Canis lupus hominis

The following passage shows how old this debate in retrievers actually is. In North America, we prefer something more like the automaton type, which might be better called “retrieving with a guided canine missile.” In Europe, the preference is for dogs that have traits that Berkeley associates with the “real” retriever. And in case you couldn’t tell from the connotations of the terms, Berkeley prefers “real” retrievers over automatons.

The passage on these two different ideas about what a retriever should be can be found in Anecdotes of The Upper Ten Thousand: Their Legends and Their Lives, Volume 1 (1867):

Since the loss of my long-tried friend, and old favourite retriever, ” Brutus,” I have been looking everywhere to find some intelligent active young dog to take his place. So far as the duties attached to it go, his place in my affectionate remembrance cannot so readily be filled up. An old, or what is called a thoroughly-broken retriever, I did not desire ; because, ten to one but I should have had as much to unlearn him from as to learn him : for men, masters, and keepers, have some very odd ideas about what a retriever should do, from many of which I dissent in toto.

There are what I call automaton retrievers, and there are real retrievers, who only work when they think that something is really lost, and on purpose to recover whatever is lost, and to bring it to their masters.

The automaton dog is one who picks up by eye, or who hunts for anything by his master’s voice or hand alone, and not of his own knowledge or by his nose. The automaton dog has been used to bring gloves, sticks, hats, or handkerchiefs, or to swim into the water after impossible-to-be retrieved stones.

The real retriever ought never to have been sent to fetch any imperishable thing ; he ought only to have had fur and feathered things in his mouth, alive or dead, which he had learned to know would be spoiled if he bit them too hard. I have had retrievers who would not bring game, if there was no obstacle between me and the thing that was killed; who would look at the fallen bird, hare, or rabbit, and say, as plain as a dog could say, ” There’s your game—no difficulty about it; pick it up yourself.” On the contrary, if whatever was killed fell into water, or the other side of water, or into a wood, or the other side of a wall or hedge, then the sensible dog, thinking that his master could not get it without his aid, would hasten at once to recover it, and bring it to the bag. I have known a dog mark a wounded pheasant, that flew a considerable distance, when, as other pheasants were falling, he remained at my heels, ready to work through all the immediate fun, but in perfect remembrance of the distant and probably dead bird. When we beat the cover out, and the word ” All out!” was given, then, without being told to do so, he absented himself, went to the spot he had marked half an hour before, and returned with the dead bird.

Now that is thought, and industry of the brain as well as nose; and it is to these reasoning qualities that we should address ourselves when educating a retriever.

I have known my dogs, who have been used to be at my heels summer and winter among the game, absolutely rebuke me by their looks when I shot a white rabbit; and though “Wolf” went over the fence in expectation of a rabbit, on coming to the colour which he had seen was never shot at, and as to which he had received a caution not to hunt, he regarded me with a look of sorrowful surprise, and refused to touch the thing that I had sent him for. The same dog, on my lawn at Teffont, in Wiltshire, was sent by me to hunt a rabbit out of a circular flower-bed, a long way from any of the coops where pheasants were being reared by hand. He went a little way in, but returned at once to my heels, looking very sheepish, and refused to hunt it out. I saw at once that there was some reason for this refusal: I knew it by his look and manner, so went to see what it was. There was a lot of the earliest young pheasants there; he had often lain by my gun among them, and seen them fed, and knew that they were never to be disturbed; and hence his refusal to go near them after the rabbit.

The same, only a year ago (1865), with poor old ” Brutus.” A young cock pheasant had been caught in a vermin-trap, and had left a leg behind him. I happened to see this fine young cock bird in full plumage the next day, away from all other game, and shot him. At a sign ” Brutus ” jumped the fence, and ran up to the bird, not dead, but hit in the head and fluttering strongly about the ground. The instant he saw that it was a pheasant, on land where he had seen them reared and taken care of, he let fall his stern, and stood and gazed at me with a mournful expressien in his eyes, not attempting to touch the bird, but evidently hurt at what he thought an accident. On being assured by me that I wished for the bird, he brought it; but in so tender and remarkable a manner, so unlike the proud way he used to bring things that had fallen to the gun, that it was perfectly evident that he thought the bird was wanted in an endeavour to save its life. My famous “Smoker” would not follow a winged and running pheasant into the corner of a wood at Cranford, where there was a great deal of game that had not yet risen. So that my brother sportsmen by these instances will see, that dogs have only to be sensibly treated to become as sensible, or more so, than some of their masters ; and there is just as much difference in the really good retriever and the automaton fetch-and-carry dog, as there is between a fool and a sensible man.

Perhaps among the most ignorant things done, and that, too, by men whose lives have been passed among game and dogs, is the one of taking a retriever up to the spot on which a bird had fallen, and then the man not being able to pick up the bird himself, will call the dog back fifty times if he goes on elsewhere to look for it. And that, too, on ground on which, if the dead bird had been there, there was no reason why the man should not see it and pick it up. Often have I been so enraged at this ignorance, that, whether they have been my servants or those of other people, I have exclaimed on seeing them call the dog back, ” Let him alone, you fool! If the bird was there, you’d see it; if the bird is not there, he must have run on; and how the devil can the dog retrieve it, unless you let him alone ? He must know better than you do what he is about, because on such an occasion his nose is better than your eyes or head (pg. 8o-85).

The only part I see as a bit strange about the “real” retriever is that it pick up only game– even when being trained. In general, this is not how retrievers are trained, and it would require the dog to have a great deal of exposure to lots of shot game on a regular basis. That luxury could certainly be available to a shooting Victorian sportsman, but it is one that most mere moderns simply cannot have for their dogs. So the dogs are trained with objects and then introduced to birds.

However, I do think much can be said about the automaton aspect of many modern retrievers, especially within our North American retriever culture, which values nothing more than a dog running out on a bee-line to pick up a mark hundreds of yards out. Such a dog is impressive and very difficult to train. It takes many years of work to turn a dog into one these high performance animals.

But it is very much more likely to have the aspect of the automaton rather the dog that hunts with “industry of brain as well as nose.”  The latter could be an asset in many situations, but it is simply not valued in North American retriever trials or within the culture at large.

It also takes many years to perfect the kind of retriever Berkeley preferred, but much of the dog’s education is learned on the job.  The trainer and handler merely teach the dog obedience and manners, but the actual mechanics and techniques of the retrieve are learned while the dog is being used. Over time, the dog learns what wounded game is likely to do and acts accordingly. Such things are nearly impossible for a human to teach a dog. It must learn them by doing.

But because of how the “real” retriever  develops, it is much more individualized and specific, it is more difficult to evaluate it using an objective standard. Such a dog might be a superb hunting dog, but it becomes very difficult to make comparisons about dogs. If one doesn’t care much for comparison and competition,  it shouldn’t matter at all.

I should also note that two of the dogs mentioned in this piece were somewhat unorthodox retrievers. Smoker was a “deer greyhound, ” and Wolf was his grandson. Wolf’s mother was a Newfoundland of some sort. Neither of these dogs picked up non-game objects for fun. They only retrieved shot game, which may tincture some of Berkeley’s commentary about letting dogs retrieve non-game objects.

However, Berkeley’s commentary is still interesting, for it shows a very similar delineation to the schism of sorts that exists within the modern retriever culture.

This is an old debate.

And it hasn’t be solved yet.

Nor will it ever.