What I am about to explain here might be offensive to curly-coated retriever owners. It is not intended to be.
I am merely quoting what Harding Cox, a retrieverman of the late nineteenth centuries and early twentieth centuries, thought of the breed. The breed has definitely changed since then, because it is no longer a “fancy” breed. It is now bred for sound working conformation and ability by its dedicated breeders.
Cox wrote the section on retrievers in W.D. Drury’s British Dogs: Their Points, Selection and Show Preparation (1903), and to be fair, Cox was a flat-coated retriever enthusiast.
He begins his section on retrievers with this somewhat Spencerian prediction:
That the Curly-coated Retriever is doomed to practical extinction is a notable and an undeniable fact, which must be put down to the inevitable law of the survival of the fittest…For every Curly-coated dog (speaking of the recognised show type) used in the field, or exhibited on the bench, there are now a score, at least, of Flat-coats. (333).
Whoa.
Cox explains that reason why the curly lost favor in the British gun dog circles did not have much to do with their lack of tractability or their supposed reputation for hardmouth.
Cox contends that the real reason why the curly was not favored at time is that it was thought of as a show dog, not a working dog:
There seems to be a prevailing impression that the average disposition of the Curly-coated Retriever…is not as sweet and benevolent as that of the more popular dog [the flat-coat], and that he is less tractable. The writer’s only experience of these animals is in the show-ring, and he confesses that he has always found the exhibits mild and friendly enough. Probably the real reason of their unpopularity lies in the fact that they are more or less a “fancy” breed (345).
In this analysis, the real reason why the curly lost favor in Britain is because it was a dog bred solely for the show ring.
After all, this breed does have an unusual feature that is difficult to breed. Their coats do not withstand any crossbreeding. If you breed a curly to Labrador, you will have a dog with short hair and some wave to it. At this time, though, crossbreeding different strains of retriever was a common practice, and thus, the curly missed out on some of the experimental breeding that goldens, Labradors, and flat-coats experienced.
If you’re breeding for that feature, you’re not breeding for working ability. You’re breeding for the coat and for the rosettes that this coat will win you.
And that’s a recipe for disaster for a working dog.
If all the competitor breeds are being cross-bred and selectively bred for work, and you are breeding for a peculiar physical feature, your dog will not be able to keep up with them.
And the curly nearly went into extinction as Harding Cox suggested.
Of course, the flat-coat didn’t remain top dog in the trial circuit. After the First World War, the Labrador, which had been developed from breeding recently imported St. John’s water dogs with flat-coats, Chesapeakes, and all sorts of other dogs (including pointers and foxhounds), began to come into its own. The flat-coat developed a bad reputation for being hard to handle and for having possible borzoi ancestry (sight hounds are known for being terrible retrievers.) The yellow version of flat-coat became a separate breed, and it became the secondary retriever to the Labrador.
Nearly becoming extinct actually proved to be a blessing for the curly, for now the only people who were breeding them were truly interested in producing the best possible dog. The modern curly is now a dog with good working conformation and retrieving instinct, but most people don’t know about it. If the average person sees one, I guarantee you that the first question will be “Is that a Labradoodle?”
Losing popularity isn’t such a bad thing.
***
Today, the top working retriever is the Labrador. Most waterfowl hunters in North America go for Labradors.
In fact, the Labrador is now even more popular than its flat-coat predecessor. It is now the most common dog breed in the world.
The golden is the secondary dog. It is the curly of today.
However, this breed still remains common enough, although its popularity in Europe has started to drop off. In the US and Canada, it is still a very popular breed.
Most golden retrievers are rather like the curlies of the nineteenth century. They have been bred for their novel appearance alone. Working ability has been secondary.
And many working retriever people pass the golden over.
It is just a matter of time until the golden begins to really lose its status in our society.
When I first heard of them, they were touted as being very easily trained and very good natured.
A few years ago, they were touted as being very good natured and much calmer than Labradors. (This isn’t necessarily a good thing, because extremely calm dogs are on their way to losing their working ability.)
Now, their temperaments have become far less reliable than they once were.
As things have progressed, the golden is not thought of as a working retriever. It’s thought of as a fancy breed for yuppies to own.
All of these factors set the golden up for meeting a very similar fate that befell the curly in the early twentieth century.
Is this a bad thing?
Well, as I said before, losing a lot of popularity was a blessing for the curly. It allowed only the most dedicated people to breed them.
