Harding Cox
In case you were bored with all of that retriever history, I found a little tidbit. In Harding Cox’s piece on retrievers in Drury’s British Dogs: Their Points, Selection and Show Preparation, I came across rather clear critique of competitive dog showing. Although the piece is about retrievers, Cox launches into an attack on the logic behind competitive dog showing. I only wish he had included retrievers in his criticism, but because he was a retrieverman who showed his dogs, I don’t think we could expect it.
Here it is:
The utility of dog shows as a means of maintaining and improving purity of type in the canine race, without impairing utility, has often been called in question, and really the spurious evolution that has taken place in some breeds, notably in Fox-terriers and Bulldogs, is greatly to be deplored. It is a case of cause and effect, induced by the exaggeration of type, and the sacrifice of a well-balanced and symmetrical whole, to the undue and excessive development of some special “fancy” point. For instance, the craze for exceedingly narrow chests in Fox-terriers has evolved this supposed desideratum at the expense of depth and strength of rib, and consequently of power of loin and quarters. One seldom sees a well-ribbed, square-quartered Fox-terrier nowadays. Again, it was laid down that Bulldogs should be more powerful in front of the saddle than behind it, and that the shoulders should be loose, and the elbows well turned out. Harping on this string, fanciers have produced a result of which they have no reason to be proud; for what do we too often find? Weak, ricketty legs, foundered chests, and wasted loins; rendering what should be a powerful, active dog, a monstrosity and a cripple. Such examples could be amplified ad infinitum.
This book was published in 1903, and 106 years later, we’re still writing about these things. To have such an assessment from someone so feted by fancy is truly remarkable. After all, Mr. Cox appears in the Charles Henry Lane’s Dog Shows and Doggy People (1902), a veritable hagiography of the dog fancy of the early years of the twentieth century.
It is a shame that no one really paid that much attention to him. I wonder what he’d say about retrievers today. I bet he would not be happy.
No more retriever history for a week, I promise.
