This dog was owned by Grantley Berkeley and was painted by Abraham Cooper, who, as a young man, worked for Sir Henry Meux. Meux owned the Meux Brewery in London, which Dudley Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth, purchased from him. One of Meux’s black retrievers appears in the pedigrees of the retrievers kept at Guisachan, so this unusual retrieving greyhound did have some interesting connections. (Meux is pronounced “Myooks.”)
Cooper was famous as painter of dogs and horses, and Smoaker was far from the only retriever he painted.
On the occasion of Smaoker’s death in 1832, Cooper describes him in a letter to the editor The New Sporting Magazine:
Mr. Editor,
I Was much grieved to read in your last number an account of the death of the Hon. Grantley Berkeley’s dog Smoaker, whose performances I have frequently witnessed—and very clever they were; added to which, a more magnificent animal was never seen, especially when employed as a retriever. The style with which he took his fences, clearing the highest at a single bound, cannot be surpassed.
The first time I saw him do this, was one day when out shooting with the Hon. Moreton and Grantley Berkeley, at Cranford, when,having just killed a cock pheasant, Mr. G. B. exclaimed, ” Now, Cooper, if you wish to see something beautiful, and worthy a painter’s notice, observe Smoaker as he comes out of the cover with your bird;” and it certainly was a treat; the rich and varied plumage of the pheasant, contrasted with the white colour of the dog, and the whole so admirably relieved by the sombre dark wood, made an impression on my mind which I hope will never be erased. On my return home I made a slight sketch, which, though it does not come up to my ideas of the beauty of the subjects, yet, in the absence of Nature herself, I hope will prove acceptable to your numerous readers. Mr. Editor,
Your obedient servant,
A. Cooper, R. A.
Smoaker was well-known in his day. His exploits were described in another letter:
I forward you an account of Smoaker, a celebrated Deer Greyhound of the old English sort, famed alike for his speed and courage when in pursuit of deer, as for his qualities in retrieving to the gun all sorts of lesser game ; he was the property of the Honorable GrantleyBerkeley, and died of old age, on the 19th of this month, at Harrold Hall, Bedfordshire, aged fifteen years. Smoaker was originally purchased by Mr. Berkeley of a Farmer residing at Burnham, near Maidenbead, when about two years old, and was one of the largest and finest dogs ever seen. As a proof of his great muscular strength, his neck was so large that he never could be chained up, having the power of slipping the collar whenever it pleased him over his head. Shortly after he came into Mr. Berkeley’s possession, be was, for greater safety, kept locked up in a granary at Cranford, from whence an attempt was soon made, by some person well acquainted with tho dog, to steal him; he was safely locked up at nine at night, and at about three the next morning was found barking under his former
Master’s window at Burnham, a distance of fourteen miles.
What gave rise to the suspicion that an attempt had been made to steal him, was, that on the day previous to this, a man had been inquiring at the Keeper’s Lodge, where the dog was kept, and it has since been thought that Smoaker escaped from the person who stole him and returned thus to his former home. After this he was scarcely ever separated from Mr. Berkeley, and from his extraordinary qualities in the field and docility in the house, he became a welcome guest at all houses where the sporting arrangements of his master required his presence, travelling in his carriage and sleeping in his room.
Smoaker has frequently singlehanded coursed, brought to bay, and pulled down a Royal Hart, and has twice been severely wounded by the antlers ; once in particular he coursed a stag in Hamstead Park, a seat of Lord Craven, from which the deer broke into the open country, but was brought to bay in the river, and here the stag had the advantage, the water being deep enough to cause the dog to swim, yet sufficiently shallow to enable the stag to make use of all his powers; Smoaker was severely wounded in the body, and was only saved by the presence of mind of Mr.
Cary, a servant of Mr. Berkeley, who happened to be on the spot, and who ran in and caught the dog as he was again attacking the deer, and thus saved his life; the deer was secured, being so exhausted that he would not leave the water. Smoaker in his capacity of retriever was pronounced by his late Royal Highness the Duke of York to be one of the cleverest dogs of the sort he had ever seen; his nose was’ remarkably fine, and the way in which he used to mark where a bird fell was wonderful. An instance of this was seen on the Downs at Ashdown Park (Lord Craven’s); Mr. Berkeley had killed a brace of Partridges, but the bird from the first barrel had flown some distance, towered, and fallen in some standing barley without any perceptible object to mark the place, whereas the second bird was killed dead; the dog first picked up the second bird, and then, though he must have had his eyes off the spot where the first bird fell, he ran directly to within a yard of where it lay, though at a considerable distance, and picked up that also. In the house his sagacity was also remarkable, if his master was not in his shooting-dress he never showed any desire to follow him, unless called ; and if he went out on horseback, the dog invariably used to go up stairs to a passage window which commanded a view of the different roads and watch the direction his master took; he would then return quietly to the drawing-room, and sit or walk out with Mrs. Berkeley till his master’s return. If his master left the house without his being aware of it he would not rest until, accompanied by Mrs. Berkeley, he had looked into every room in the house, scratching at all the doors till they were opened for him, and when he had ascertained that his master was not to be found, he would then return and remain quietly as usual. It was also curious to see his different ways of finding out if his master had left the house, either at home or in any house where he mighthappen to be a guest. If he missed Mr. Berkeley he used to go into the hall and examine all the hats, and if he found his master’s he would contentedly lay down and watch; but if not, and he knew that his master was dressed for shooting, he was always uneasy, returning to the drawingroom and seeming to wish to look over the house. He was an excellent water dog, but at times if the river was slightly frozen and the ice annoyed him in crossing to fetch any bird that had fallen on the other side, he would on his return go round by the bridge, and on strange ground, would frequently run to any object that looked like a bridge, and though in doing this he had sometimes to jump over fences, yet he always brought the bird, whether snipe or any thing else, as clean as when it was killed. For sagacity and good temper Smoaker has never been surpassed, and his great attachment to his master and mistress was duly appreciated by both ; when they went from home without him, as was but rarely the case, he used to live in the same rooms as when they were at home, as nothing but force could induce him to take up his residence either in the kitchen or offices. One thing is worthy of remark, which is that nothing could ever induce this dog to fetch and carry either a glove, stick, or any thing else, whether thrown into the water or not, such inducements to make him swim he always appeared to treat with contempt, but if the smallest bird or even a rat was in the water he would swim any distance to fetch it.
