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by Scottie Westfall

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« Bulldogs are great water dogs, eh?
The spoon dog »

Lambert De Boilieu on the “Labrador dog”

April 1, 2011 by SWestfall3

The Labrador dog, let me remark, is a bold fellow, and, when well taught, understands, almost as well as any Christian biped, what you say to him.

Lambert De Boilieu, Recollections of Labrador Life (1861), pg. 172-173.

This first quote is known to virtually every Labrador retriever historian and fancier. I’ve seen it quoted in countless books, but it seems me that, after reading the accounts of these dogs in their native land, that most Labrador retriever people have not read the whole thing.

Boilieu was a mercantile agent in Labrador (not Newfoundland) in the early 1850’s. He became intimately familiar with the hard-working water curs and their many uses. Within his account, one finds some interesting tidbits:

During winter, for want of horses, dogs are used for the purpose of conveying all sorts of produce to and from the bays, as well as for pleasure. Some are trained as retrievers, watch, house, and water dogs. Still they are all of the same breed. The retriever is well known in England, but I fancy the duty of the Labrador watch-dog is little if at all understood. In the summer and fall, then, many stray ducks may be seen frequenting the small bays round the islands; the watch-dog lands with you, and, with much caution, examines the shore, and directly he observes ducks, he will instantly lie down and crawl out of their sight, then immediately rise and run towards you, when by his actions you may be sure he has sighted a company. He leads the way, and when in the vicinity of the birds, down he crouches, and you must do the same. Should you be over-eager, and fire at too great a distance, and miss your birds, the dog looks towards them for a moment, as if reflecting!—” It’s no use going into the water, he has not killed any,”—and stands still. If, on the other hand, you have a good shot— killing, say, half-a-dozen, and crippling three or four—in he bounds, leaving the dead birds and giving chase to the cripples. If they are wounded in the wings they swim with difficulty, and cannot dive, and so become an easy spoil. The dog has the instinct to know this, for he wastes but little time in the pursuit. It constantly arises that the spot from whence the ducks are shot is, at least, ten feet perpendicular from the water; sportsmen provide themselves in such instances with what is termed a “gunning gaff,” some twelve feet long, with an iron crook at the end, made in the shape of a shepherd’s crook. The dog brings a duck at a time under the rock; you place the crook round its neck, and draw it up or land it. The last bird the dog retains in his mouth, and allows himself to be drawn up in a somewhat scientific manner; that is to say, having seized the. bird firmly across the wings he swims under the rock, and allows his master to place the hook through his collar at the back of the neck; then placing his paws against the rock, and throwing his weight on the gaff, he gracefully walks up and lands his game; did be not retain it in the operation in all probability he would be choked. Of a fine day I have seen these dogs near the landwash amusing themselves fishing, diving six or seven feet, and bringing up a fish every time. Their mode of diving is not direct, but spiral.

It has been said a goose is a foolish bird, and certainly the geese of Labrador are very foolish indeed. They are found some miles up the bays, and when discovered the dog uses a simple artifice to decoy them. Near the shore (the neighbourhood of a small wood, with goose-grass in the foreground, is their favourite resort) he rushes out of the wood into the water and swims some eight or ten yards, with head low and-tail out—looking something like a water-fowl—then comes back to the shore, and so continues until he fancies they are within shot, when he quietly waits by your side watching your gun, and, by his looks, showing his anxiety to see the flash. Then off he goes and secures his birds, and lands them at your feet.

The house-dog has a peculiar sagacity. I trained one to keep house in a noiseless manner. If myself or steward was not at home, and a visitor called, the dog would allow him to walk in, sit down, light and smoke his pipe, as if unconscious of his presence; but if the visitor attempted to leave the house the dog was up in an instant, and, placing himself in the doorway, showed a set of teeth of dazzling but appalling whiteness. The frightened fellow again returns and takes his seat, the dog once more lies down, and thus the pair are seen on the return of one of the household. A visitor once served that way takes care to look through the window on his next call, to see if any one is at home. The dogs sent to England, with rough shaggy coats, are useless on the coast; the true-bred and serviceable dog having smooth, short hair, very close and compact to the body. I sent to England a fine specimen of these, but unfortunately the vessel which bore it had the misfortune to be wrecked on the north coast of Ireland, and all hands were lost (pg. 239-244).

The first account of the retrievers being “gaffed” up as the returned from retrieves is a testament to how tough these ancestral retrievers were. It also would have been a selection pressure for hard mouth, for a dog that would hold onto anything while going through that procedure would have to have a good grip on what it was retrieving.

However, it is very interesting to note that Boilieu observed first hand what I have inferred had to have happened with long-haired puppies that were born on Newfoundland.  My inference came from the paucity of accounts smooth-coated retrievers in England in the nineteenth century. Because the smooth coat is dominant to the feathered coat, one would have thought that the majority of retrievers in Britain would have been short-haired. That is not what we see. The feathered wavy-coated retriever was the most common retriever in Britain during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is sometimes suggested that the feathering came from setters that were crossed with these dogs, but the simple rules of population genetics say that this is unlikely. If the smooth-coated dogs were bred to setters, the majority of the dogs that resulted from those crosses would have been short-haired.  But that is not what the historical record shows.

