Or maybe he’d be painting Labs yellow. Our familiar friend in that comforting shade has only recently come to represent so many decent and predictable things. As we’ve already seen, for years yellow Labs not only were considered undesirable, but were routinely strangled at birth, culled for color. Off-color specimens were seen as less than Labs and were treated as less than dogs, because yellow, or a slightly deeper shade called “golden” (no longer recognized by the AKC), didn’t cut the mustard in the eyes of canine perfectionists. Black Labs were considered better workers, and right into the twentieth century, untold numbers of innocents were sacrificed in the interest of keeping the breed “pure,” which meant black.
In the same boat were dogs born with the misfortune of wearing “liver” coats (a shade similar to today’s “chocolates”), because only black was socially acceptable until trendsetters like the Earl of Feversham and Lady Ward of Chiltonfoliat started breeding them. It took three English monarchs keeping the lesser shades at the royal kennels, and assorted nobility unafraid to say they rather fancied the goldens and browns, to convince the common hobbyist that lighter-coated versions were no less fancy than the blacks, that these dogs were honorable and deserved to live. Black remains the sine qua non, nonetheless, on the grounds of HRH Michael of Kent, reigning president of England’s Kennel Club, childish though it seems to have favorite colors in dogs or believe a best friend’s worthiness is determined by its coat. Queen Elizabeth is known to have a soft spot, and room in her kennels, for the House of Yellow. A separate Yellow Labrador Club has existed in England since 1924, and some American yellow Labbists hope to one day have their own.
Given the range of choices and stunning endorsements, shoppers for the right English gun dogs to keep in their big-city apartments might be interested to know that today’s limited selection is a recent invention. Throughout the nineteenth century, “retriever” referred to any dog that had a heightened propensity to fetch fowl once the hunter had discharged, and was not a specific type at first, much less a breed with standard coating. Dogs with a fondness for retrieving—one of several behaviors extracted from the wolf and exaggerated to the point of parody—had been around for at least a thousand years. They varied so much in shape and size, and in the shade, length, and waviness of their coats, that a painting of a two-toned Labrador Bitch done by Landseer as late as 1823 looks like a poodle crossed with a border collie to anyone expecting a Lab by today’s standard. Not only did these dogs take many forms, they tended to perform more than one single task, at least until advances in firearm technology and a growing need for retrieval of birds killed in larger numbers led to calling certain dogs “retrievers” for the first time, probably in the 1850s. As these hyperspecialized fetchers grew fashionable among gentlemen of means, solid black and solid gold, the epitomes of elegance, became the preferred coatings, and anything less was left for second-class sportsmen.
Golden, for reasons to be revealed, fell into disfavor, and by 1938 the first dog to appear on the cover of Life magazine was a black Labrador named Blind of Arden. More recently, anyone in a T-shirt from the Black Dog Tavern is instantly linked to Martha’s Vineyard and all it connotes today, and black Labs are bounteous in the Boston area. The original preference for black coats, to the exclusion of all others on this latest accessory of the sporty set, likely comes from the possibility that one of its ancestors was the St. John’s water dog. This rough draft of today’s most socially acceptable house pet, now extinct, came mainly in black, but with some troublesome markings on the chest and legs that would disqualify him in any reputable show ring today. Like the golden retriever that’s spared the street despite those “few white hairs”2 on its breast (so long as there aren’t too many), a small white spot is all that remains on the chest of many a show-quality Lab since the flaw was pardoned and given the noble ring of “medallion.”
Birthmarks aside, the resemblance between a Labrador retriever and a semi-mythical sea-dog called the St. John’s is uncanny. Seen in the mere handful of old photographs used to prove ancestry, the apparent progenitor looks like an oversized, substandard black Lab, though this humble forebear was never bred for appearance or stylized performances in ritual hunting pageants of the idle rich. Unlike the Lab, with its pedigree whitewashing and penchant for the royal game of tennis, the St. John’s is said to have evolved over several centuries by catching hard-to-fetch food for humble masters. A useful companion, this diamond-in-the-ruff took shape on fishing boats traveling to and from the remotest parts of what’s now Canada and was only later polished into something of a single-minded dimwit on the estates of English and Scottish nobility, landing comfortably one day on our own living room sofas.
