264 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



purity and working qualities of tlieir strain. 

 And the same may be said of the Hon. A. 

 Holland Hibbert, whose principal dogs are 

 not only typical in appearance, but broken 

 to perfection. 



It is perhaps not within my province 

 to show the part played by Labradors 

 in making the flat - coated Retrievers. 

 A sentence or two will suffice. Blaine, 

 already quoted, saj's in 1S52 : " The Re- 

 triever is rather an indefinite dog, i.e. he 

 owns no fixed parentage, but may be 

 generated by any congenial varieties as 

 the Spaniel and Newfoundlander." Later 

 on he says, for certain shootings : " The 

 Retriever employed should be a cross breed 

 between a Setter and Newfoundlander." 

 Idstone, twenty years later, says : " The 

 Black Retriever was a Setter originally. • . . 

 He was thickened, strengthened, and mi- 

 proved by the Labrador blood." It would 

 be easy enough to trace through Wyndham, 

 Paris, and several other of the early 

 Retrievers the permanent influence of the 

 Labradors upon the breed. While, chiefly 

 owing to the influence of show's, these 

 " indefinite dogs of no fixed parentage " 

 have been evolved into the magnificent 

 fixed breed as we now know it, we have 

 the Labradors now just as we had them fifty 

 years ago — just as we had, in fact, nearly all 

 sporting dogs fifty years ago. That is to 

 say, we have a distinct breed, maintained 

 by a comparatively few enthusiastic indi- 

 viduals, primarily for its sporting qualities, 

 according to a recognised, unwritten type, 

 and modified in a few non-essential points 

 to individual taste. 



That the Labrador will ever be appreciated 

 by the rank and file, and become a popular 

 show dog, I very much doubt. He somehow 

 does not lend himself to it, and if aristocrat 

 he be, he represents much more appropriately 

 the garb and " get-up " of the sportsman 

 than the dandy in the drawing-room. 



Hexham, some seven or eight years ago, 

 was the first show to give classes for them. 

 Now half a dozen — including the Crystal 

 Palace, Cruft's, and Southampton — cater 

 for them, and the classes are generally well 

 filled. 



Colour of eye is the most important 

 point yet raised by their appearance in 

 the show ring. On this feature let me 

 quote from my review of the breed for 

 1906, in The Kennel Gazette of February. 

 " Brayton Swift, the winning dog at the 

 Crystal Palace, has a dark eye, which in my 

 opinion improves him greatly. This is pre- 

 cisely one of the points where opinions differ. 

 Several devoted breeders look upon a dark 

 eye as almost a disqualification. No doubt 

 from the time of their earliest introduction 

 the majority of them have been light in eye. 

 Their intimate relations, the Newfoundlands, 

 despite all endeavours to eradicate it, and 

 with no difference of opinion upon the sub- 

 ject, in many of the best bred specimens show 

 the light eye to this day. If breeders were 

 unanimous to-morrow, therefore, as to the 

 desirability of the dark eye, it would take 

 years of careful selection before anything 

 like uniformity could be obtained in this 

 respect. On the other hand, one has seen 

 occasionally dark-eyed specimens all along 

 the line, and will continue to see them. On 

 one point let there be no mistake : we want 

 no Retriever crossing to darken eyes ! In 

 judging I would not for a moment consider 

 colour of eyes if I felt the Retriever coat in a 

 Labrador. Therein lies the real danger of 

 attaching too much importance to a dark eye. 

 It is largely a matter of individual taste, of 

 education, if you like to put it so, and I am 

 willmg to admit that mine has been sadly 

 neglected. But according to my light, I have 

 a right to say while I like a dark eye in a 

 dark dog. you must give me a pure, dis- 

 tinctive Labrador first, and afterwards pre- 

 ferably that one with a dark eye." 



It is through their merit as field dogs that 

 the Labradors have been so carefully and 

 persistently maintained. While, as far as 

 possible, using only dogs typical in appear- 

 ance, breeders have unanimously considered 

 work the sine qua non in the selection of a 

 sire. In this count}' of Northumberland 

 one has been accustomed from boyhood to 

 hear occasionally wonderful tales of their 

 sagacity in the field. Midge, a famous 

 bitch of Mr. Jobling's over forty years ago, 

 has long been a saint in my memory. 



