Nous, b. 1864. Sired the famous litter with Belle in 1868.
Although yellow and red retrievers had always been born as sports in wavy-coated retriever litters for many years prior to 1864, Nous is considered the founder of the golden retriever. His progeny would make up the Tweedmouth strain, which are generally believed to be the ancestral line that gave us the three foundation line of wavy/flat-coats that became the golden retriever in 1912.
Nous had been born to the 3rd Earl of Chichester’s line of wavy-coats. If you want to know what sort of dogs were behind him, it is pretty obvious that some form of red setter had been crossed into that line. He probably had St. John’s water dog very close in his ancestry, for he has conformation that more resembles that dog than the breed that would eventually evolve from him.
Nous’s owner owed a debt to a cobbler, and when this unusually colored puppy was born, he offered the retriever to the cobbler in lieu of payment on that debt.
Typically, non-black retrievers at this time were culled from the breeding programs. The Reverend Thomas Pearce (“Idstone”) wrote “I have no fancy for other than black Retrievers, nor do I think that they will ever be in general favour.”
Apparently, Dudley Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth, didn’t read Idstone’s book, because he came across young Nous at Brighton in 1865. He was very impressed by the animal, and he wondered why a cobbler would have such an animal. After all, a working retriever was meant for the shooting estate, not the home of a craftsman.
He offered to buy Nous, and the cobbler consented.
Nous then appeared at the kennels at Guisachan.
In 1868, he was bred to Belle, a Tweed water spaniel. I prefer to call this breed a Tweed water dog, because it appears to be a cross between a St. John’s water dog and the regional water spaniel of the Northumberland and Borders coast.
Nous is a rather dark dog, and he shows some features of his St. John’s water dog ancestry. His coat is thick and very wavy, which is exactly what the wavy-coated retriever would have looked like in the 1860’s. This breed hadn’t yet been standardized, and it varied from setter type to Newfoundland type. (See Paris and Melody) Some also had collie features, and many others had water spaniel characteristics. Each sportsman bred his own line of retriever He was free to breed any color he liked, mix in any outside blood that he wanted, and evaluate his stock with any standard he chose.
Breeding this color may have been a bit of a rebellion, but in those days, people were always doing these things.
Nous was the wrong color to one person, but he was the right color for another. And because of he was this color, he got to be bred.
Now, I don’t think Nous cared whether he was golden or black, but we humans do get worked up about color. In those days,coming in a weird color could get you drowned in a bucket or selected to found a new strain. Nous’s fate was that he eventually was chosen to do the latter. It could have easily gone the other way.
I met a handler with liver colored flat coats at a hunt test, I commented on their “red” coat, but was corrected that they were liver. It is possible that Nous may have been from an unplanned litter, unwanted at the estate given to a local hand and that is how the cobbler ended up with him. But then we’ll never know.
That liver color is very easy to confuse with red or mahogany in a golden retriever. Genetically, it is the same color as chocolate in a Labrador, but because it’s a long-haired dog, the color bleaches and generally fills out on the fur rather differently.
I don’t think he was unplanned. Lots of wavy-coats would pop up in these litters. The favored outcross for a wavy-coat was a red setter. and you will get puppies of this color every once in a while, if you’re breeding black dogs to red ones.
The liver color, though, was in the St. John’s water dog population. Sailor, one of the ancestors of the Chesapeake Bay retriever, was a rusty liver color. And he was a St. John’s water dog.
“…Each sportsman bred his own line of retriever He was free to breed any color he liked, mix in any outside blood that he wanted, and evaluate his stock with any standard he chose.”
Have you read “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: a novel” by David Wroblewski? If you haven’t, I’d recommend it to you. It centers around a family of dog breeders who breed, raise, and train their dogs to the standards they chose.
Patrice
http://patricedodd.wordpress.com/
I have seen this book before, but I have not gotten around to reading it yet.
“…he got to be bred.”
This made me smile only because I have been “corrected” so many times by breed fanciers. For dogs, I’ve been told, the word is “used.” Bitches are “bred.”
I’d guess the dogs don’t feel “used,” but rather that they are full participants in the process. Assuming it’s not artificial. Then they might feel used, or maybe just relieved.
;)
That’s what the Sir Tuftons and Sir Buftons use for their terminology.
But I am no Old Etonian or make any pretense of thereof.
[…] 1868, Nous had been an established working retriever at Guisachan for three years, and his owner, the 1st Baron […]