The answer to the question I asked last night is that it this dog was a Chesapeake Bay retriever. The illustration comes from John Henry Walsh’s The Dogs of Great Britain, and Other Countries (p. 121).
The dog’s name was Trip. He was owned by C. H. Tilghman of Easton Maryland. This particular dog won “first premium” at a dog show in New York in 1877.
Walsh often got things wrong, but his description of the three types of Chesapeake that existed in the 1870’s is very interesting:
As there now appears to be three types of this dog, the members of the Maryland Poultry and Fancier’s Association, at their first show, held at Baltimore, January, 1877, appointed a committee to draw up a standard of points for judging. On the evening of January 8, 1877, they met the members of the club, and made their report, which was adopted. The committee consisted of the following gentlemen (each representing their respective type): Mr. John Stewart, representing the Otter breed, in color a tawny sedge, with very short hair; Mr. O. D. Foulks, the long-haired, or Red Winchester, and Mr. J. J. Turner, Jr., the curly-coated, in color a red-brown – the bitches showing the color and approximating to the points of the class to which they belong, a white spot on the breast in either class not being unusual. The measurements were as follows: from fore toe to top of back, 25 inches; from tip of nose to base of head, 10 inches; girth of body back of fore leg, 33 inches; breast, 9 inches; around fore feet, 6 inches; around fore arm below shoulder, 7 inches; between eyes, 2 1/4 inches; length of ears, 5 inches; from base of head to root of tail, 35 inches; tail, 16 inches in length; around muzzle below the eyes, 10 inches.
The Otter-type is the one that wound up taking over the Chesapeake breed. Long-haired (“Red Winchester”) and curly-coated varieties have since disappeared in the standardized form. (However, long-haired Chessies do pop up every once in a while.)
I found it interesting that there were some different guesses on the identity of this dog.
The best diagnostic feature of the Chessie is that its topline is usually not level– “hindquarters as high or a trifle higher than the shoulders,” says the AKC standard.
The long hair may have come from the way-coated retriever, which was evident in the US at this time, or it may have inherited some long-haired genes from the odd long-haired St. John’s water dog. Collie-types and setter-types could have also played a role in producing some long-haired dogs. The Irish water spaniel is also a possibility.
Yes, this is yet another breed that had a bit more diversity before it became fully standardized.
Update: Does anyone know of any good books or websites on the history of the Chesapeake Bay Retriever?
In case you didn’t know, this is what they look like today: 
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I’ve sent you a photo of a pair of CBRs from the early turn of the century (at least 25 years after the adoption of the standard that you discuss.) The dogs have very curly coats.
The long-haired variety sometimes pops up every once in a while.
The dogs in the photo I sent you had very curly coats. If there was a desire to move toward the “otter” standard described by John Henry Walsh, then why was Tony T (from the photo) used to sire at least eleven litters between 1907 & 1911? And why aren’t all CBRs a tawny sedge color? There is a wide variety of colors found in CBRs today —
From the American Chesapeake Club Site: “Three basic colors are generally seen in the breed: Brown which includes all shades from a light cocoa (a silvered brown) to a deep bittersweet chocolate color; sedge which varies from a reddish yellow through a bright red to chestnut shades; deadgrass which takes in all shades of deadgrass, varying from a faded tan to a dull straw color. Historic records show that some of the deadgrass shades can be very light, almost white in appearance, while darker deadgrass colors can include diluted shades of brown called ash, that appear as either gray or taupe. The almost white and ash/taupe/gray shades are not commonly seen, but are acceptable. “
Walsh was too narrowly defining the dogs: http://books.google.com/books?id=lkLif2MmWg8C&pg=PA52&dq=chesapeake+bay+retriever+otter#v=onepage&q=&f=false
The “otter-coated” dogs on Carrolls Island appear to descend from a bitch named “Joan.”
So it’s likely that the original dogs were long-haired or curly-haired– exactly what the two original strains of KC retriever in Britain were.
The early dogs are all longer haired: http://books.google.com/books?id=lkLif2MmWg8C&lpg=PA52&dq=chesapeake%20bay%20retriever%20otter&pg=PA57#v=onepage&q=Canton&f=false
I’ve not really looked into this breed much.
It’s the one retriever breed I wouldn’t choose for myself.
Be fair to that breed. If I were hunting a large bay that could have a big chop and I wanted stamina, that would be my choice. The dog would also be great for leaving with my truck and boat while I go into a diner for something to eat. I used to train with a woman who had a Chessie (90lbs., yellow eyes, and solid muscle) . Once at a trial I saw people’s snickers change to looks of disbelief as her dog picked up a duck after several labs failed due to a difficult swim through several yards of thick lily pads.
They are good for that. In fact, they are probably the best.
They aren’t my first choice because they have a bit too much of the protective streak, and I really don’t have much use for that.
Also, they are mostly a performance bred dog, and if you find one, it’s very likely to be useful. We can’t say that about goldens. You really have to hunt for a golden.
