MRS mentioned that the Bedlington terriers could have derived from crosses with water spaniels. This is something I have long suspected.
It is well known, though, that Bedlington terriers are close relatives of the Dandie Dinmonts. For a while, Bedlingtons and Dandies could be born in the same litter. However, Bedlingtons have what is called a “linty” coat, which is quite a bit different from the Dandie’s more typical terrier coat.
It seems logical that this Bedlingtons have some other things in them besides the whippet that everyone assumes is there. The water spaniel, poodle, or Barbet type water dog connection must be considered.
Bedlingtons come from Northumberland, which is the northernmost part of England. It has a close connection to adjacent Scotland.
The town of Berwick-upon-Tweed is in Northumberland. It is the northernmost town in England. It has changed between Scotland and England for centuries, when Scotland and England were full separate kingdoms.
It is also the place that Dudley Marjoriebanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth, represented as an MP.
On the Northumberland coasts and that of the Scottish borders, there were water dogs and water spaniels. One of these was the oft-mentioned (at least this blog) Tweed water spaniel or Tweed water dog. It had some influence from Newfoundland-type dogs, which is why it so closely resembled retrievers.
But before that dog evolved, there was probably a water spaniel type that more closely resembled a what we imagine a water spaniel looking and behaving like.
It is likely that the water spaniels that were crossed into Bedlington were of this type.
And it is possible that these dogs are in some way distantly connected to the golden retriever.
This is, of course, a bit speculative, but it is worth considering.
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I hope this scene could be enjoyed while it still could.
It will not be long before the tar balls show up on Miami Beach.
And there are very few places in that part of the world that allow dogs on the beach anyway.
I’m not sure the video proves anything. I’ve seen plenty of dogs doing this on the California coast. Some are retrievers, but a lto are shepherds, etc. There is a Terv that’s a top “dock dog” and before that there was a Malinois. Here’s a video of water retrieve with a Malinois found with a quick google search:
Scotland had a lot of ties with France before and after Elizabethan period. It isn’t that big a stretch of the imagination that one of those “poodle” type dogs from France/Germany/Netherlands made it’s way there.
While there have been a number of canine cladistic studies done, I really haven’t seen one that takes a seriously large number of a given breed (say 30 or more) and compares it to another. It might be very interesting to see what the Bedlington actually has. Unfortunately, there is all too often a tendency to conclude before evidence is all in — thus the back and forth on Neanderthal/H.Sapiens interbreeding. Simply using MTdna or a few “key” genes fails to give the entire picture of how related a breed may or may not be to another.
VR, Peggy Richter
Yeh, not the video alone proves anything. Some of the canine literature in the 1800-century mark that the Bedlington really differs from other terriers by his aquatic skills and will.