Harding Cox in 1902.
One of my favorite sources for flat-coated and golden retriever lore and history from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century is Harding Cox. Harding Cox was the consummate dog show aficionado– and occasional critic.
In his 1902 text Dog Shows and Doggy People, Charles Henry Lane provides this information about Harding Cox:
Mr. Harding Cox is the younger son of the late Mr. Sergeant Cox, who was well known on the judicial bench three decades back, but who earned deathless fame as the founder of the Field, the Queen, the Law Times, etc. The subject of our illustration was born in the later fifties, and educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. At both seats of learning he distinguished himself in all branches of athletics. From early childhood he was an enthusiastic cynophilist, and exhibited his first dog (a Fox-terrier) at Hanley Show as far back as 1873, but without success. Since then he has exhibited, inter alia, Bull-dogs, Fox-terriers, Harriers, Greyhounds, Bull-terriers, Irish Terriers, Spaniels, and Flat-coated Retrievers. At one time his breed of Wire-haired Fox-terriers carried everything before them, and of late years his wins in Retriever and Spaniel Classes probably outnumber those of any other exhibitor at the ratio of two to one.
Nothing delights Mr. Harding Cox more than to win at a leading show with a youngster of his own breeding. In Black Drake he had a Retriever whose record as a prize winner was handsome enough, but whose success as a stud dog was phenomenal. It is chiefly owing to this grand dog that his owner was able to introduce a long string of winners to the public, such as Champion Black Queen, Black Petrel, Black Cherry, Black Star, Black Pride, Black Amazon, Black Quail, Black Charm, and Black Squirrel. The two latter were the sensational puppies of the year (1900), and both won first in their respective classes at the Crystal Palace Show. Charm is by Boreas of Butsford, but is out of Black Cherry, a daughter of Black Drake, who as progenitor of the above and many other winners, including the practically undefeated Champion Wimpole Peter, occupies a remarkable position in the annals of Retriever breeding.
Harding Cox's Ch. Black Queen.
Harding Cox was in flat-coats during their heyday. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, flat-coats were the retriever in Britain. Cox had seen the dogs go from the large and lumbering “Newfoundland”–type dogs to the more athletically built animals that dominated the retriever trials of that era.
He also lived to see the breed fall from grace just after the First World War and then be replaced by the Labrador as the top working retriever. It at this time period that Harding Cox writes about the breed in 1925. He explains the source for the breed’s fall, which is not what many would have expected, and then he contends that it won’t be long before the flat-coat, as the British staple among retrievers, would soon put the Labrador upstart in its place. (In case you were wondering, he was a little wrong about that one.)
The text in which Cox’s remarks appear is Jocelyn Lucas’s Breeding Pedigree Dogs–For Pleasure or Profit (1925). The book includes commentary from various top breed experts (Winifred Charlesworth is the expert who writes the feature for golden retrievers).
Cox traces the breed’s history to dogs that arrived at Poole and North Wales, but he incorrectly believes that they are derived from some aboriginal British dog from the “far Northwest” of England. That area may have been a source for black water dogs and curs that were exported to Newfoundland, where they became St. John’s water dogs. The fact that they were common at Poole definitely suggests a Newfoundland ancestry, for Poole was a major port for the British codfishery. Men of Devon and Dorset sailed to the wild shores of Newfoundland to fish for cod, and Newfoundland dialect is heavily influenced by peculiar English accent of this region, which we Americans, for whatever reason, associate with pirates.
Cox also believes the Labrador-type, with its smooth coat, was the result crossing this aboriginal British dog with the pointer, and the flat-coat is the result of crossing that breed with the setter. It suggests that the majority of the dogs of this type that were found among the cod fisherman in Britain were long-haired, for it is likely that the settlers on Newfoundland itself had little use for long-haired dogs. Anyone who has seen what happens to a golden retriever when it is run in the heavy snow knows fully well what the disadvantages are. The feathering collects snow and ice, which wind up slowing the dog down, especially when the dog stops occasionally to tear out the snow and ice balls that have formed in its coat.
