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Golden retrievers are not ovtcharka/bloodhound crosses

Posted in golden retriever history, Retriever history, tagged Caucasian Ovtcharka, Central Asian ovtcharka, golden retriever, golden retriever history, ovtcharka, Russian Tracker on May 10, 2013 | 15 Comments »

038

I know of only one case in the history of the modern dog fancy in which a fanciful story of a dog breed origin was rejected.

And that is with the golden retriever.

For first half the twentieth century, golden retrievers were said to have the following origin:

The Golden Retriever is a descendant of an old breed of dogs known as trackers, which are native to Asiatic Russia. Russian trackers are huge dogs measuring about 30 inches at the shoulder and often weighing 100 pounds. The breed serves man in a variety of ways in its homeland, among which, it is reported, is to guard isolated flocks of sheep in winter with great steadfastness and courage. According to the American Kennel Club, the circumstances leading to the development of the Golden Retriever breed primarily from tracker stock are as related below.

In 1860, Sir Dudley Marjoribanks watched the performance of a troupe of Russian tracker dogs at a circus in Brighton, England. He was impressed by the intelligence shown by these dogs and, reasoning that this could be put to good use in the field, he purchased the entire troupe of eight dogs and took them to his seat in the Guischan deer forest in Scotland. Here they were bred without out-crossing for 10 years, but there was no game in Scotland suitable to their size, and in about 1870 plans were abandoned to establish the breed in its original form.

The Golden Retriever is a powerfully built dog with a rich, golden-colored coat. Fine retrievers and agreeable companions, dogs of this breed are gaining in popularity in Illinois and the Middle West.

At this time the Russian trackers were crossed with Bloodhounds. There is no record of crosses with other breeds, and only one generation of Bloodhound crosses is reported, but the descendants appear, on the basis of photographic records and notes, to have soon developed into the present Golden Retriever type, whose characters included smaller size than the tracker, as well as intensification of scenting ability, refinement, and a slight darkening of the color of the coat.

–Ralph Yeater, “Bird Dogs in Sport and Conservation” (1948).

The dog in called the Russian tracker is actually some sort of ovtcharka, perhaps a Central Asian or a Caucasian. (Tracker may be an English corruption of the word  “ovtcharka.”)

These dogs are not bird dogs.

They never have been.

They are about as unlike a golden retriever as another dog can be, but for some odd reason, people thought that this breed was an ancestor of the golden retriever. Golden retrievers are very social dogs. Ovtcharkas are very bonded to their families and flocks. Golden retrievers have been bred for pretty high prey drive. Ovtcharkas have been bred to have less prey drive.  Golden retrievers have been bred to be agreeable with other dogs, including strange ones. Ovtcharkas have been bred to kill strange dogs that come too near their flocks.

Crossing a bloodhound with an ovtcharka will not magically create a golden retriever. It will not make the ovtcharka smaller or darken the coat.

All you will get a is an ovtcharka/bloodhound cross, which might be nice if you want a sheep dog than can track down missing sheep.

Despite the real problems with this story fitting what we already know about golden retrievers and those particular breeds of dog, people readily believed that story.

It was only rejected when the true story was revealed:

However the true history of the breed was first published by Lord Ilchester in 1952 in an article in the Country Life entitled “The Origin of the Yellow Retriever”. This was based on over ten years of research by Mrs Stonex and in 1959 she and Lord Ilchester put their findings to the Kennel Club.

In 1960 the Crufts catalogue carried the true origins of the breed as approved by the Kennel Club:

“Description of the Golden Retriever

‘The origin of the Golden Retriever is less obscure than most of the Retriever varieties, as the breed was definitely started by the first Lord Tweedmouth last century, as shown in his carefully kept private stud book and notes, first brought to light by his great-nephew, the Earl of Ilchester, in 1952.