There are now in Mr. Berkeley’s possession three descendants of Smoaker, called Shark, Skim and Snake, the former a yellow dog, the other two white with a spot like the sire. Shark is an excellent Deer Greyhound and retriever, and has succeeded his sire in the field and in the house; he is of great size but not so large as Smoaker; the others are bitches and have entered to deer only. To give those who have never seen Smoaker in idea of his size, I need only say that when standing by the dining table his head was six or seven inches above it, and when standing on his hind legs he could place his forefeet with ease on a person’s shoulders, standing above six feet in height.
Grantley Berkeley wrote Smoaker the following epitaph:
And dost thou wonder why beneath this shade,
A lonely tombstone stands upon the green,
And wherefore near it others are not made
To add their silent numbers to the scene ?
‘Tis answer’d thus—No hallow’d ground appears,
No land allotted to the human clay,
If sacred—’tis alone from sorrow’s tears
Shed fast for one but lately pass’d away;
For one whose walk through life was in the light,
Who held no bitter passions in his breast,
Who had no envy in his heart to blight
Or man or woman from a place of rest.
One who was beautiful without conceit,
Was brave not boastful in his given pow’rs,
Who never cloak’d intention with deceit,
Or kept revenge for favourable hours.
Then reader listen here, beneath this mound,
A noble dog is stretch’d upon his lair,
Like man he mingles with the common ground,
But where his spirit ?—echo answers—where ?
The lips of beauty n’er again shall press
The head that here lies buried in repose,
Or soft hand sooth with lingering caress
The faithful crest that bristled on her foes.
The antler’d monarch of the waste may browse
Upon the wilds in safety and be still,
The Hound is dead who could so nobly rouse
The bounding red Deer by the mountain rill.
Now, Smoaker was described as a deer greyhound. That means that he was bit larger than the typical hare-coursing greyhound. These dogs had to be quite a bit tougher and more stoutly built than the dogs that merely ran down hares or rabbits. He was often set upon the deer on his own, which meant that really had to have a great deal of speed and strength to be successful in his pursuits.
The fact that he could do the work of a deer-coursing and retriever work points to the intelligence of this dog. Many dog experts will tell you that any dog that knows how to use its jaws for the kill can never be used to retrieve. The dog will become hardmouthed and will kill those animals it is sent to retrieve. Some of Raymond Coppinger’s theories on dog behavior require dogs to be motor pattern dependent in their predatory behavior. Retrievers can never learn to kill because their predator motor patterns are distorted away from the killing bite part of the predatory sequence. However, nearly all German HPR breeds retrieve and point birds and small game– and hunt wild boar, foxes, and deer. And Smoaker was a greyhound who was similarly multi-talented.
It is certainly true that Smoaker’s behavior is a little different from a normal retriever, which will start carrying objects of all sorts from an early age. It appears that Smoaker had no time for that foolishness and focused all of his retrieving birds and mammals. Perhaps it was because of his prowess as a deer-courser that made him ignore objects that were thrown for him.
At any rate, Smoaker was truly an interesting animal. In a time when “retriever” was a job description and not a breed, Smoaker would have been at home with the terriers, terrier crosses, and collie-type dogs that were being used along with more traditional gun dog and retrieving breeds for this task.
If it could retrieve shot game, it was a retriever, and the way to produce more was to breed two retrieving dogs together. Never mind the ancestry.
And for that reason, virtually any kind of dog could be deep within the ancestry of the dogs we now call retrievers.
It was quite an experimental time, and every retriever person had his own recipe to produce the best dogs.
In that respect, they were more like the lurchers of the poaching commoners or the modern day racing sled dogs. Breed for performance, not pedigree, and see what you get.