But leaving Cox’s misunderstanding of the breed’s history aside, he does have some interesting information on the breed’s history from the time it became a Kennel Club breed in the 1870’s through its meteoric rise as a working and show dog to its collapse in the years after the First World War.
Cox blames the fall of the flat-coat on something rather unusual, something I had heard as a rumor but now seems at least plausible. Cox would have known what was going on in his breed, and in Herbert Compton’s The Twentieth Century Dog (1904), he argues that flat-coat fanciers should be more accepting of yellow and red individuals in the breed, simply because he felt they were of high quality. There were not very common at any rate, and for him to know about the dogs of this color really shows his knowledge of everything that was going on in the breed. He may have misunderstood the breed’s history a bit, but he knew what was going on around him very well.
On page 174, Cox writes about the addition of borzoi blood to the flat-coated breed. He extols the virtues of dog named Black Charm, but he contends that this dog wasn’t fully appreciated in his time because his head was not fashionable. At the time, narrow-headed dogs were all the rage in the breed– which Cox calls derides as “coffin heads.” The narrow skull and Roman nose that were so featured in these dogs “undoubtedly had been arrived at by surreptitious crossings with the Borzoi!”
I find Cox’s analysis here to be quite plausible. Harriet Ritvo discussed various unusual cross-breedings in show collies during the Victorian Era, and the breed experienced great shifts in conformation as different fads came and went. I don’t see how this same phenomenon wouldn’t have happened in other breeds, especially when the registry wasn’t closed as we know it today.
Whether borzoi crosses were common or not, the very rumor that the breed had this blood in them could be very bad for working flat-coats. Borzoi are many things, but they are not retrievers. I’m sure that someone will post a comment on this blog about a retrieving borzoi, but they generally lack the behavioral traits that are associated with working retrievers. Borzoi do come in solid black, (dominant black) and one could imagine how a single cross with one of these black borzoi could easily melt into a black, long-haired retriever strain.
Of course, these breeders could produce that head through selective breeding. The heads of various dog breeds have changed dramatically over a very short period of time– the bull terrier is the best known example.
Cox and the flat-coat fanciers of the time recognized the problem, but they were probably too late. Cox writes about how they did all they could to breed out the narrow head and sighthound features. However, while they were doing this, the Labrador had a chance to improve its standing among the British retriever fancier class. “‘The stronger ‘The Lab’ grew, and the more level its type, the more did the Flatcoat recede in the favour of shooting men, until it looked like the latter breed would be practically wiped out” (174).
Now that they have breed out the “sinister” sighthound features, Cox contends the flat-coat will stage a comeback: “[N]ow there are signs that the beautiful, affectionate, easily trained, and generally efficient ‘Flatcoat’ is coming into its own again, and the days of the less beautiful and more obstinate Labrador are numbered” (174).
In this state, we can simply say he was wrong. Not even close. He was dead wrong. The flat-coat populations is but a tiny fraction of the Labrador retriever population worldwide. Of course, in this book, part of the purpose of each featured breed expert is to sell their breed–part of the book is, after all, about breeding dogs for profit– and if one has to make the situation look better than it is, one will.
Cox laments that even after all of this selective breeding away from the Borzoi-type, “atatvism asserts itself” and a dog with these features appears.
Of course, if Cox’s theory is true, these “atavisms” do tend to pop up every once in a while. Although the best flat-coats don’t have sight hound features, I have seen photos of dogs that have very long legs and a much more gracile physique than one typically sees in any retriever. Occasionally, the heads will be more like a sighthound’s than a retriever’s.
No genetic evidence has been found to corroborate Cox’s theory, but I don’t think anyone has performed a genetic study that looks for borzoi genes in the flat-coat.
