I don’t know the name of this dog, but it is by Maud Earl. Maud Earl is one of my favorite dog painters, and she painted this lovely portrait of St. Hubert’s Peter.
She also painted Reginald Cooke’s flat-coat named Ch. Wimpole Peter. I don’t know whether this particular dog is Wimpole Peter or not, but it might very well be.
This dog is being used to retrieve red grouse (the moorfowl, a subspecies of the willow grouse, which we call willow ptarmigan). These birds are found almost exclusively on the heather moorland and are very reliant upon the heather for both cover and sustenance.
The golden retriever was developed to retrieve these birds, for they were the main game bird species at Guisachan.
The dog is CHAMPION HIGH LEGH BLARNEY owned by Mr. H. Reginald Cooke
Same dog as here: http://www.hoflin.com/b/flat-coatedretriever.html
The Hoflin image is a b & w print of the same painting. Maud Earl also painted Cooke’s Worsley Bess. –
http://www.archive.org/stream/newbookofdogcomp00leigrich#page/256/mode/2up/search/worsley
I love those Maud Earl paintings.
This one of a Chow-Chow is excellent: http://www.encore-editions.com/dogs/dogs/hutch/thm_thm_maudearlblackchow.jpg
That picture shows a far different head than what the standards ask for today. Clearly a pronounced stop. Was this possibly a Fad breeding over time to eliminate the stop from top of head to snout? and is there any reason for wanting that look other than cosmetics?
I see some lines where the heads look like Afghans or Collies. a far different look than this picture. How long ago was that dog alive?
I’ve read that Borzoi were crossed into the flat-coat at some point around World War I.
High Legh Blarney was born in 1902.
Basically though, no reason for the elimination of the stop? Like to direct the blood of retrieved game animals away from the eyes…Similar to the excuse for the English overly Bulldogs wrinkled face. ?????
Read current breed standards. There is no call for elimination of the stop.
The US standard – Stop-There is a gradual, slight, barely perceptible stop, avoiding a down or dish-faced appearance. Brows are slightly raised and mobile, giving life to the expression. Stop must be evaluated in profile so that it will not be confused with the raised brow.
The UK standard – Skull, flat and moderately broad with a slight stop between eyes, in no way accentuated, avoiding a down or dish-faced appearance.
Interesting. Question for those more knowledgeable about Flatcoats than I: this site, http://www.flatoutkennels.net/, has some dogs with rather extreme looking heads. Is that what is generally considered ‘down faced?’
I did find a picture of a dog that is quite as heavily built as the one in the painting:
Have a look at these: http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/heavy-bodied-flat-coats-from-complete-english-shot.jpg?w=378&h=622
“down faced” kind of hits the nail on the head. My spouse and I always refer to that “type” and the downs syndrome looking FCR. Its a matter of cosmetic taste we believe. Sad really, as it indicate that even in this breed Fad looks is driving a and extreme change.
Surprisingly the given example is also a member of the national breed club. So?
I’ve seen heads more exaggerated than these, which is the only reason I questioned it in the first place since those dogs were from a breeder in Florida and even with heads more extreme than this example…. there are some champions among them. Definitely a FAD. Or judges that really shouldn’t be judging on FCR?
Have you seen the ones that have almost no stop?
I see breed descriptions on many sites that say the head has little to no stop and is considered to look as a “one piece” skull. So the extreme change on some of the dogs that are also winning and pointing in conformation can only lean towards a Fad in my opinion. There is really no purpose for this exaggeration. The pics of older dogs with a visible stop look normal to me. The pronounce raised bridge from skull top to snout wold seem like sort of a obstruction to some of the dog’s near sighted vision. On humans I could see an annoying obstacle between the eyes that would cause some cross eyed effects.
This is a FAD. clearly. The FCR really has no requirement for it otherwise.
Sort of like a Bull Terrier skull was deformed over the years of breeding to a an exaggerated conformation standard….
The FCI standard requires a bit of a stop: http://retriver.cz/zdravi/standard_fcr_eng.htm
So then current trends are definitely leaning towards a fad then?
Now, I’m a Lab person, so anything less than a pronounced stop on a retriever looks quite flat-coat-y to my eye, but that said–
The dog above–with, I have to point out, a bird in its mouth, which changes the dog’s profile, and a look I am VERY familiar with–looks like the boy flat-coats I see almost every weekend 9 months out of the year.
Some (not all) of the girls I see regularly are perhaps a bit more refined; my girl is definitely on the less-stop end of the spectrum when seen in profile, but in line with the standard: “There is a gradual, slight, barely perceptible stop,” but she definitely has a stop.
Even the more “elegant” heads of good flat-coats have a stop. I’ve thought about this a lot because of my girl, because she has a head that some flat-coat folks swoon over, and it is very different than my Lab by comparison–but without a stop her face would lack the expression of a retriever. (Not saying my girl is perfect, by the way–she does have her fault, for sure.)
Her sire looked very much like the dog above. I’m frankly continually amazed how how very little (if at all) flat-coats seem to have changed in the last 120 or more years.
In deference to Sengimage, there may be regional differences. But the dog above sure looks like the breed ring flat-coats I meet.
Well the painting FCR looks similar to my oldest male in profile. By my other boy has little stop. My two imports have even less stop. My three bitches vary from very little to almost none.
I prefer a bit of a stop. Apparently our ancestors did too. At least the dogs didn’t look “downish”.
As to the bone–again, looks like most of the boy dogs I see, but to a dog, they are working examples.
I love that painting–the musculature and the way the coat lays over it is perfect–it could almost be a photograph. It would be interesting to know if it were painted from a photo.
Have a look at some of her other work: http://store.encore-editions.com/Artists/Maud_Earl.html
Ah–the Labs look like Labs… that’s nice. :)
The paintings of the Collie heads look awful familiar????
The Flat is High Legh Blarney CH, absolutely.