But Boilieu actually saw these long-haired dogs being exported to England. As a mercantile agent in Labrador, he was in the business of exports and imports, so he knew what the people of Newfoundland and Labrador valued.

Boilieu clearly understood that these working dogs in Newfoundland were the same breed that was being widely used as a retriever in England, so to the average British person, the word “Labrador” very often referred to a long-haired dog, but in Labrador and Newfoundland, it referred to the dog with the otter’s coat. That explains why the later dogs on Newfoundland were mostly of this short-haired type.

The ancestral retriever, the St. John’s water dog or “Labrador,” was the ultimate working and hunting dog. It had evolved to work in the wild frontier that included wild, game-filled forests and one of the most productive marine ecoystems in the world. These tough and  intelligent dogs– dogs of common settlers and fisherman– are the ancestors of all of our retrievers, which worked the shooting estates of the landed gentry in Britain.

They were forged in the wild country and then refined in the genteel motherland.

Born paupers, they became princes. And then became the beloved family pets we know today.

Related posts:

  • Paris was a long-haired St. John’s water dog
  • More long-haired St. John’s water dogs
  • Windham and Jet

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Posted in Newfoundland, Retriever history, St. John's Water Dog | Tagged Flat-coated retriever, Labrador retriever, Retriever history, St. John's Water Dog, wavy-coated retriever | 15 Comments

15 Responses

  1. on April 2, 2011 at 7:41 am Bunnies!

    “but if the visitor attempted to leave the house the dog was up in an instant, and, placing himself in the doorway, showed a set of teeth of dazzling but appalling whiteness. ”

    That’s interesting. I always felt that two of my Goldens would do exactly that. They’d happily let you in, but God help you if you wanted to then leave. Neither is at all aggressive and is a delight around kids, babies, dogs, puppies, but they both seem to have a sense of “this is allowed” and “maybe not this”. At the other extreme I have one that never barks at people coming to the door, as he has yet to see a reason to, and two that would have done the typical, “oh hi, can you feed me and/or toss a ball for me?”


  2. on April 2, 2011 at 11:03 am M.R.S.

    The photograph used here is, I believe, from Richard Wolter’s beautifully done book, “The Labrador Retriever — The History, The People”. One of the last living water dogs in Newfoundland.


    • on April 2, 2011 at 11:20 am retrieverman

      Here are the last two from that book:


    • on April 2, 2011 at 11:29 am retrieverman

      It’s also a source for some of he high-set ears we see sometimes in Labrador and golden retrievers.


  3. on April 2, 2011 at 11:26 am retrieverman

    Footage of another one here:

    http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/literature/clips/14934/

    Albert was the real deal. He was born at La Poile, which isn’t very far from Burgeo, where Mowat lived for several years.

    The other dog name Vicky was a Labrador cross. Get the theme behind the names?

    Mowat did try to save these dogs from extinction:

    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1089396/index.htm

    Both Pierre Trudeau and Soviet Premier Kosygin wound up with Albert’s puppies.


  4. on April 2, 2011 at 8:49 pm Bill

    I wonder when it became unsporting to shoot a half dozen ducks sitting on the water with one load from the fowling piece?


    • on April 2, 2011 at 8:53 pm retrieverman

      When it became a sport and not part of someone’s livelihood or survival.

      Those fowl mean sustenance.

      This wasn’t Sir Bufton and his foppish gents out for a weekend shoot.

      And we Americans adopted that system from the Brits, not the settlers of Newfoundland.


    • on June 6, 2013 at 7:37 am retrieverman

      I have a similar post coming up about grouse.

      I think it’s when we adopted the English wing-shooting ethic, sometime around 1900.


    • on June 6, 2013 at 7:37 am retrieverman

      Phil Robertson doesn’t follow that rule, BTW.


  5. on February 4, 2012 at 8:06 pm A St. John’s water dog from Norway « The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife Blog

    […] golden and flat-coated retrievers, were developed from St. John’s water dogs with long hair. Lambert de Boilieu wrote that mid-nineteenth century Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were eager t…, where they likely found work as […]


  6. on April 5, 2012 at 9:52 am Debating retriever recipes and the merits of dog shows « The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife Blog

    […] preferred smooth coated dogs to work in the water and to haul loads and hunt in the snow. The long-haired ones were sent to Britain, where they became the foundation for the giant Newfoundland.  Those that were used as retrievers […]


  7. on August 1, 2012 at 9:21 pm The ancestral Newfoundland « The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife Blog

    […] but the fishermen of Newfoundland and Labrador were eager to get rid of the feathered ones, as Lambert De Boilieu pointed […]


  8. on November 28, 2012 at 7:43 am The aquatic dog theory « The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife Blog

    […] It was actually selected for this coat; any dogs that were born with feathering were shipped off to Europe. […]


  9. on May 7, 2013 at 8:27 am Red and white retriever with partridge | The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife Blog

    […] The dog looks to be of St. John’s water dog extraction. It has the robust build of that breed, and like many that were imported into the UK during the early nineteenth century, it has feathering. […]


  10. on June 6, 2013 at 7:34 am Golden retrievers don’t have bloodhound in them | The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife Blog

    […] Lambert De Boilieu on the “Labrador dog” […]



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