In 1868 Lord Tweedmouth mated a yellow Wavy-Coated retriever (Nous) he had bought from a cobbler in Brighton (bred by Lord Chichester) to a Tweed Water Spaniel (Belle) from Ladykirk on the Tweed. These Tweed Water-Spaniels, rare except in the Border Country, are described by authorities of the time as like a small Retriever, liver-coloured and curly-coated. Lord Tweedmouth methodically line-bred down from this mating between 1868 and 1890, using another Tweed Water-Spaniel, and outcrosses of two black Retrievers, an Irish Setter and a sandy coloured Bloodhound. (It is now known that one of the most influential Kennels in the first part of the century which lies behind all present day Golden Retrievers was founded on stock bred by Lord Tweedmouth.)”

From this description it can be seen that all Golden Retrievers go back to the yellow retriever Nous who himself was obviously the produce of Flat – coated Retrievers. Many canine authorities of the day including Rawdon Lee in his Modern Dogs (1893) referred to brown retrievers including pale chocolate coloured dogs being bred from black parents.

In the pedigree of Prim and Rose, the last two yellow retrievers recorded in Lord Tweedsmouth’s records, one can see the influence of both the Flat-coated Retriever and the Tweed Water Spaniel in the development of the Golden Retriever.

 

Lord Ilchester was Lord Tweedmouth’s nephew, and he knew the dogs when he was young boy.

I am still very skeptical that bloodhound was ever used in the cross because there have never been any smooth-coated golden retrievers. Smooth coats in dog breed are almost always dominant over long coats, and they certainly are when golden retrievers are bred to scenthounds.

Bloodhounds are very unlike golden retrievers in that they are not particularly disposed to take direction, and golden retrievers are notoriously easy dogs to train. The mention of the bloodhound in them may be nothing more than a bit of lore from the old implausible Russian tracker story that filtered into the actual historiography.

The Irish setter in the cross is also somewhat misleading. The original record said “red setter,” which most likely meant red Gordon setter, which were quite common in region around Inverness at the time Lord Tweedmouth began breeding his dogs.

The golden retriever’s origins are with the wavy/flat-coated retriever, which is derived from the St. John’s water dog, an import from Newfoundland. Labrador retrievers are derived from the same stock, and for a time it was not unusual for smooth and long-coated pups to be born in retriever litters, even when they were being standardized into wavy-coated retrievers.

Why were people so willing to believe the nonsense about golden retrievers being ovtcharka/bloodhounds?

Well, for one thing, this story gave legitimacy to separating the color variety from the wavy/flat-coated retriever type.

Yellow and red dogs had a very hard time winning prizes at dog shows, so there was a pressure for them to leave.

However, if the dogs were nothing more than a color variety of the flat-coated retriever, then there would be no good reason to split the breed.

At the time flat-coated retrievers were the most common retriever in the UK. Almost all of them were black. Black was the color that every British gentleman wanted in his retrievers.

And that was the color that won at shows. It didn’t matter if the dog happened to have been a flat-coat or a curly-coat. Black dogs won over the other colors.

But if you have this story that claims that the golden retriever has some sort of exotic origin, then you have legitimacy in your move to split the variety from the black dogs.

Golden retrievers actually got the better deal out of the split than their black relatives, who often appeared in the same litters with them.

Flat-coated retrievers became quite rare during the Interwar years, but golden retrievers became more and more popular, particularly after the Second World War.

What amazes me most about this entire story, though, is how quickly the official golden retriever organizations accepted the true story and began dropping the Russian origins nonsense.

With so many other breeds, you can show the documentation about the actual origins, and they will simply deny it all.

Chinese crested dogs are from China. Dalmatians are from Croatia.

No evidence for either origin story exists.

