Rawdon Lee did not like the evolution of the wavy-coated retriever into the flat-coat. He did not think that flatter coat was of much utility in heavy, thorny cover:
The flat or wavy coated retriever is now pretty well distributed throughout the British Isles, and few shooting parties leave home unaccompanied by a well trained specimen or two, which are, however, actually more useful in turnips and on comparatively open ground, than they are in thick covert and tangled brushwood. Their coats are fine, and certainly not made for the purpose of resisting thorns and briers, and, so far as the experience of the writer goes, their one fault lies in their indisposition to face thick covert, and in whins and gorse I have seen them actually useless. Still, I have been told that there are some strains that I believe will do as well in the roughest covert as the curly dog. A friend of mine was taking exception to the lack of perseverance a flat-coated retriever displayed in making out the line of a winged pheasant that had run about some bramble bushes; at the same time praising his own dog, with a curly coat on him as shaggy as that of a Herdwick sheep. There requires to be a happy mean between the two, for, where one would not face the brambles at all, the other would, and had to be cut out of them, the strong prickles holding him fast as if he were in a net. On the conclusion of each day’s shooting it would take two or three hours to free my friend’s dog from the “burrs” that had become entangled in his coat. A hard, wavy coated retriever, clad in a jacket not unlike those possessed by the German griffons, would be useful in a rough country.
–Rawdon Lee. A History and Description of Modern Dogs of Great Britain and Ireland (Sporting Division) (1894) (pg. 187-188).
Lee may be a bit exaggerating about the coat being like that of a “German griffon”– the ancestor of the German wire-haired pointer.
But a thick, hard wavy coat would be a lot of protection in heavy cover.
Lee did no like the straighter and less dense coat that was developing on the flat-coated retriever.
Many working-type goldens have this kind of functional wavy coat. It is much rarer in show strain goldens, but their coats are still denser than the flat-coat. They have a much more extensive undercoat than the modern flattie.
There is some substance to Lee’s complaint. The old-fashioned Goldens with wavy, dense jacket seem to be practically “armor-plated”; and the coat is practically water-proof. A couple of good shakes on leaving the water, and the coat is barely damp on top. The dense undercoat keeps the skin dry. The better Chesapeakes still have this quality of coat. Setters, almost never.
On the other hand, “heart” and courage have much to do with facing tough cover. Something seldom tested in today’s field trials and hunting tests.