lambert De Boilieu, who famous wrote:

The Labrador dog, let me remark, is a bold fellow, and, when well taught, understands, almost as well as any Christian biped, what you say to him.

Never mind the religious bigotry in the statement, but virtually every Labrador retriever history quotes it.

They seem to ignore the rest of De Boilieu’s discussion of the dog in which he talks about the long-haired ones that the British were turning into the wavy-coated retrievers:

 The dogs sent to England, with rough shaggy coats, are useless on the coast; the true-bred and serviceable dog having smooth, short hair, very close and compact to the body. I sent to England a fine specimen of these, but unfortunately the vessel which bore it had the misfortune to be wrecked on the north coast of Ireland, and all hands were lost.

This is why when you read of Dr. Bond Moore’s “Labradors,” which were registered as wavy-coated retrievers, they were long-coated dogs. The golden retriever is also derived from that “bold fellow,” as are all the other large retrievers.

I call this dog a St. John’s water dog.

It is this dog that had the greatest impact on the development of retrievers, for before it became widespread, retrieving dogs were almost always either water spaniels, poodle-types, or various types of purpose-bred mongrel.

In Russia and Scandinavia, laikas and their relatives retrieved shot ducks. And still do today.

But this rugged water dog from Newfoundland had the greatest impact on the development of retrievers today.

If I were going to write about the history of the retrievers, I would have to include big section on that breed.

I have loads of material, most of which I’m not able to use even on the blog.

I could organize all of this material into a manuscript, but I don’t have a clue what to do next.

I’ll just say I’m not interested in self-publishing.

Retrievers are popular dogs. People want to read about them.

I don’t want my efforts to wind up like some poorly thought-out treatise on groundhog baiting with Jack Russells.

I want people to read this stuff.

These dogs are important to us.

I just don’t know where to start.

A book that should be written and a book that I eventually do write are two different things.

So if anyone has any ideas, please leave me comments. If you’d like to email me, please feel free to use the Contact page.

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Bonus points if you can name the dog at the top of this post. However, if you can name him, you’ve been wasting too much time reading this blog!