It is possible that there are traces of borzoi in these dogs. I do not know how extensive it was, but for it to have caused that much trouble, it had to have been very commonplace. I wonder if someone at the time had a black borzoi stud dog that spent most of his time “covering” flat-coat bitches.
It would be very interesting if we could find proof of these crossings beyond what Harding Cox knew. It could be that this is nothing more than another variant of the now debunked theory that Queen Victoria’s collies had borzoi ancestry.
But it seems possible that these crosses did take place. We just need more proof.
I know why that particular accent is associated with pirates. Because Robert Newton who played Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney version of Treasure Island, was from that part of Britain. He pretty much single-handedly invented the pirate accent we are so familiar with today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Newton
“It would be very interesting if we could find proof of these crossings beyond what Harding Cox knew. It could be that this is nothing more than another variant of the now debunked theory that Queen Victoria’s collies had borzoi ancestry.”
I had never understood the issue what that Queen Victoria’s collies had borzoi blood. Her dogs were straight from Scotland. OTOH the question is if borzoi blood was introduced in the early days of the collie breed. I believe this to be quite plausible.
In the late 1880s – 1890s, the collie breed changed from having border-collie-ish heads to long lean sighthoundy heads very rapidly as well the collies became longer, taller and more upright. Now it is certainly possible that breeders intensively bred the original collies with kinda-sharpish noses together until they got that long muzzle or they could have gotten there more quickly by crossing in the borzoi. While the queen had borzois, she was not the only one as they were a fashionable novelty in the dog fancy. The average joe wasn’t breeding the long nosed collies but instead it was folks in the dog fancy.
It’s always been a fault in the collie breed to have a roman nose. I don’t think roman noses were found in the original stock (never seen one in Border Collies). Roman nosed collies are not super common but they do happen. I’ve met a few and it’s stunning how much their heads looks like a borzoi.
Anyway my gut feeling is that borzoi was introduced into the rough/smooth collie way back. Since the collie and the borzoi both came from land races from well separated locations, I wonder if DNA testing has been done to see if there’s any odd or interesting genetics found between the two breeds.
Why couldn’t it be greyhound?
Greyhounds, unlike borzoi, are actually derived from the same ancestors as collies. There is an Ostrander study that found that greyhounds and herding breeds are very closely related. Greyhounds aren’t related to the other sighthounds.
Dogs unique in that you can get massive shifts in head conformation just through a few generations of selective breeding: http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/tandem-repeats-and-morphological-variation-40690
It’s one reason why so many diverse dog breeds appeared in the West within the past 150 years. Before that, there were distinct types, but they were not nearly as varied.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071024083652.htm This is on St. Bernards.
http://www.azcentral.com/families/articles/0520SCI-DOG-BREEDS-ON.html Borzoi are related to greyhounds so… maybe.
But in terms of history:
I can say that there has been a lot of historical research on collies from Queen Victoria’s time, and there just isn’t enough historical evidence– and a lot of historical inconsistency on that borzoi story. There just aren’t enough borzoi in Britain during the time that collie’s evolved that head shape. I don’t know how just a few borzoi that would have been valuable for their own gene pools could have affected the development of that many collie heads, considering how common collies were at the time.
But when Cox was talking about crosses in the early twentieth century, borzoi were well-established as show dogs. Both flat-coats and borzoi were more common then than they are now.
Chris
There is no definitive genetic evidence that Borzoi blood exists in Collies, interestingly there is evidence that Collie blood exists in Borzois since the MDR1 gene exists in the Borzoi and is believed to have originated with Collies. Mostly all we have to support this cross is rumor, no hard evidence either way. If you look at the old pictures of collies in the 19th century and into the 20th you will notice a slow evolution of head shape, not a sudden change as you might expect from a Borzoi cross (http://littleboybluefarm.com/collies.html). I have no doubt that some idiots toyed with this cross, but the question isn’t whether it was made, but whether significant amounts of Borzoi blood found their way into the Collie breed and I believe that the evidence says “no”.