But people want to believe it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Red and white retriever with partridge

Posted in golden retriever history, Retriever history, St. John's Water Dog, tagged wavy-coated retriever, Working retriever on May 7, 2013 | 8 Comments »

Red and white retriever

This painting is by Edward Armfield (1817 – 1896), and the bird it is retrieving is a gray partridge, which in North America has the unfortunate name of “Hungarian partridge,” even though it is almost always called the “English partridge” in the United Kingdom. (Some Americans call it a “Hun,” a term that, as German-America, find pretty offensive. We don’t turn Belgian babies into soap!)

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.

Of course, the dog likely isn’t of “pure breeding.”

Through much of the nineteenth century, retrievers were the gentry’s equivalent of the poacher’s lurcher. Each shooting nobleman bred retrievers by crossing different types of dog. As we’ve seen, this tradition heavily conflicted with the British dog fancy that came later, which demanded that every retriever be a black dog.

This dog is particularly interesting because it’s red and white. It doesn’t appear to be a liver and white dog at all. The red coloration is the same that appears on golden retrievers and Irish setters. However, it’s also a particolor, which is unlike any golden retriever living today.

But if this dog had been bred to solid black dogs, the recessive red coloration would be carried, and the chances are good that one of its descendants would have been a solid red or gold dog.

I don’t know any specifics about this retriever. I don’t know its name or where it lived. All I know is that it’s a British retriever from the early to middle nineteenth century. If anyone knows any more details, please pass them along.

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The Chesapeake duck dog

Posted in Chesapeake bay retriever, Retriever history, tagged Chesapeake bay retriever, St. John's Water Dog on May 3, 2013 | 4 Comments »

Chesapeake duck dog

From a piece by George Norbury Appold in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (1885):

It is sincerely to be regretted, in view of his exceptionally valuable qualities, that suggested a close relationship to the otter-dog. His ability as a retriever emphasized this supposition. His superior qualities in this direction were so manifestly phenomenal that the few original specimens were eagerly purchased from their foreign owners by the gunners of Chesapeake Bay. The ability of this dog to withstand cold and exposure was far beyond that of the Irish retriever [Irish water spaniel]. Within a brief period he entirely superseded the last-named animal as a water-dog. For some unknown reason the Chesapeake duck-dog never became numerous; hence the owner of a pure-blooded specimen could hardly be induced to part with him at any price. In time this dog so identified himself with the waters of Chesapeake Bay as to be known by no other name than that borne by this estuary.

Twenty five years ago he was at the apogee of his fame. Nearly every family living in the bay counties of Maryland owned one or more of untainted blood. Through carelessness the breed was allowed to deteriorate; in consequence, to-day few, if any, of pure blood are in existence. A small number, however, remain of sufficient purity of race and perfection of training to almost equal in efficiency their distinguished and untainted ancestors. There were, in reality, two varieties of this dog, the long and the smooth coated, the latter not so popular as the former. The Chesapeake duck-dog is of the same size as the small Newfoundland [St. John’s water dog], head broad, nose sharp, eyes small and bright, ears somewhat insignificant and set high; coat in color dark sedge, strong and tigtlyy curled, with a peculiar under fur, so thick that the dog can remain in the water a long time without his skin becoming wet. The hair on the legs is not so long. It is particularly short about the nose and eyes. The Chesapeake duck-dog is used by sportsmen who shoot wild fowl either from points or from “booby blinds” set in the water a short distance from the shore.This dog so closely resembles the color of sedge-grass as not to be distinguishable except very near by. He remains in concealment until ordered to “fetch.” At the command he springs into the water, breaking his way even through ice of considerable thickness. The wounded birds he first retrieves. When these are all gathered in, he secures the dead. Ducks in the Maryland waters generally fly in long strings. It often happens that the gunner, armed with a breech-loader, puts in several shots while the gang of birds is passing. In this case the well-trained and sagacious dog has much hard work to do, particularly if the weather be rough. His endurance, however, is remarkable, and he never seems to tire at his task. This continuous immersion in the water would be impossible to any animal not provided with the thick and almost water-proof under fur of the Chesapeake duck-dog.