And with all the problems that the golden is facing, the only way to solve them is for the breed to lose some it of its popularity. Too many stupid people are breeding them.
If the demand for cute little golden retriever puppies would just drop, dedicated golden retriever people would be able to breed good dogs once again.
***
It amazes me how many comments I get whenever I offer even a tepid criticism of a breed. I usually don’t attack individual dogs, but I do attack breeding practices. However, these criticisms are viewed as affronts against an individual dog, which may be sound, smart, and healthy.
I have nothing against the curly-coated retriever.
In fact, if you read this post and didn’t know any better, I bet you’d think I hate golden retrievers.
The truth is that I can offer a criticism of a breeding practice or trend within a gene pool and still respect the individual dog.
Every dog breed and every bloodline within a breed or strain has its virtues and vices. We need to be honest about them.
It’s only then that we can have real discussions about improving our dogs through selective breeding.
But because this candor eludes too many people who consider themselves dog people, we can’t have that conversation.
But for the sake of the dogs, we need to have that conversation.
It’s time to detach our egos from our dogs.
I hope that you are right about the road to improvement in golden retrievers being a decrease in their popularity. Also, your comment that we need to be honest about the virtues and vices within a breed or bloodline is right on the mark. If you don’t have an open mind you leave no room for learning anything and therefore improving anything.
I’ve gotten the same flames whenever I say anything critical of dog breeds, but I honestly didn’t see anything in your post which could be viewed as even remotely negative towards Curly-coats. If anything, you seem to be an admirer of their working ability. There’s certainly an implied criticism of the dog fancy, but nothing against the breed itself (though I suppose that a dog fancier who truly believes he’s improving the breed will view any criticism of the show culture as a criticism of the breed).
https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/a-occasional-design-flaw-in-the-curly-coated-retriever/
Read the comment on that one.
I have only seen videos of curlies working, and what I’ve seen is rather impressive. However, they probably aren’t going to replace the Labs any time soon.
I’m not so sure that lack of popularity is a salvation. Instead, it seems to take several dedicated breeders who have a goal of working dogs. For example, the Boykin spaniel has a Master Hunter (Hollow Creek’s Decoy, MH, CGC.) but unless there are SEVERAL breeders who want to preserve and promote working ability in Boykins, a single dedicated breeder can’t go far. In herding, the BC has had a program that has had a lot of support and publicity — the comparible HGH in Germany has preserved some lines of working herding German Shepherds and but the comparable French Herding program is almost unknown. The less effective and less well known ASCA trial program hasn’t done as well in preserving Australian Shepherds primarily because their trial program hasn’t really been selecting for farm type Aussies and an attempt to do both work and show has led to the majority of breeders going to show becasue it is “easier”. OTOH, It’s extremely difficult to manage a breed that is really rare — the working Kelpies in the US have some genetic problems that are in every line of Kelpie. It’s also difficult to balance a “practical working dog” versus a “trial working dog” (one of the problems with the AKC program is that it mostly promotes trial dogs and it doesn’t really give equal emphasis to the working dogs vice the “conformation dogs”. A better system would be to identify those dogs that DO work (based on a standarized criteria, either practical work or trial) and to try to find and promote those lines that DO have such capability. If you end up with two types (the “bench” and the “field”) that eventually segregate enough to seperate as breeds, the trick is to then preserve the field type as a field type — people always want to “improve” dogs, and unfortunately, it’s much easier to “improve” looks than performance characteristics.
VR, Peggy Richter
Losing popularity does give you an opportunity to improve things. Some rare breeds have missed out on these opportunities.
I’m getting ready to do a post on how the golden retriever developed into the current form. I found an interesting document in which several of the breed’s founders had what I would call a “setter inferiority complex.” Basically, they were tired of people mistaking their dogs for Irish setters, which is one of the very important breeds in their ancestry, so they encouraged people to breed away from setterish characteristics, dark coat and lighter builds, even though the majority of the dogs in those lines were of this conformation.
The problem with quoting Harding Cox when talking about working dogs is Cox was basically a show breeder. He bred flat-coats, clumbers, greyhounds, etc., etc., but doesn’t have a great body of work in working these breeds in the areas they were supposedly designed for.
Cox loved and promoted dog shows and wrote extensively about show dogs. So, is he a reliable source regarding working/hunting dogs?
Cox predicted the demise of the Curly and stated his opinion of the Curly was based only upon judging them in the show ring. How is he an expert on working curlies?
