Buccleuch Avon is said to have sired ‘liver-coloured’ pups: in 1892, the record states that two ‘liver colour’ Labradors were born at the Buccleuch kennel. Labrador enthusiasts then began to demonstrate a desire to preserve and safeguard the ‘new breed’. Records also show that in 1899 the first registered yellow Labrador was born at the kennel of Major Radclyffe and named Ben of Hyde. Was this the first time the breed deviated from the traditional black?
The colour of the breed has long divided Labrador lovers. Many still believe that black is the true original colour and that yellow and brown are mere anomalies that caught on. Certainly as a dog to blend into the landscape during a shoot, black is undoubtedly the best colour, although yellows can blend in well in some wildfowling situations.
Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century Labradors were carefully bred but still remained ‘rarities if not eccentricities’ in the sporting and domestic scene. Traded exclusively among the landed gentry, they proved themselves the most versatile of working dogs: hardy, reliable, efficient, gentle, clean and undemanding. The same traits that define them today.
The Field once wrote, ‘One of the countryside’s riddles is how and why a race of dogs, so dominant for only 10 years short of a century, could also have been so dormant for so long, a clear case of unrecognised talent.’
There is a truism here. In 1886 – 75 years after their arrival on these shores – J.H. Walsh, in his Dogs of the British Islands: Being a Series of Articles on the Points of their Various Breeds and the Treatment of the Diseases to which they are Subject, described the Labrador or Lesser Newfoundland Dog as a mere accessory to a certain lifestyle: ‘As his use in this country is almost entirely confined to retrieving game, he cannot be included among the non-sporting dogs.’
How did the Labrador go from being a specialist wildfowl retriever prized by a small elite circle in Britain to being the world’s most popular domestic dog? The answer begins with another milestone in history: the wide-scale development of the breech-loading gun in the late nineteenth century. Up until then, shooting was by muzzle-loaded guns, i.e. a firearm into which the ‘shot’ and the propellant explosive powder are loaded from the muzzle of the gun (the forward, open end of the gun’s barrel). To go shooting usually meant several guns (people with guns) walking through a woodland, copse, moor, waterland or field, shooting the birds their dogs put up. This style of ‘walked up’ shooting (sometimes called ‘shooting over dogs’) remained customary until the introduction of the much more efficient double-barrelled, quick-loading shotgun.
Thanks to the revolutionary refinement in precision engineering and machining in the nineteenth century, breech loading – whereby a cartridge or shell is loaded into a chamber integral to the rear portion of a barrel – became the norm. It meant a significant reduction in reloading time and gave rise to the popularity of driven game shooting, where beaters are employed to walk through woods and over moors or fields (dependent on the quarry and the season) and drive game over a line of standing guns spaced about 50 metres apart. In driven shooting, the head count of shot game is much higher than in walked-up shooting, requiring pickers-up with dogs to make sure all shot or wounded game is collected. The advent of driven game shooting was the cue for the Labradors to come into their own. Only dogs could keep up with the guns.
But it didn’t happen quickly. Wilson Stephens described the evolution in The Field: ‘Although those to whom it had become second nature no doubt learned to reload them safely in half the time that we would take, the pouring in of powder, the ramming of the wad, the charging with shot and further ramming, all processes duplicated for each barrel, made driven game as we know it pointless. All shooting was over dogs, and those which quested or hunted up the game also retrieved it, as spaniels still do … With so little game on the ground at any time, and with no need to hurry because of the time taken to reload after every second shot, specialist retrievers were unnecessary … When the shooting scene changed with the development of breech loading, the Labrador was not only present in Britain, but was the only retriever available. Yet it was not widely adopted to meet the new situation. Instead, the flatcoated retriever became supreme. Perhaps the strictly functional, workworthy Labrador seemed plain beside the more elegant flatcoat. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and is not necessarily synonymous with usefulness. The flatcoat had, and still has, an unlosable handicap.’
Stephens continues to press their claims in comparing the retrieving processes of both dogs – the flatcoat’s tendency to cast widely, downwind of a target, and then work slowly towards it, dependent on air scent versus the Labrador’s ‘direct line to the mark, followed by a tight-patterned working-out of a limited area around a fall’. Stephens notes, ‘The extra distance covered by flatcoats not only takes longer but inevitably moves other game off the ground, to the detriment of the sport. When Labradors worked, more game remained …’ He triumphantly concludes: ‘Realisation of the average Labrador’s superiority was sudden, positive, and has proved permanent.’
So when did the Labrador become popular away from the field? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the gundog was now known not just as the Labrador but as the Labrador Retriever, and it had become the gundog of choice for the British aristocracy.
The Victorian love of both dogs and pastimes led to the incredible popularity of field trials and dog shows. The first conformation dog show – a show to assess how well individual dogs conform to specific breed standards – was held in the town hall of Newcastle upon Tyne in June 1859. The only breeds scheduled were pointers and setters. The first organised field trial – a competitive event at which hunting dogs such as retrievers, pointers and flushing dogs compete against one another in a series of tasks – took place at Southill, in Bedfordshire, in 1865. Both sports gained a large and fashionable following.
In April 1873 the Kennel Club was founded to provide a set of rules and standards for the popular new pastimes. The very first sport recognised by the Kennel Club was the sport of Field Trials, which in this era particularly tested the skills of working gundogs and attracted large and appreciative audiences. In 1886, Charles Cruft, a general manager at a dog biscuit manufacturer, founded Crufts Dog Show. Billed as the ‘First Great Terrier Show’, it began with 57 classes and 600 entries. By 1891, the show was known as Crufts Greatest Dog Show. The venue was the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington, and it was the first at which all breeds were invited to compete, with approximately 2,000 dogs and almost 2,500 entries.
As a young boy, I used to visit Crufts with my father, when it was still held in central London, at Earls Court, and it helped define my childhood. I loved going to Crufts – the noise, the smell, the dogs. My role in the show became tighter in 2006, though, when I was asked to present the BBC’s live coverage of the show. I presented Crufts for two years. I can’t say those years were as happy as my childhood recollections; the pressure of presenting a live prime-time TV show, and the interaction with a significantly haughty group of breeders who didn’t like my style of presenting, inevitably led to a bumpy ride.
I co-presented the show with Inca, my black Lab, at my side. The show was dropped several years later, after the BBC ran a panorama exposé that revealed the slightly murky world of the Kennel Club and their breed requirements that often lead to long-term health complications for many breeds. In fact, Inca was a case in point. Her epilepsy was more than likely to have been caused by a limited gene pool. In short – incest.
I digress.
Back at the late turn of the last century, dog ownership was booming, and with it an appetite for specialised breeds that ordinary people could ‘discover’ as the dog that best suited them. Labradors had come to Britain as sea dogs. They were spotted and cultivated as wildfowling water dogs. As gundogs to the gentry, they acquired a fashionable social status attractive to the aspirational classes. Eager to please and eminently trainable, loyal and lovable, playful and energetic, the Labrador gradually became a great all-rounder, a symbol of social status, a valued working dog to some and a treasured family pet