When comparing the Collie’s nose or build to that of a sighthound, remember that the Scotch Collie was exposed to and no doubt crossed with (intentionally or otherwise) the Scottish Deerhound. I think this is a more logical source of the sighthound blood within the Collie breed. These long nosed Collies were found within the Collie landrace long before the advent of dog shows or Queen Victoria. http://www.oldtimefarmshepherd.org/2009/11/06/what-did-pre-dog-show-scotch-collies-look-like/
Genetically Collies and Shetland Sheepdogs group with the Belgian Sheepdog and Belgian Tervuren breeds. https://www.princeton.edu/genomics/kruglyak/publication/PDF/2004_Parker_Genetic.pdf
Here is a good link to read on the subject
http://books.google.com/books?id=Hvx4a1wwPwUC&pg=PA88&dq=collie+borzoi+genetics&hl=en&ei=2zsCTdisKISKlwfktN3zCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Thank you, Andy.
I was trying to find the links from your site and Christopher’s, but you already answered.
A large part of the reason for the Flat-Coat’s decline in popularity was due simply to the restrictions placed on dog breeding and other activities during World War I. No shows or field trials were held 1914-1919, and registrations in all retrievers (all breeds, in fact) were minimal or none; in fact, the references I’ve found show no Flat-coats and no Goldens at all registered in those years.
Had it not been for Reg Cooke’s involvement, the breed might well have disappeared completely. This remarkable man and his “Riverside” dogs deserve more comment.
I have some stuff on his him in the works.
The comment about the “disadvantages” of Golden Retriever coat in deep snow is not entirely correct. It is true that many of today’s Goldens have soft coats; but it is also true that the historically desired and most correct coat type (firm in texture, water-resistant, close-lying, with a very dense undercoat and without exaggerated feathering) is very resistant to snow, cold and ice.
Some years back, Alaska resident Deborah Totten ran a 3-dog team of Goldens quite successfully in competition. And all three were show champions.
I have actually seen a photo of that team. They are in Fischer’s book. Very nice looking dogs.
My guess is that the Newfoundlanders didn’t like having feathered dogs– it comes from W.E. Cormack’s account of the dogs. In the winter, when the Newfoundlanders couldn’t fish, they took their water dogs hunting for ptarmigan in the forest. They didn’t use the long-haired hauling Newfoundlands for hunting because they were afraid that the dogs would get so encumbered by the ice and snow collecting in their feathering that they would be of no use.
Because it is likely that at least some St. John’s water dogs were born with long hair, it would make sense that the Newfoundlanders would send these dogs for export. Which explains why there are historical depictions of the St. John’s breed with long-hair that have no obvious setter features.
M.R.S. , there were a few retriever field trials held in the UK in 1914, one especially in aid of the Prince of Wales’s War Relief Fund.
Crufts dog show also was held yearly till 1917.
Quite funny that the Borzoi image has a head is very NOT extreme.
White markings are very common in Borzoi. Do Flatcoats with white bits ever turn up, beyond what would be expected from slow migration of melanocytes?
All retrievers have individuals with white marking on them. In only one breed is it acceptable under the standard. Flat-coats have been selected very strongly for solid color, but it is usually not as extensive as that which pops up in goldens. There are plenty of goldens with quite a bit of white on them.
Goldens, due the amount of white on some of the dogs I’ve seen here, are carrying the Irish marking gene. White bits on the chest and toes are not heritable, they are due to the migration of melanocytes down from the spine prior to birth. Do Flatcoats ever have more than white toes or lockets on the chest?
I’ve never seen one.
But goldens, yes, I’m sure it’s Irish marking.
It is extremely difficult to get rid of recessives like Irish marking in the absence of genetic testing, without eliminating both parents from the gene pool. I don’t know what percentage of Borzoi are either particolor or Irish marked, but it’s very common, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a dog that came from a line of solid colored dogs, which would be unlikely to be carrying either parti or Irish marking. Flatcoats not having these markings is kind a of a strike against the Borzoi theory.