Of course, I don’t know how many retrieving greyhounds there were. Shark, Smoaker’s son, apparently had his sire’s retrieving talents, but I do not know of any other accounts of a greyhound being used as a retriever.
A retrieving greyhound is not what anyone would have expected. When I first saw the depiction, I thought he was some sort of large terrier cross, but when I found out the particulars of his story, I was amazed.
Those old sporting gentleman were truly open to experimentation– even using a dog that killed his quarry to pick up shot birds.
An amazing story of a truly remarkable dog.
I think if you get a dog – any dog who is not too hesitating to learn new – to see how satisfying retrieving can be, the dog will soon be hooked. For dogs, retrieving killed pray may be something like robbing for kleptomaniac people.
It also fullfills their basic needs to “store” resources.
In this point of view, the story about that greyhound is not so suprising. Still not saying that he wasn’t a special hound.
I’ve heard of more than a few lurchers, longdogs, and even Salukis that will retrieve to hand.
I have found more to this story.
I liked when you took the artist Cooper with the story. He kinda was a special retriever drawer. Was he just in the right place in the right time – or rather, he may have known those new dogs and their people personally.
He knew them.
Apparently, all of these landed gentry liked to have their dogs and horses painted.
Many purebred sighthounds will retrieve both kills and objects with little or no training. None or few coursing dogs in this country (USA) are trained to retrieve but many will do so naturally. I have seen many dogs of many breeds retrieve caught jackrabbits, in one case two greyhounds brought back one jackrabbit together. One dog was carrying the jackrabbit by the head, the other dog had the bottom. The jack was dead, of course.
Zac
Thanks for sending me this link. What a great story! I had a greyhound that would have been an awesome “retriever”. Travis loved to retrieve especially in the water and he dock jumped. He loved his dead fowl trainer. Unlike my other greyhounds who were all trained to retrieve for a treat, Travis retrieved from day 1 just for the sheer joy of it. He’s been gone over two years now and I don’t think I’m likely to see another like him… but at least he was mine.
Jen
Coppinger generalizes too much–there are ALWAYS exceptions to any rule you can come up with! My own present Greyhound/Saluki cross longdog retrieves quite well and naturally soo–I didn’t do any purposeful training to get him to do it. And of course, as mentioned, lurchers are valued as retrievers, and most do not have traditional retriever breeds in their backgrounds(as in the collie or terrier/greyhound crosses). And as I mentioned before, I had a wolf hybrid with no retriver blood at all that caught, killed, and retrieved all manner of critters with no training other than encouragement and praise when he did so. Wolves regularly bring food items to denning pack members, and even to trapped individuals, so retrieving of some sort is a very old and basic instinct. Coppinger’s notion that retrievers don’t kill is DEAD wrong(pun intended!)–I’ve known some quite murderous labs and goldens in my day(though it isn’t typical), that readily and efficiently killed wild animals and livestock! And other dog types don’t necessarily mutilate what they retrieve by being “hard-mouthed”–that is very variable and individual! Non-typical retrievers HAVE been taught otherwise throughout hunting history, but of course Coppinger doesn’t seem to do much actual research, so he WOULDN’T know of this……
Yeah, in the past, when hunters of small pray and fishermen kept dogs, they choose the ones to go on the line who liked the water like Travis. Some of the early dogs in Newfoundland looked a bit like Travis or Smoaker. Greyhounds were in great use there, since there were tons of hares. Even in Labrador one early English fur trademan Cartwright hunted with his Grey, in the late 1700s.
Sorry, late to the discussion. My Hancock lurcher Plummer (1/2 greyhound, half bearded X border) has always retrieved game, mostly jacks, naturally, and will also fetch toys though at will rather than command. (He looks pretty greyhound FWIW).
Most of my salukis (tazis) retrieve and the ones that don’t most likely just give it up to the more dominant females who do (;-). As I have recently blogged they do double duty as bird dogs in Kazakhstan.
ALL are soft mouthed and yield nicely, though God help any feathered game the dachshund gets.
I agree w/ Lane about much of Coppinger theory.
Dachshunds have been trained as retrievers.
http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2009/07/water-dachshunds-yes-they-can-swim-and.html
In Germany, this is a relatively common task for them. They use wire-hairs, probably because they have a touch of barbet or poodle in them.
The working type dachshunds I’ve seen actually have legs.
My dad had standard smooth when he was growing up that was the ultimate hunting dog, going after grouse, rabbit, and squirrels. Norwegian elkhounds are good multipurpose hunting dogs. They will flush a bird and learn to stay in close, but they aren’t good retrievers.
I doubted the part about hunting dogs being motor pattern dependent, but I generally agreed with Coppinger until I began to see evidence that his dates were all off and that hunter-gatherer people were more than capable of making pets of all sorts of wild animals.
The Yagan people of Tierra del Fuego, who were hunter gatherers, actually domesticated the culpeo “fox,’ and turned it into a hunting dog. The Yagan culpeo dog was actually larger than the wild culpeo and was useful in hunting in the water and setting nets.
Lily the dachs is a wirehair mini from Teddy Moritz’s German hunting stock, with legs, old now but in her day a serious hunter. But hard- mouthed!