I’ve read that Chessies also make surprisingly good upland bird dogs, working as flushing dogs.
I do
But I don’t have much use for is a dog that feels it is its duty to protect me.
retrieverman…. im sorry but i disagree with you.. ON ALOT OF THINGS YOU ARE RIGHT. BUT THIS YOU ARE NOT RIGHT… CHESSIE ARE FABULOUS.. i would want a dog to protect me no matter what… any dog that lets me get beat up or or doesnt protect me while Im in a fight…. that dog needs to go….
One theory about the origins of the otter coat is that these dogs were crossed with otters. Other accounts say “Otterhounds.” Well, Otterhounds don’t have this type of coat.
However, Wetterhoun is sometimes called an Otterhoun: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Fryzyjski_pies_wodny_u68.jpg
But I can’t pinpoint when they switched to the ottercoat.
1888 NY Times account: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C07E6D7173AEF33A25757C0A9679D94699FD7CF
From the wording, not all otter-coated dogs were deadgrass.
Well, the CBR “Joan” that is described as having an Otter coat is listed in the CBR Database as being born in 1891, several years after the breed standard meeting. She was bred three times to the same sire, with a total of five offspring listed in the database.
She’s the first otter-coated dog from Carroll’s Island.
I’m trying to track pedigrees, too. And I’ve discovered that it is far harder than those of us used to the English retrievers.
My word. How many dogs can be of totally unknown parentage in a pedigree!
This breed is truly a landrace. It was like what the wavies and curlies were before they were separated. It’s like a whole other permutation of the St. John’s water dog becoming a retriever.
In Dog’s Best Friend, Mark Derr writes about his dog of this breed. He also writes about how he loved how variable this breed really was, even when he had one. Then the breed club wanted a more standardized form, and the dogs lost their diversity in type. Every account I’ve read of them is that they were variable, but there were two distinct strains– one from the Western Shore and one from the Eastern Shore.
The ancestors of all of these dogs are believed to be Canton and Sailor, two St. John’s water dogs that survived a shipwreck. Sailor was a liver colored dog that eventually wound up in the hands of Maryland Governor Edward Lloyd V, who also owned the plantation on which Frederick Douglass was born.
BTW, keep in mind that Stonehenge is hardly the most reliable of dog historians. He may have misunderstood which varieties actually existed.
But it seems that early on, the deadgrass dogs were associated with the otter coat.
did anyone send this in?
http://www.cbrs4me.com/chesapeake/collections/DVD/dvd.html
Of note: chessieinfo.net
That’s an interesting site, but I don’t have AKC numbers to go on. These people have been smarter than the other retriever people because this database has been around a lot longer.
A partial name should do the trick–I found Tony T.
I don’t know if this is the site that all the chessie people go to, but I believe it is–I know a chessie person that has the right resources can go back 150 years and more in pedigree research.
Really?
Because we British retriever people can’t even do that (very well), and we have mostly complete pedigrees.
“Because we British retriever people can’t even do that (very well), and we have mostly complete pedigrees.”
So some claim on the internet!!!
So I guess I don’t “know” they can–rather, I’ve heard the claims. :)
Okay, so just playing around with the database, I can get pedigrees back as far as 1900 reliably, and back to 1880’s pretty regularly, and there are often two or three generations back from those without dates.
So not 150 years with this database. It’s still pretty impressive, though.
They’ve had this database for a while.
They are a little bit smarter than us.
Plus, in our breeds, it was not uncommon for people to leave out the exact ancestry of the dogs. Kind of like holding a trade secret close to the vest.
there are some big missing links in the Lab world when there was a cross with other retrievers.
look here http://labradornet.com/index_e.html
scroll down very interesting.
I would like to see a similar database for golden retrievers, but you won’t be able to do one that complete without pulling in lots of info from flat-coats. Those two breeds are joined at the hip early on.
look what the lab people did to their missing database
http://labradornet.com/index_e.html
History of the CBR (preview only, but available for purchase) —
http://books.google.com/books?id=lkLif2MmWg8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Current CBR illustrated breed standard:
http://www.cbrs4me.com/chesapeake/standard.shtml
I went through this one last night. These dogs really, really varied in appearance. Long-haired and super curly haired dogs were more common than the modern otter coated dog.
The dog you have pictured in the “today” shot is CH Del Brave Canard du Coco, “Drake” who was bred by a NorCal breeder. That photo was taken at the San Mateo Expo Center.
Also, why persist in calling the current CBRs the “Otter Type”? That description might have been used once, but I’ve never heard or seen it used in contemporary descriptions of the breed. And a CBR’s coat looks nothing like otter fur (either river or sea otter.) The current CBR type is probably a combination of all three types found in the mid-nineteenth century. The most important feature of the coat is it’s waterproof quality. Maybe that’s where the “otter” term came from.
As in “She sheds water like an otter.” A similar statement can be seen in some CBR descriptions today – “A Chesapeake’s coat should resist the water in the same way that a duck’s feathers do.”