With his affectionate disposition, great intelligence, strength, and the peculiar physical qualities which he possesses, adapting him to the retrieving of wild fowl beyond any other known breed, it is a great misfortune that closer attention has not been given to the preservation of the purity of the race (pg. 36-37).

The Chesapeake Bay retriever is derived from the St. John’s water dog, as are all the other large retrievers.

This type of “Newfoundland” dog would have been commonly available in the United States, but it was only Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay that anyone attempted to turn this dog into a strain of retriever.

Unlike the St. John’s water dog-derived retrievers bred in the British Isles, the Chesapeake Bay retriever was selected for liver and yellow to red coloration. In Britain, virtually every gentleman had to have a black retriever for driven shoots.

American ducks, however, were always heavily gunned, and there was always a belief that one needed a brown or yellow retriever for camouflage.

Most Americans used water spaniels for retrieving ducks and retrieving setters to pick up land-based game birds, but on Chesapeake Bay there was a retriever culture that was very distinct from that in the British Isles.

In some ways, it was a southern equivalent of the Newfoundland culture which used those rugged water dogs to haul in nets and lines, hunt waterfowl and sea birds, and guard the home.

The Marylanders used their dogs in almost the same way, but a great many of these people were also involved in market hunting, a sort of American equivalent of the African bushmeat trade.  Hunters would go out and kill as many ducks and other waterfowl as they could, which they would then sell to restaurants and markets in the growing cities.

It was bad for our wildlife, but the culture that thrived upon this slaughter created this dog.

In some weird way, the Chesapeake Bay retriever is a bit of a museum piece.

As the outports of Newfoundland have begun to dwindle away, the St. John’s water dog slowly disappeared.

But its descendants have wound up conquering the world. The Labrador retriever is the most common purebred dog in the world. Golden retrievers are also quite popular.

But only the Chesapeake Bay duck dog was essentially kept in much the same way as the dogs of Newfoundland.

This Chesapeake retriever culture got started in 1807, when two St. John’s water dogs were rescued from a British ship that had been working off the coast of Newfoundland. The dogs were placed in the homes of different owners, and one of these dogs wound up in the hands of Maryland Governor Edward Lloyd, a wealthy planter who was into importing improved breeds of domestic stock from Europe. The dog was actually traded for Merino ram at a time when America’s sheep industry was booming and everyone was trying to get Merino stock.

Like our Vermont strain of Merino, the Chesapeake Bay retriever became our variant of the St. John’s water dog.

Today, it’s not as common as its British cousins, the golden and Labrador retrievers, which were derived from St. John’s water dogs selected for estate shoots.

But it still has a devout following.

 

 

 

 

 

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A golden St. John’s water dog

Posted in golden retriever, golden retriever history, Retriever history, St. John's Water Dog, tagged cod, golden retriever, St. John's Water Dog on August 6, 2012 | 11 Comments »

Golden retrievers, like all modern retriever breeds originating in the British Isles, descend from dogs that assisted cod fishermen who fished on Newfoundland’s Grand Banks.

This breed, called the St. John’s water dog, the lesser Newfoundland, the Labrador, the lesser Labrador, or (more accurately) “the true Newfoundland,” was used to haul nets, set lines, and even catch fish off of hooks.

It’s not every day that one reads of a descendant of one of these dogs doing something that its ancestors would have done on a routine basis.

But such is the case with Becky.

Becky is a golden retriever from Leiston, Suffolk, in East Anglia.

Her owner was walking her at Minsmere Sluice.

Like many golden retrievers, she enjoys swimming in the surf and fetching objects from the water.

Her owner has seen her retriever driftwood and even jellyfish from the sea, but he was quite shocked to see her haul out a five-pound cod.

Becky’s ancestors underwent intensive selective breeding once they arrived from Newfoundland.

For decades, they were selected for heightened biddability and docility.

They were largely meant to be retrievers of land-based game, such as pheasants and partridges and hares and rabbits.

