326 The Dog Book 



to their owner. The dog Sailor became the property of a gentleman of 

 wealth, and was taken to his estate on the east shore of Maryland, where 

 his progeny is still known as the .Sailor breed. 



"There is no positive proof that there were ever any dogs produced 

 from the union of these two, Sailor and Canton, neither is there anything 

 to show that there was no production from them. The natural supposition 

 is that there was, and it is to these two dogs that we feel we can give credit 

 for the now famous breed of Chesapeake Bay duck dog." 



Another "tradition" is that given by Mr. Joseph A. Graham in "The 

 Sporting Dog," in the form of a communication from General Ferdinand 

 C. Latrobe, who has long had personal supervision of the dogs of the 

 Carroll Island Club: "Many years ago a vessel from Newfoundland ran 

 aground near an estate called Walnut Grove, on the shores of the Chesa- 

 peake. This estate belonged to Mr. George Law, a member of a well- 

 known Maryland family. On board the ship were two Newfoundland 

 dogs, which were given by the captain to Mr. Law in return for kindness 

 and hospitality shown to himself and his crew. The beginning of the 

 Chesapeake dog was from a cross between these Newfoundlands and the 

 common yellow and tan coloured hound or coon dog of that part of the 

 country. 



"At the Carroll Island Club, of which the writer has been a member 

 for over thirty years, and the records of which go back for over a century, 

 this strain of dogs has been carefully bred, and for many years the pedigrees 

 have been kept. The same care in breeding the Chesapeake has been 

 followed at some of the other clubs." 



General Latrobe says that the combination of the yellow and tan 

 hound, the Newfoundland and some spaniel introductions, produced the 

 "liver colour of the true Chesapeake Bay dog," thus placing himself 

 apart from the other writers quoted, who all preferred the sedge colour. 



As might be expected from the facts or traditions thus set forth and 

 the mixed character of the breeding, with only the one definite aim 'of 

 having the best possible retrievers, we have in the Chesapeake a dog not 

 over burdened with good looks or quality. It will be readily seen that 

 the standard is not an attempt to elevate or improve the breed by setting 

 an ideal to be bred up to. What the standard describes is a plain every- 

 day dog, with faults that would not pass muster in hardly any other breed 

 set forth as requirements. The wedgy type of head, with the wide skull 



