These two Labrador retriever bitches belonged Arthur Holland-Hibbert, 3rd Viscount Knutsford.
The one on the left is Munden Saba. The one standing is Munden Single. Munden Single was the first Labrador retriever to run in a field trial.
Viscount Knutsford sent this photograph to Country Life Illustrated, which published the image and this letter on 26 October 1907:
Sir,
Perhaps you may care to insert the enclosed photograph of two Labrador retriever bitches. The one standing is Munden Single, the other Munden Saba. They are typical of the breed, and I receive so many letters asking me to give the characteristic points of the Labrador, that it occurred to me such a picture might be appreciated by some of your readers.
A. Holland-Hibbert.
Viscount Knutsford was instrumental in getting the Labrador retriever recognized as a distinct breed.
Munden Single was almost entirely of Buccleuch breeding.
The other lines of dog include dogs that were Labradors, but as far as I can tell, the only lines that consisted of only smooth-coated retrievers in Britain are those of the Earls of Malmesbury and the Dukes of Buccleuch. These other lines in the Labrador foundational pedigrees were outcrossed to then the much more common wavy and flat-coated retrievers. Some of these wavy or flat-coated dogs were also referred to as “Labradors,” making research into the pedigrees more than a little difficult.
The fusion of the Malmesbury and Buccleuch lines also included the addition of fresh blood from Newfoundland. The dog called Buccleuch Avon in that pedigree was an import, and all modern Labrador retrievers have him in their pedigrees.
I put the origins of the modern Labrador retriever at the arrival of Avon.
Before that time, the term “Labrador” could have referred to virtually any retriever, and in some cases, even referred to the large Newfoundland dog.
By 1900, the term “Labrador retriever” came to have a very specific meaning.
And once it became more specific, a breed could be developed.
The Kennel Club recognized the Labrador as a specific variety of retriever in 1903, so they were still quite “new” to most people in 1907. One wonders what Viscount Knutsford might think of the Labrador’s progress in the century following publication of his letter!.
I doubt he wouldn’t recognize the breed – the show specimens that is…
Those Netherby dogs tended to have the rounder heads. Saba had some Netherby ancestry.
Oh, did they? Any pictures? Saba’s dam line, however, is quite “Buccleuish”.
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/labrador_retriever/dog.html?id=1031778
I don’t have any pictures.
But George Teasdale-Buckell thought that “night dogs” (bullmastiff) had been crossed into the Netherby Line:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Nb0CAAAAYAAJ&dq=George%20Teasdale%20Buckell%20netherby%20night%20dog&pg=PA191#v=onepage&q&f=false
I believe the Netherby line went back to the 1870’s, but they were “Labradors” as in they were retrievers with Newfoundland/St. John’s water dog ancestry.
Yes, Netherby Kielder’s (1872) parents (Netherby Boatswain x Netherby Nell) go back to dogs from Earl of Home and Duke of Buccleuch.
Is there any other photos of Buccleuch Avon where he doesn´t look old and sick….
Yes, bjarne! If you get hold of “Stud Book of The Duke of Buccluch’s Labrador Retrievers” you’ll find another photo of Avon – standing.
I have the worst sort of dog crush on these St. John’s water dogs.
I wish they hadn’t become extinct!
So what would be the bigg difference between St. John’s water dogs and the modern lab?
Bjarne, what is “the modern lab”? Wouldn’t the answer depend on whether you work/trial, show or just have a pet… ;)
Colonel Hawker (1830) refers to St. John’s “by far the best for any kind of shooting. Their sense of smell is hardly to be credited: in finding wounded game there is not a living equal in the canine race”.
I define the modern Labrador as the dog that developed from the combining of the Buccleuch and Malmesbury strains and some imported St. John’s water dogs.
The one Hawker is talking about is the St. John’s water dog, which was a landrace that varied greatly in appearance. They were called “Labradors” or “Newfoundlands,’ but they were retriever sized. Many of the earlier imports of this retriever-sized water dog, according to Lambert de Boilieu wrote of long-haired dogs of this type, which were being exported to England to found the retrievers:
https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/lambert-de-boilieu-on-the-labrador-dog/
Here’s a depiction of a “Labrador dog” with a long coat– comes from one of the Stonehenge books:
The word “Labrador” was generic in those days. It just referred to a dog that was often used to found strains of retriever that was imported from Newfoundland by merchant and also by the cod fishermen.
The Newfoundlanders were eager to get rid of the feathered dogs. They got too encumbered with ice and retained too much water when working.
Traditional accounts say that the wavy or flat-coated retriever was created by introducing setter to the St. John’s water dog, and I agree with that.
But there are too many feathered dogs that were said to be “pure Labrador.” Further, many of the retrievers with long hair had much thicker, golden retriever-type coats, which you won’t get if you breed a smooth-coated dog to a setter. Setters have much less undercoat than a long-haired retriever.
Smooth coats are dominant. If the majority of the St. John’s water dogs imported to England were smooths, then the majority of retrievers in Britain during the nineteenth century would have been smooth. The laws of population genetics would clearly expect this. But the most common type were the wavy or flat-coated type (not to be necessarily confused with the modern dog of that breed). The smooths were held by just a few people, and they were never mentioned in the early texts on retrievers. Idstone talks about smooth and feathered pups being born in the same litter.
The dog Paris, a wavy-coated retriever, was said to be pure “Labrador” :
https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/paris.jpg?w=426&h=444
He looks like a long-haired Labrador retriever, but I don’t think we’d count him as a Labrador retriever today.
There are a few long-haired dogs within the Labrador retriever breed, but whether these dogs are throwbacks to the Paris type or the result of breeding in flat-coated and golden retrievers, I can’t say.
http://www.gatewaylabs.com/html/long-coated_labradors.html
That’s still a good question though.
The modern Labrador is a bunch of different dogs now. They all have this Buccleuch strain at their core, but they have specialized into so many different forms throughout the world. There are some field-type Labs in the US that don’t have much undercoat at all. There are many pet Labs in the US that are trying to be smooth-coated large Newfoundlands.We have two basic conformation types.
Golden retrievers come in a lot off different types, but they are nothing like Labradors.
This is what you get when you have a breed that is as popular as the Labrador (estimated to be the most common purebred dog in the world) that also has so many uses.
A modern Labrador is many things.
Sure labpack there are many sub types with in the breed .If I had the been thinking of pork hounds (as the swedish FT people calls them) or the more extreme FT typs,I would not have to ask ;-)
But I was thinking more of the DP type .And woundering what qualties Scottie belived they
had that are not present some of the current labtypes
They were usually bred to have white feet. The white feet were believed to be like a lure to fish– so the story goes.
They also always had a thick undercoat, something that too many Labradors today lack.
According to Newfoundlanders, the black water dogs and the black labs are one and the same! Oh wait, they don’t know what a St. John’s Water Dog is. No one seen one for 40 years.
And frankly, their point is quite valid. The differences between the dogs they call “black water dog” [Labrador Retrievers] now compared to what they [St. John’s Water Dog] used to be is nebulous to them. Just one dog got displaced, and another stepped in to replace them– still carrying out the same functions as their ancestors. Only breed historians would care about the difference between the two alike breeds of dogs.
I think of it this way:
St. John’s water dog were like the COO dogs in Salukis and basenjis.
The retrievers are like the AKC conformation dogs in both of those breeds.
Retrieverman, hope you don’t mind my correction but Munden Single was the first labrador to RUN in a field trial. (October 1904, Sherbourne)
FT Ch Flapper was the first labrador to WIN a field trial. (1907, Horstead)
I fixed it :)