But even after all that selection, there are still plenty of retrievers that would relish the chance to be fishing dogs once again.

Becky is one of these dogs.

Her breed may be “improved” and “refined,” but the truth is there are plenty of them that are still rough around the edges, still wild enough to charge into frigid water and dive among the breaking waves.

Retrievers are good dogs because they are nice and smart.

But they are still rugged animals.

In their ideal state, they are dogs without exaggeration or much evidence of artifice.

They are dogs with certain marine mammal adaptations and a penchant for carrying things in their mouths.

They must never become something else.

If they do, they will cease to be retrievers.

They might as well be stuffed animals.

 

 

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Tip, a St. John’s water dog

Posted in Flat-coated retriever, Labrador retriever, Newfoundland, Retriever history, working retrievers, tagged Flat-coated retriever, Labrador retriever, long-haired St. John's water dog, Newfoundland, St. John's Water Dog on August 3, 2012 | 5 Comments »

Tip was an imported “Labrador” whose descendants were top field trial flat-coated retrievers, Pitchford Marshal and Monk.

He was born in 1832 and was imported.

His coat, if one looks closely,  might have been feathered. I note a plumed tail, rather than the more typical brush tail of the St. John’s.

I could be wrong  about what I’m seeing (and I do NOT want to have a discussion about it).

It’s just very unusual that we see depictions of the ancestral St. John’s water dogs that went onto found strains of retriever. Normally, we find out through some unusual scholarship that a particular retriever was an import, but normally, this information isn’t provided.

This image comes from The Complete English Wing Shot (1907) by George T. Teasdale-Buckell.

And Teasdale-Buckell does provide depictions of his descendants, and they are clearly flat-coated retrievers, though much more robust than the current incarnation.

So he may have been a feathered dog.

One aspect of retriever history that has been overlooked is that St. John’s water dogs came in both smooth and feathered varieties. At least at one point, they did. The settlers were eager to get rid of the feathered dogs, so they very readily exported them, where they were used to found strains of retrievers. This explains why the long-haired wavy-coated retriever was the most common retriever in the British Isles through much of the nineteenth century.

Unfortunately, most of the research on retriever history that has examined these water dogs and their role in founding retrievers has been performed by Labrador retriever historians, and at least subconsciously, they have tended to ignore the feathered variety.  If they mention them at all, they assume they must have been crosses with collies, setters, or spaniels, but when one reads of feathered retriever-liked dogs actually being born in Newfoundland, this assumption doesn’t appear to have much validity.

It’s true the Newfoundlanders preferred smooth-coated dogs, and the last remaining “pure” St. John’s water dogs were smooths.

But that doesn’t mean that they always were this way.

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A Newfoundland named Neptune

Posted in Newfoundland, Retriever history, St. John's Water Dog on August 2, 2012 | 4 Comments »

The notion that the Newfoundland dog originated from a more retriever-like ancestor may seem like a bit of heresy, but I think I’ve found some more evidence that this certainly was the case.

The above illustration is from Neptune; or, The autobiography of a Newfoundland dog (1869).

The author, a Mrs. E. Burrows, creates an anthropomorphic story about a Newfoundland dog named Neptune.  Neptune was her childhood dog, and he would have lived in the earlier part of the nineteenth century.

As to be expected from any autobiography, Neptune is the narrator in the text, and very early on, Neptune makes us aware of  his pedigree:

On my father’s side I come of an old and noble family, his ancestors having been considered for many hundred years past as being amongst the best bred dogs in Newfoundland. He was himself born in that country, but came to England when he was quite a puppy. Possibly this may account for his having lost something of that exclusiveness for which our family have always been remarkable, and which has led them to imitate the example of certain royal families, and refuse to marry except with their own near kith and kin. Be that as it may, my father allowed his affections to get the better of his pride, and formed a matrimonial connexion with my beloved mother, a dog who was far more remarkable for her beauty and intelligence than for her relationship to aristocratic families, and I am afraid, if the truth must be told, there were some of my cousins who were decidedly vulgar (pg. 4-5).

