Cornwall Legh
Among the top flat-coated retriever fanciers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was Lieutenant-Colonel H.M. Cornwall Legh. Colonel Legh was a vice president of the Kennel Club and expert breeder of flat-coat show dogs. He is believed to have produced at least 500 flat-coats in his life time. At a time in which purebred dogs were uncommon, this is a significant number, and his dogs definitely had a major influence on the flat-coated retriever.
Here are some photos of two of his champion flat-coats:
Ch. Pirate
Although liver and red/gold/yellow flat-coats (mostly of the Tweedmouth strain) existed at this time, virtually all show dogs of any merit were black dogs. In working gun dogs, black was the preferred color for a retriever. Both show and field communities had a strong bias against retrievers that were not of a black coloration.
However, the winner of the 1904 International Gun Dog League’s retriever trial was a liver flat-coat named Don of Gerwn. Don of Gerwn’s dam was a liver bitch named Rust, a very celebrated retriever in her own right, and his sire was a dog from the Tweedmouth strain,the strain from which the golden retriever developed and a definite yellow dog.
Don of Gerwn
So while black was the preferred coloration, yellows, reds, and livers still existed. When the yellow coloration for the flat-coat was recognized in 1908, there was hope that the yellow and red dogs would be able to compete on the same level as the black dogs. However, there is very little evidence that these dogs ever did.
Not being able to win, some dedicated fanciers who were breeding dogs of the yellow and red color began working on splitting off this color and making it a separate breed.
And that’s really when the golden retriever as we know it today developed.