He states curlies are a “fancy” breed. The problem is, by the time he writes this in 1903, there were working curlies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S. Cox was promoting flat-coats.
One has to remember when reading these accounts that the accounts were largely from writers who were independently wealthy. These accounts were not written by men who were gamekeepers or market hunters or common men who were using dogs to find and retrieve game to feed their families. Few men who actually owned real working dogs were judging dog shows or writing for publications dedicated to promoting dog shows.
If you went to a retriever field trial today, and someone wanted to run a border collie, but was prohibited from doing so, would you be in favor of the decision?
If everything is about health and working ability, then cross-breeding between all dog breeds would be permitted.
If breeding is about being able to predict certain attributes like color and size and health and, to a lesser extent, temperament, then breed restrictions make sense.
Why even have designations like “retriever” and then restrict certain tests to those designations? Why have breeds at all? Shouldn’t people today, like in the old days, just breed good dogs to good dogs?
Aren’t breed restrictions just old-fashioned class distinctions and ridiculous and a means to sell “purebred” dogs for more money? Or are they a way to predict temperament, size, color and ability?
Of course, if you pay attention to SOME authorities, such as Harding Cox, my breed was dead a century ago.
As far as folks asking me if my Curlies are labradoodles, why would I care? I know the worth of my breed. I don’t share my house with Curlies because they are purebreds. I value them for who they are. I know Curly people get upset about folks who label their curlies as labradoodles.
I don’t care: I don’t own this breed for some perceived kudos from other people. I own this breed because I love the essence of this breed. If the average person doesn’t recognize my dog as a purebred, why would I care? What does that have to do with living with a great dog breed?
Have you read George Teasdal- Buckell’s description of them?
He actually worked the dogs.
I’ve read descriptions of working curlies beginning in 1840. I owned many of these books before Google books and the internet.
I am NOT attacking you in any way. I have read your blog for about 18 months now. I found your blog via Terrierman’s blog.
I am NOT attacking you. I am merely posing different opinions or opinion options.
When I read different authors on retrievers and gun dogs, I now know some of them were involved in Kennel Club scandals (which may or may not have been politically motivated), and also know some were promoting certain breeds, in part because they bred those breeds. Even into the early 1900’s, there were men promoting the Chesapeake Bay Dog as the one and only waterfowl retriever, or men promoting the Llewellyn setter, or the ‘English pointer’.
There were Weim fanatics which promoted the breed very successfully as THE ultimate solution as hunting dog in the 1950’s and 60’s. The Oorang Airedale Terriers were promoted as the greatest hunting dogs in the 1920’s and 30’s. (And I have hunted with a man who owned two Airedales: nice dogs!)
My point is all of this is just the opinion of the author at the time. The Weimaraner was supposed to be the great grey ghost who would change hunting dogs forever. I have friends who have German Wirehairs and Viszlas and they will never give up those breeds, thinking they are the greatest hunting breeds.
One of the issues in retriever history is when ‘retrievers’ became sit at heel workers, rather than find and flush and then retrieve workers. This is a very important issue because the independence and bird finding abilities of the retriever were then changed. The retriever became a dog who worked at the command of the hunter first, rather than working on his own instincts. This change came about, in part, when hunters were wealthy enough to keep many dogs, including those who found the birds (setters and pointers) and those who retrieved the birds. The big change was advanced by reliable guns, which allowed hunters (wealthy gentry) to engage in “shooting sports” in which how many birds a man could shoot became the primary sport of the day. When the shooting gun became accessible to many, the game became one in which the hunters essentially stood or sat in a field while beaters pounded the cover for game birds which were, in many instances, released from the game pens owned by the estate. This ‘sport’ required dogs who were kept on leash or at heel until all the birds were shot. Hence, some of the retriever breeds.
But Irish Water Spaniels and Curly Coated Retrievers were never engineered for this sit-at-heel until commanded to retrieve work. They were always used as find, flush and retrieve breeds., including fur animals. It is only the forcing of their categorization into ‘retriever’ breeds because of show ring and breeding regulations that forced them into a category which is incorrect for them.
Airedales were never “go-to-ground” terriers. Dachshunds aren’t hounds: they are “go-to-ground” terriers. Border terriers were worked on Otter hunts.
Poodles were retrievers and hunting dogs but became “fancy” dogs.
The Murray River Curly is a small liver Curly Coated Retriever. Curlies were first exported to Australia/New Zealand in the 1800’s.
I agree with all of this.
IWS’s are run as spaniels in the UK and Ireland.
