THE LABRADOR RETRIEVER 
O F recent years the Labrador has come into great 
k prominence in the shooting world, though the breed has 
^ existed in England and on the Borders for the last twenty 
I years or more. This increased popularity must be attri- 
f buted to the great increase of retriever trials during the 
last seven years or so and to the success of the breed 
there, as well as to the fact that nowadays everything has to be done as 
quickly as possible and no time wasted. Shooters of the old school lament 
the absence of the trusty spaniel and old-fashioned curly-coated retriever 
of their youth and with much justice and reason; but in the early fifties 
and sixties driving (both grouse and partridges) as now carried out was 
unheard and unthought of. Large bags and haste to get on did not 
enter into the scheme of affairs at all, hence no particular need for the 
fast-moving, quick retriever now demanded by the shooting man. Whether 
this is to be regretted or not is a matter of opinion, but most shooters who 
are also dog men will agree that sufficient time to do justice to a slow- 
working dog at picking up, is very rarely allowed by one’s host or the 
head gamekeeper, owing to fortuitous circumstances, and therefore a 
quick- working dog is essential. 
The Labrador came to this country originally in 1835, when the Earl of 
Malmesbury of that day had some. The first dogs appear to have come 
over from Newfoundland as “ ships’ dogs ” on the boats which brought 
salted cod to Poole harbour, which accounts for the Earl of Malmesbury 
being the first to acquire the breed. 
Blaine, in his “Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports,’’ published in 1852, 
refers to two breeds — the Newfoundland retriever and the St John’s breed, 
which latter dog, he says, “is preferred by sportsmen on every account, 
being smaller, more easily managed and sagacious in the extreme. 
His scenting powers are also very great.’’ Probably this latter is 
the ancestor of the Labrador as we know him at the present day. How 
the breed was evolved is hard to say, but the probabilities are that the 
fishermen of Newfoundland wanted a good, strong water dog (since they 
are reported to have found them useful in cases of wrecks and wreckage 
on that coast) and crossed the heavy-coated, strong, black Newfound- 
land retriever with a black pointer, and evolved in time a hard, short - 
coated dog with great staying powers. That this is probably the origin, 
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