This dog comes from the 1915 edition of W.E. Mason’s Dogs of All Nations.
Curlies haven’t changed that much.
One reason is they aren’t very common.
They were fairly common in the early days of retriever standardization, but for reasons of class and the type of trial that developed in Britain, they soon played second fiddle to the flat-coat (including the strains that gave us the golden and helped develop the modern Labrador).
Flat-coats were very popular working estate battue shoots. They were the dogs of gentlemen.
Although curlies were owned by members of the upper class, part of their history was as a poacher’s dog. That’s why Gun Dog Magazine’s most recent article on them calls them “The Blue Collar Retriever.”
The flat-coats, goldens, and Labs always had some peer promoting their breeding. Look at their history and count the number of titled people who were breeding them.
One does not find that same situation with the curly-coat.
However, their very unique coats made them something sensation in the early days of the fancy.
It is often said that this is the oldest breed of retriever, but it is more likely that its age has to do with preserving its unique coat. Crossbreeding this dog with other retrievers means losing that coat, and it very hard to bring it back. So the emphasis would have been to standardize early to preserve the coat.
I don’t think this breed was included in the study on dog coat genes.
They may be an anomaly, just as Afghan hounds are.
The black dog in this video is a Lab/curly cross (the livers are Murray River curlies):
You can see that the curly-coat didn’t survive the cross-breeding.
Afghans do not have the long coat mutation. Whatever they have, however, combines nicely with the long coat mutation that feathered Salukis have, to produce no-so-long coats.
My understanding was that it was the Murray form of the curly retriever that was the poor man’s retrievers. Any brown curly dog was calles a retriever. These were the dogs that accompanied migrants to both Australia and North America. In the northern hemisphere they probably developed into the AWS, and maybe even the CBR. In Australia they became known as Murray River Curly Coated Retrievers.There is documentation going back to the 1840s regarding brown curly dogs in Austrlaia. The standard CCR was the curly of the gentry. These too were in Australia early.
I find that the CCR has a certain aloofness about them yet are highly intelligent and devoted to their families. My late CCR and my current CCRxlab are’Mummy” dogs…they mother all the family and their pack. In fact Maggie who is in the video is now a recognised assistance or service dog.
In Maggie’s litter some of her litter mates had more curly coats.
I would not say that flats were easier to handle or better retrievers. Certainly friendlier but here probably even rarer that CCRs… Their coats probably need more care with regular brushing than a CCR(yearly trim) maybe they seem more popular as they are Peter Pan dogs i.e. never seem to grow up.