I’m always careful with early descriptions of a curly retriever, simply because it could mean a water spaniel, an English rough water dog (which looked like a poodle), or some other strain of curly retriever that didn’t make it into the black or true liver breed that became the standardized curly.
There are trials in the UKC for upland game retrievers that flush game, so that might be a good place to find a curly.
“One of the issues in retriever history is when ‘retrievers’ became sit at heel workers, rather than find and flush and then retrieve workers. This is a very important issue because the independence and bird finding abilities of the retriever were then changed. The retriever became a dog who worked at the command of the hunter first, rather than working on his own instincts.”
While I think that the point is interesting, and I accept it to a point as an interesting consideration when thinking about development of the breeds, there is no hunters I know personally who believe that their retrievers are not BOTH “sit at heel workers” AND “flush and then retrieve workers.”
No one I know exclusively duck hunts; no one I know participates exclusively in such events as “tower shoots.” They all will take their dogs out for pheasant, quail, etc. I’m speaking of Labs, flat-coats, and goldens that I know.
(Those who only compete would certainly consider their dogs “sit at heel workers,” I suppose, but without at least some inherent gamefinding ability the cripple would not be recoverable, and a dog surely needs to be able to find that game in order to pass or compete.)
typo created in editing–compelled to fix it–“there ARE no hunters who…”
You can see what the curly-coat person is saying, though. It’s very much a minority breed, and like flat-coats and goldens, has talents different from the typical Labrador.
I think it’s an interesting thing to think about.
I just don’t think it’s quite so black and white in the world of hunters who actually hunt with their retrievers. At least where I live, the dogs multi-task pretty well.
Perhaps I’ve been living with a misconception. I’d always thought of the curly as a water dog first, though I’ve heard and read that they can be good upland hunters–was it originally primarily an upland dog?
That’s the thing.
They have water dog ancestors, but their main utility was in assisting poachers: http://www.gundogmag.com/gundog_breeds/GDcurly_0206/
That’s actually another reason why they got a bad reputation, not because of anything the dogs did, but because they were assisting poachers.
In England at this time, a poacher was little more than a thief. The game was mostly privately owned and managed, so if a poacher got caught, they were usually working class people, who usually got shipped off to Australia.
Also, curlies were meant to be the dogs that cleaned up after the shoot:
“They were originally bred to be the ‘clean-up’ dog, the one the gamekeepers took out to flush and find birds the hunters had missed with their retrievers. So a well-bred hunting curly preserves that particular skill.”
Of course, goldens are pretty good at that last one, because they also have good noses.
Many, many owners of hunting retrievers consider them multi-task dogs, me included.
But, that is not where the world of the registries takes us. The most highly priced (and perhaps prized) retrievers in the world are American Field Trial Champions. While these dogs may have the ability to multi-task, the field trial tests are NOT about multi-tasking. They are about control. A dog comes to the line at heel, he may see white-coated gunners out in the field (why white-coated gunners: when have you ever seen white coated gunners in a real hunting situation?).
They are directed, often with hand signals, to retrieve a bird. They are NEVER required to find and then flush and then flush live birds but that is what most of us owning multi-task retrievers ask of our dogs many times.
In U.S. hunting, we don’t usually go to a long line of people holding dogs on leash and/or at heel, wait for birds to be shot, and then ask the dogs to retrieve the birds. Instead, we wait in a duck blind with a couple of people and with the dog, shoot a duck and ask the retriever to retriever. Or we go with a retriever in a field and ask the retriever to find, flush, and then retrieve a shot pheasant. Or we go to a grouse wood, keep our retriever close but still ranging, and then try to get a shot at those wily grouse zooming between tree branches.
Setters used to set: when encountering birds, they would creep/stop along the ground, mesmerizing birds who needed to consider whether to run or fly to avoid a predator, and the hunter would harvest the birds via a net.
With the advent of guns, the necessity of a dog which crept along the ground so the hunter could harvest the birds via a net no longer existed. That is why setters were increasingly bred to point rather than set.
The same occurred with retrievers, which were really spaniels. When men got accurate guns which could kill birds at long distances, the need for a find, flush dog decreased. Men no longer needed to be real up-close to kill a bird. Instead, they could fire away at long distances, kill a bird, and then ask the dog to retrieve.
The problem is some “retriever” breeds retained the old independence and instinct to go out and find and flush birds. Despite what we want to believe, not all breeds designated as retrievers today have the instinct to just stay at heel or get whistled/handled to a fall.