And just for you, in honor of Halloween – http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=14859887
The old accounts call it an otter type, but you are correct. The real otter-coated dog is the Labrador.
One of the old legends about the Chessie is that it is the result of breeding otters to dogs. Obviously not possible, but nineteenth century people could be gullibe.
This got switched to the theory that the Chessie was part otterhound, which doesn’t make sehse to me. Otterhounds not only don’t retrieve, they are griffon coated (they are griffon breed, the only British griffon), which doesn’t appear in any accounts of Chessies (although I think they may have played some role in the retrievers, like Devil from The Complete English Shot.)
It kind of reminds me of the often repeated story that the golden has a bloodhound ancestor. The original Russian circus dog story said that the dogs were a mixture of these Russian circus dogs that were then crossed with a bloodhound. Today, the bloodhound often gets worked into the official accounts of the golden’s official ancestry, even though there are no records of any bloodhound being used, except some heresay evidence by a relative of the 1st Baron Tweedmouth who was a young boy when all of this breeding was going on. He is actually the source for the offiical story, for he actually released the official kennel records at Guisachan, which was good. However, I’m very skeptical of the bloodhound in the golden. I’ve yet to see the short-haired, loose-skinned, and heavy eared goldens that would have resulted from that cross. I’ve never seen a golden that was as loosely skinned as coonhound or bloodhound.
You missed the point of my entry. You were discussing databases and pedigrees. My link was intended to show that a group of breeders deliberately had removed pages from the record books because the dogs were cross bred with other retrievers. A very incomplete database. I believe that it also showed that these lines were found and used in the States.
There was relevance to the discussion, especially with closed registries. I was curious how you regarded the extraction of breedings from registry/database. your comments would be appreciated.
HTTrainer wrote “My link was intended to show that a group of breeders deliberately had removed pages from the record books”
The link you posted was an ad for a DVD of historical film of CBRs running field trials. What does that have to do with databases & registries?
The link to the ad for the dvd was my first posting. Later in the day
I sent another link (two times yesterday) with a link connecting to Jack Vanderwyk’s labradornet.com.
Vanderwik makes a claim that in the lab world, there were “adjustments” to the registries during the 20’s & 30’s.
Pages with mixed breedings were removed from registries to hide some crosses.
I should have written the first sentence more carefully and referred to labradornet.com directly, sorry about that, I was annoyed.
I had heard of this before, but they really didn’t hide them. It’s now widely admitted that goldens were used to improve the coat length in yellow labs and flatties and Chessies were used to improve working ability (or to make them more versatile– flatties are a British trial breed; Chessies are an American trial breed.)
Check out the website, some people think it is a bit off base in some areas, using crosses explains a lot regarding coat lengths and other characteristics breeders desired. Vanderwyk feels that we should be as open as possible.
A good researcher could find American bred retrievers’ pedigrees hold a lot of these imports.
All of this was decades before DNA testing. Hand in a slip of paper and you’re good to go. I have checked K9 Data and the golden data base has a few crosses listed in some lines.
Ultimately, isn’t this to improve the breed? Building on continuation of the desired characteristics in a field dog, structure, trainability and drive? Leave the breed groupies to chase the studs. (that’s another story)
Yeah, I admit that goldens have flat-coat and Labradors crossed in. In fact, I consider those three breeds to be theme and variation on a single breed derived from the St. John’s water dog. Of course, the modern registries don’t seem them that way.
The reason why the Lab was able to dominate is that it experienced outcrosses to Chessies, Flatties, some goldens, and the last of the St. John’s water dogs up until the 1940’s.
Maybe a way to think of these retrievers is that the British split their retrievers into four breeds early on, but the Americans around Chesapeake Bay kept their dogs as a interbreeding landrace for a very long time. The Chesapeake was an interbreeding landrace until they decided to select for the short-coat only and the standard was further narrowed to allow for less diversity in type. (However, this breed varies a lot in appearance, perhaps more so than the goldens and Labs do.)
Dorothy Howe, a Labrador historian in this country (and friend of Page Elliott) produced copies of KC registrations showing pups from the same litter registered some as Goldens, some as Labradors. She also had a very old handwritten pedigree of one of the early yellow Labradors, showing in it several dogs that probably were of lines that could be considered early Goldens.
As late as 1949 (and possibly later) the KC considered the ‘breed’ to be “Retriever”, with ‘varieties’ of Labrador, Golden, Flat-Coat, Curly-Coat, etc. And the AKC still lists them as “Retriever (Labrador)” and so forth– although not permitting interbreeding.
For this blog’s purposes, I consider the Labrador still in development until the 1940s, when the last of the St. John’s water dogs were imported to be bred into the Labrador strain.
Very good Labrador history site here:
http://www.labradornet.com/
In the flatcoat literature, there is no secret that fcrs were crossed with labs in the period between WWI & WWII.
My Chessie looks just like the 1870’s pic. He’s about 110 lbs., from the Eastern shore of Va.