He was at least half “pure” St. John’s water dog, and the illustrations on the text portray him as more of retriever-type dog. He was a large dog, but he was clearly not a giant.

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The ancestral Newfoundland

Posted in Newfoundland, Retriever history, St. John's Water Dog, tagged Newfoundland, Newfoundland dog, St. John's Water Dog on August 1, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Judging from all I’ve been able to glean from the history of retrievers and Newfoundland dogs, I think that the ancestor of them all looked much like this:

This image comes from the 1879 edition of The Dog in Health and Disease by John Henry Walsh (“Stonhenge”).

The dogs were then either crossed with setters, spaniels, and even collies and foxhounds to make the various British retriever breeds or then crossed with giant mastiff-type- like the proto-Great Pyrenees– to found the giant Newfoundland dog.  Chesapeake bay retriever is derived from exactly the same stock, but there was a selection for the liver and brown-skinned red colors over the black, which was the preferred color for a British retriever.

These dogs came in both smooth and feathered coats, but the fishermen of Newfoundland and Labrador were eager to get rid of the feathered ones, as Lambert De Boilieu pointed out:

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.

The modern Labrador wasn’t really created until the 1880’s. However, there were records of “Labradors” well before that. The term was virtually interchangeable with the word “retriever” or “wavy-coated retriever.”  It was also used to describe certain strains of the large Newfoundland, especially those with what we would call a Landseer phenotype, black and white and less heavily boned than the typical show Newfoundland.  All of these dogs were also called Newfoundlands, which makes things even more confusing!.

There are mentions of  “smooth” retrievers, which were almost always crossed with wavy-coated retrievers. The old wavy-coat is the progenitor of the flat-coated and golden retrievers, and at one time, you could get smooth and feathered pups in the same litter.The Rev. Thomas Pearce (“Idstone”) wrote about smooth retrievers and feathered ones in The Dog (1872):

There is the swooth-coated dog of the same family, and as useful an adept. The flat and shaggy, and the smooth-coated—I mean as short in the hair as a Mastiff—are sometimes found in one litter, and one of the best I ever saw was thus bred from Mr. Drax’s keeper’s old “Dinah” (imported), the father being also from Labrador [or Newfoundland]. “Jack” acknowledged no owner but Mr. Drax, and died in his service at Charborough Park. During the time he was in the squire’s service he must have carried more game than any team, or half-a-dozen teams, could draw, since every year he went the circuit of Mr. Drax’s manors and estates, and the two were as much heralds of each other in Kent, Dorset, or Yorkshire, as Wells and “Fisherman” when a Queen’s Plate was to be run for….

But the smooth-coated dog has a lighter eye—a pale hazel with an intensely black pupil, occasionally very like what is known as a “china” or “wall-eye.” Be that how it may, they are the best of all breeds for boating; they can stand all weathers, and though men unused to them call them butchers’ dogs, I think them handsome, and I know that they are sensible, and that the punt and shore men, living by adroit use of the long stauncheon gun and “flat,” look upon them as a part of their household, and in some cases—to quote the words of one old sporting farmer, to a duke who wanted to buy his horse— “no man has money enough to buy them” (pg. 128-129.).

We call this ancestral dog the St. John’s water dog, even though they were found throughout both Newfoundland and Labrador. They were usually imported from St. John’s, and they usually arrived in England through the port of Poole, which was a major base for the English cod fishery that frequented the Grand Banks every year.

These dogs became the breed for every family have, both in Britain and in North America. Their popularity spread also spread through Europe, where they were used to found the Leonberger and the Landseer breed that is recognized by the FCI.

With the heightened popularity of retrievers in the past 30 years, we’re essentially repeating that history. This time we’re going for different descendants of the old Newfoundland water dog.

But we going with them nonetheless.

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