THE LABRADOR RETRIEVER 



RECENTLY there has been a great revival in numbers 

 of the close and thick coated, featherless dogs called 

 Labrador retrievers. Their ancestors, or some of them, were, as 

 the name implies, originally imported from Labrador. They 

 were not Newfoundlands when first brought over any more 

 than they are now. But it is rather difficult to say which 

 sportsmen had one sort and which the other when both first 

 began to be used for sporting purposes, or to be crossed with 

 setters and water spaniels, to make the ancestors of our 

 present races of retrievers. The Labrador, as we know him 

 now, probably had no setter or spaniel for ancestor, and there 

 is every reason to believe that the Lord Malmesbury of the 

 Diary, and later the Duke of Buccleuch and Sir R. Graham's 

 family, maintained the breed in its original form. But probably 

 in-breeding told the usual story : a cross had to be resorted to, 

 because the dogs were getting soft, and one cross was introduced 

 at Netherby, and of all strains to select for a cross one would 

 think that chosen the worst. It was a keeper's night-dog that 

 was chosen. 



It has been said that Mr. Shirley's original strain and also 

 Zelstone of Mr. Farquharson's strain were descended from 

 Labradors. This is probably not quite correct. Their coats 

 did not indicate this blood, but that of the Newfoundland. 



The latter's was always a long, loose, wavy coat with more 

 or less tendency to feather ; the Labrador had no more feather 

 than a pointer, but a thick close coat with little or no wave. 

 There is no doubt the purest blood has come from the Duke 

 of Buccleuch's kennel of late years, but the author would not 



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