Puppies may be born with these markings, but I’ve never seen a flat-coat with extensive white on it as one does in goldens.
I do have historical records of black and white flat-coats from this time period, if that’s worth anything.
That’s interesting. No pictures?
Rawdon Lee talks about a black and white one winning a retriever trial in 1890’s.
But I’ve not seen a photo of a black and white within the show or modern flat-coat breed.
This is a Lab with those markings:
https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/badger.jpg?w=600&h=450
Any black and white puppies may have been drowned, and they liked to hide secrets.
But it would still be hard to get rid of the black and white.
Of course, their ancestors were black and white with this spotting, too, and Labs generally have no white on them whatsoever.
But I do think what you raise is very good strike against the borzoi theory.
In my own breeds, Irish marking can be indicated by something as small a little bit of white blaze on the nose, or a white star on the forehead. Most of the time these markings go away as the puppy grows. I wonder if this happens sometimes with Goldens and that is why the Irish gene has persisted.
In goldens, it happens a lot. I got sent this photo of one in Canada: https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/molson-and-zoe.jpg
His name is Molson. He is a purebred golden from working lines, not a Toller.
https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/golden-retriever-with-white.jpg?w=450&h=338
I have never heard of a flat-coat with that much white on it.
It probably persists because there was a lot of white on some of the foundational dogs: https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/culham-copper.jpg?w=300&h=202
Culham Brass had white on his neck and chest, on some of his toes, and a white spot at the end of his muzzle.
Strangely this color was also fairly common in “solid red” Irish setters:
https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/old-fashioned-irish-setters.jpg?w=350&h=406
Here’s a performance-bred dog with a blaze:
http://www.dynamicgolden.com/Quiz.html
A lot of goldens are born with white blazes and white chest spots, which they lose by the time they are two or three weeks old.
Darwin had a black and white retriever with long hair (of some sort) named Bob, but I believed he lived well before the Borzoi crosses were supposed to have happened.
One must be careful to distinguish between “black with white” (as in the Labrador photo) and “black and white” individuals; the latter are pied/piebald/particolor, i.e., white with black spotting. (you can substitute other colors for the black, of course).
The difference is still seen in Newfoundlands; blacks with white markings are considered solid colors; white with black spotting are the Landseers.
But not even in Tollers does one find a retriever where white is predominant (that is, true white, not the “cream” that may appear white).
With tollers and some goldens, it is likely the Irish spotting gene.
Black and white in retrievers is usually blamed on this:
https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/newfoundland-retrieving-bird.jpg?w=300&h=207
Extreme borzoi head:
OMG That is a horrible head!
The canine genome, printed in 2005 by Elaine A. Ostrander & Robert K. Wayne (Genome Res. 2005 15: 1706-1716) shows the rough collie as very closely related to the borzoi. Article here: http://www.nrsftc.com/PDF/CanineGenome_Ostrander.pdf
This shows:
Irish wolfhound
Saint Bernard (go figure!)
greyhound
Belgian Sheepdog
Belgian Tervuren
Borzoi
Collie
Shetland Sheepdog
as the “herding” dogs.
It incidentally puts the border collie between the German Shorthaired pointer and the Bedlington terrier. I don’t necessarily agree with all the conclusions (for one thing, a more recent study on the Ivermect gene shows the “collie family” relationships very differently) but it does rather indicate that the Borzoi and Collie “share” a lot of similar genes.
Peggy Richter.
The chart used in this study is the same chart from the 2004 study I referenced earlier and although they define a broad group of “working dogs” together that includes Collies and Borzoi this doesn’t mean that the 2 breeds were crossed any more than it means that Greyhounds and St. Bernard were crossed, it just means they have similar ancestors far back in the ancient past.