CURLY-COATED & OTHER RETRIEVERS 
T he curly -coated dog has always been looked on as the keeper’s 
retriever, no doubt because of its hardiness and workmanlike 
appearance, and it is not at all strange that the best groups of the 
variety seen in public the year round are those got together at 
the show of the Gamekeepers’ Association of the United Kingdom. 
Two days before writing this article, as an addition to those 
already contributed by Captain Goape Oates and Mr Maurice Portal, 
I was at the 1913 show of the combination named, held in the General 
Market, Stafford, and formed one of a group of field trial men who followed 
with great interest the work of the judge, Mr T. Duerdin Dutton, a popular 
member of the Kennel Club, and an especially sound authority on most 
breeds of gundogs. He expressed his surprise at the excellence of the 
entry. Nor was he alone in that opinion, and it is certain that if Paterson, 
the Heythrop gamekeeper, or Peter Taylor, who has the charge of an 
extensive shooting in Ireland, could only be persuaded to bring out a 
really good curly -coated retriever at one of the open trials, the breed 
would get the lift it really deserves. A Gloucestershire shooting man 
who was my companion at the show, a man identified with the fiat-coated 
retriever ever since he first handled a gun, declared that if he could only 
be certain of a curly-coated retriever of the type of either Deveronside 
Kaffir or Baronscourt Beauty being good in the field, he would give the 
breed a trial. For years I have heard men express the same opinion, and 
after following the retriever competitions since the first meeting on the 
Sussex-Hampshire border above Havant, I feel convinced that nothing 
more than the appearance of a creditable field trial performer is needed 
to place the old-fashioned and neglected curly-coated dog on the same 
plane as that occupied by either the Labrador or the more handsome 
flat -coated retriever. 
With what Captain Coape Oates and that good authority, Mr Maurice 
Portal, have said about their favourites I have no wish to interfere, 
but I am glad to be able to put in a plea for a variety really worth 
encouragement, and one which has been too long neglected by all but 
gamekeepers. Mr S. Darbey, Mr G. Flowitt, and other men who generally 
filled the classes apportioned to the breed at the Crystal Palace and other 
shows up to ten years since are not heard of in these days; as a fact the 
last time I was in Doncaster I found the once famous Belle Vue kennels 
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