One half of the Devil's parentage.
The retriever known as the Devil has appeared on this blog a few times. The dog was an unusual retriever for his time, but he was apparently good enough to beat some of the best wavy or flat-coated retrievers of his day. I didn’t know his exact ancestry, so I even called him an early “doodle.”
And it turns out that I was partially right.
The first mention I read of this particular dog was in George Teasdale-Buckell The Complete English Shot. Teasdale- Buckell describes Devil on page 184:
The Devil had been obviously named for his looks. He was a curly sandy-brown, with whiskers like an otter hound.
I found another mention of this same dog in Stonhenge’s Dogs of the British Islands. Stonehenge (John Henry Walsh) actually reveals the actual heritage of this dog:
Mr. B. J. Lloyd Price’s Devil, a curly liver-coloured dog, apparently a cross between the Irish water-spaniel and the poodle, bred by Sir P. Nugent, is the only dog I have ever seen perform in public to my satisfaction, showing great perseverance in hunting, with a good nose.
So the dog known as the devil was actually an Irish water spaniel/poodle cross.
I’m sure this gets the attention of my poodle and Irish water spaniel readers, but I was just glad to finally learn the origin of this unusual retriever.
But he apparently was good enough to give the wavy/flat-coated retriever trial dogs a run for their money.
What a beautiful dog!
Yes. The tail and color strongly indicate this dog was an Irish Water Spaniel. Cross breeding an IWS to a Poodle would really only serve to add those poodle type genes already in the IWS genetic pool and already common to both Poodles and IWS. It wouldn’t add anything new.
So. Not exactly a “doodle” … as you say. Because as far as I know there are no obvious Poodle genes in either the Golden Retriever or hte Labrador Retriever – the only two breeds yielding the current plethora of “doodles.”
That’s a beautiful dog.
(the above statement is in no way an endorsement on my part of “doodling” )
He certainly is a handsome devil!
I would have liked to have seen that cross. I’ve seen IWS’s and I’ve seen standard poodles. People think they are the same breed, until you show the the tails and the muzzle. The muzzle on an IWS will have no beard and a “rat-tail.” One of their names is “rat-tailed spaniel.” I prefer Shannon water spaniel or Southern Irish water spaniel. However, it’s the only remaining water spaniel from the British Isles, so Irish water spaniel is an okay name.
My first thought was Irish Water Spaniel. I wonder what the point was of breeding in the Poodle.
That Stonehenge says “apparently a cross…” does give me pause. Makes me wonder if he was misled by the whiskers.
My IWS has whiskers on his muzzle — not perfectly “correc” for an IWS, but not unheard of either. Picture of Cooper’s whiskers here: http://patricedodd.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/the-barbarian-gets-a-trim-for-show/
Patrice
http://patricedodd.wordpress.com/
Actually, IWS do have beards on their chins, just ahead of the jaw line. It’s one of the signature things, like the rattail and the smooth muzzle.
Devil’s picture is taken so that you couldn’t see his beard if he had one.