The problem is that Goldens, Curlies, Flats, and Chessies are lumped into the same category as Labradors. That would be like lumping Collies, Pulis, Kuvasz, Corgis and Australian Cattle Dogs into the same category as Border Collies.
While I sometimes hate how independent my Curly Coated Retrievers are, I also value that independence highly. I don’t want to have dogs whose life depends solely on what I direct them to do. I don’t want dogs who are co-dependent or whatever the wordspeak for “Whatever I do is solely dependent on what you do”.
I still want dogs who don’t believe that every thing mankind does is right or correct. I don’t want dogs who always ask me what to do next. I enjoy the interaction, problematic communication, and sheer wildness of dogs who still are not just an attachment or parasitic adjunct of a human.
Of course, I’m odd. I still admire the cow who escapes from the electric fence to taste the sweeter grass, the Buffalo, the crow, the tree that slants dangerously across my driveway, tilting in the wind, broken-branched, a few bunches of leaves at the top, and the way it still weathers the wind.
I guess I admire things who don’t cow tow to all we think is important.
I don’t disagree–except in extent of rhetoric.
Description of the 10th series of the National Retriever Championship.
“Tenth Series: Water Quad with Two Retired and Two Flyers
The Tenth Series consists of a water quad with all ducks in a stick pond. The left short retired flyer, a mallard hen, is thrown angle back to the left at 63 yds. The dogs have short swim and must run through a small patch of woods to the field and bird. The left middle, at 76 yds, is on a short point thrown left toward the woods landing on the point in short cover with a mallard drake. The long retired at 220 yds is thrown left into a sorghum field. There is a long disciplined swim across the pond and then across the field up a slope to the bird, a mallard hen. The right flyer is thrown to the left angle back at approx 85 yds. landing in short cover with a mallard drake. The dogs must enter the water from a dyke with a road on it that splits the pond in two. The temperature is 40 degrees this morning and there is a little frost on the grass. The air is calm and the sun is rising.
We have run a couple of dogs and the test is taking about 14 minutes to run.
Note: The order in which the birds go down in the sketch has changed. The long retired is #1, the right flyer is #2, the short middle bird on the point is #3 and the left flyer is #4.”
Yes, all the birds are dead by the time they hit the ground or water (ideally). Yes, the gunners are in white, and the dogs have ample opportunity to “mark” the bird. That said, I don’t think one can say a test like this can be accomplished by a robot taking directions, and with no game-finding ability.
My flat-coat is a better marker than my Lab, and repeatedly out-marks most Labs in my training groups; my dogs have equally good, but different, scenting abilities; my Lab is FANTASTIC on a moving cripple, as a retriever should be.
I agree field trials are unrealistic to the extreme–but they do not EXCLUDE the trait of independent game-finding to the extent your rhetoric depicts. Field-trial Labs must be gamefinders to win, and without independence in their work ethic are useless.
Once a retriever is trained, “Trust your dog” is the phrase to live by in a test or trial situation, unless it’s a blind retrieve.
“I still want dogs who don’t believe that every thing mankind does is right or correct. I don’t want dogs who always ask me what to do next. I enjoy the interaction, problematic communication, and sheer wildness of dogs who still are not just an attachment or parasitic adjunct of a human.”
I don’t either.
I have yet to see a working Labrador that is a “parasitic adjunct.”
I do see teamwork from time to time–I hope that successful teamwork is not misinterpreted as parasitism.
Insert “great” before teamwork–lost the word in editing.
I find it ironic again that you’re attacking me for defending dog shows, which, I very obviously don’t.
Have you seen my exchange on opening registries with some breeders on here?
Here’s what Teasdale-Buckell said about them (in case you were interested): http://books.google.com/books?id=LlxDAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA177&dq=george+teasdale+buckell+curly-coated+retriever&client=firefox-a#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Keep in mind, that we’re not talking about the same dog. Dogs change so rapidly through the generations that the curly of 1907 is most likely a very different dog than the improved model.
I would love to have open registries, where we could cross dogs for health and working ability.
The golden retriever could certainly stand it, but I will let you speak for your own breed.
Please don’t think I’m your enemy here, I very much agree with you on LOTS of issues from reading your comments!
Harding Cox also had a critique of dog shows, which is in that same book and section:
https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/at-little-tidbit-in-all-that-retriever-history/
It surprises me that this critique existed in that book, because it’s mostly fatuous dog show nonsense.