This photo comes from The Dog Book: A Popular History of the Dog, With Practical Information as to Care and Management of House, Kennel, and Exhibition Dogs by James Watson (pg.321) (1906).
The dogs from left to right are: Danehurst Nellie (flat-coat), Danehurst Prince (blue-roan field spaniel), Danehurst Dick (black field spaniel), Danehurst Polly (black field spaniel), and Danehurst Diamond (flat-coat).
The two flat-coats look relatively similar to the modern dogs. Diamond and Nellie look like modern dogs of their respective breed, which shows that flat-coats have not changed as much as some other British gun dogs.
On the other hand, the field spaniels are much shorter in the leg then than they are now. However, unlike some specimens of field spaniel of their time, these dogs do not appear to be so extremely short-legged that they have issues covering ground efficiently. Modern field spaniels are much longer in the leg.
These were the Halcyon Days for the flat-coated retriever. Every shooting gentlemen had to have at least a pair of them to do pick-up work for his estate shoots. They were chosen because the flat-coat/wavy-coat was known for its gentle nature and biddability. Labrador retrievers, as we know them now, did exist, but they were quite rare compared to the flat-coat.
Golden retrievers, of course, were actually part of the flat-coated retriever breed until 1911, which is why one must understand the flat-coated retriever’s history and development to fully understand that of the golden. Goldens didn’t land at Guisachan from Mars and then evolve in a total vacuum. They were part of a dynamic flat and wavy-coated retriever culture that existed among the shooting nobility of the time.
Curlies were rarely used at estate shoots or field trials, but the main reason for that may have more to do with class. Curlies were the poacher’s retriever, and poachers in that day were not violators of game laws. They were common thieves. The game species were all the property of the landowner, and if some poor country person wanted some meat, they often poached these estates. Very often they got away with it, but many people were transported as indentured laborers to the American colonies for poaching. Many Australian transports were also poachers who were caught taking game from a large shooting estate.
Gamekeepers, such as the one depicted here, were active in breeding, rearing, and training the gun dogs that would be used on shoots. In a weird way, the retrievers, index dogs, and spaniels were actually stock dogs. The keeper’s job was to manage small game– usually pheasants, black and red grouse, gray patridges, rabbits, and hares– for the landowner. Without the dogs, the “stock” couldn’t be effectively managed, for the simple reality is that the land was always overstocked with game. Sometimes, landowners would require the gamekeeper to do some culling, and without the dogs, it would be quite difficult. And of course, during the actual shoots, the dogs were quite useful in flushing and finding the game, as in the case of the index dogs and spaniels, and in collecting the dead and wounded animals, as was the case with retrievers. The German gamekeeper tried to have a dog that had all of these characteristics, in part because German estates were smaller and because the German Empire had very high dog taxes, which meant that one needed a dog that could do multiple tasks.
Although these dogs served a definite function on the estate, it was also important that they be pretty. After all, shooting is a lot like golf. The people who owned these estates often conducted business meetings and made political deals at their shooting estates. One needed to have the most stylish dogs and the ones that were the best trained.
So the dogs also served as symbols of a landed squire’s own tastes and abilities to employ scientific management to both land and canine.
The actual caption for that photo identifies the flat-coats as simply “retrievers”. My copy of Watson’s book is dated 1905, and the only other retrievers pictured/mentioned are the Curly-Coat and the Chesapeake (which were quite varied in coat type), and the Irish Water Spaniel.
What is interesting in that book is the discussion about whether a Chesapeake is a retriever or not. Watson comes on the side that it is, but at the time, it was quite contentious. It is probably because the British did not use their dogs so extensively for waterfowling as the people on the Chesapeake Bay did.
Very often in late nineteenth or early twentieth century texts, the word “retriever” means flat-coated or wavy-coated retriever. In Britain, that was the retriever that just about everyone had.
I like to think of goldens as being very similar to the old wavy and flat-coated breed– more so than modern flat-coats, which have evolved a bit more in the setter-type direction.
Goldens have all the type variances that existed in the old wavy-coated breed.
Neat picture and an interesting book.