The would-be proto-Lab was not a breed in the modern, commercial sense, but a landrace, or more accurately, a “water-race” since much of a St. John’s life was spent at sea, where its worthiness was tested. This strong, devoted, highly skilled, weatherized worker, the product of an undocumented array of who-knew-how-many different no-nonsense dogs of Portuguese, French, and English extraction, played a vital role in the fishing industry off the coast of Newfoundland (“Labrador” referring to the entire region as it was known at the time). Here was a hardy mutt, the result of as many as five hundred years of crossbreeding, a mysterious mix maybe of mastiff, perhaps water spaniels of some sort, or even a French hunting dog called the St. Hubert’s hound. No one knew or cared in the icy waters off the North American frontier because fishermen already had their dog and as far as they were concerned he was already perfect. The St. John’s dog was said to be able to swim for hours without rest and to embrace his work with tireless enthusiasm, a true Spartan equipped with a water-resistant coat, webbed feet, and a powerful tail that helped with swimming. Remembered for a marvelous ability to dive in and catch live fish beneath the surface, this dog allegedly held fishing nets in his bare teeth while treading water. (Anyone who wants to beef up Lab legends need only visit a lake or puddle where claimers to the throne are known to congregate, or perhaps a fountain in Central Park where they chug like champs carrying sticks the size of tree trunks in their mouths like Olympic torches. The Lab’s talents would probably pale by comparison to his said ancestor’s abilities, but old habits die slowly and resurface in surprising ways.)
Tracing this pilgrim’s progress from fishing boat to public fountain, we see a cult of the Lab forming around various uses over the centuries, not the least of these being to keep high-bred humans entertained. It wasn’t the St. John’s dog’s ruddy fishermen friends but society’s born leaders who supposedly sponsored this lowly worker in the late eighteenth century, sending him on his way to fame, fortune, and “purebred” perfection. Whether this was an improvement is a matter of opinion. It’s pleasing for Labbists to believe the St. John’s social climb began when men of leisure rescued him from the sea and unrefined hands, giving him a fresh start on solid ground linked to the finest family names. Like those ethereal palace Pekes that didn’t see the outside world for centuries, memories of a period of sustained rarity in the company of walled-in aristocrats made proto-Labs attractive among all the equally qualified retrievers of the time, which perhaps shared some Newfoundland heritage. The Earl of Malmesbury and the Duke of Buccleuch, credited as the creators of the race—or rather, their hired gamekeepers who did most of the actual work of breeding, training, and caring for the hunting breeds harbored in their highly appointed kennels—tried to keep this dog to themselves for use in private command performances, news of which soon spread across the land. Acting independently, one in England and the other in Scotland, Malmesbury and Buccleuch kept the St. John’s “pure,” or black, for as long as they could, though crosses with other hunting dogs might explain different coat colors and textures.
Having an address at Heron Court or the Buccleuch estates set the proto-Lab up as a breed apart from the common curs owned by local villagers. Why should a fine and beautiful animal be toiling away his life, wondered these men of fashion, hauling he
avy carts to market or holding cod nets for the fish mongers, when he could hold a starring role in the elaborately staged hunting adventures that unfolded against the picturesque estates of the highest nobility? What good was talent unless employed in some noble capacity? The handsome new arrival needed to be taught some manners, it was true. The St. John’s had never been a court dog before, though selective breeding and careful training—again, by the hired help—would smooth over his lack of polish and any irregularities in appearance. The pupil became, as ultra-snobbist Freeman Lloyd said of the fully perfected twentieth-century Labrador retriever, “a model of forbearance and discipline” a shining example of “good behavior.”3 Maybe this dog would teach the human help a thing or two. The subservient learned to exercise restraint while his new patrons aimed and shot at birds over bushes and ponds. A few short generations in the controlled environments of enclosed estates, and the made-over mutt had acquired a taste for fetching dead fowl carcasses with as much gusto as he’d ever risen to the challenge of diving into the open sea for live fish, which must have been more exciting and required greater skill. Living in society’s upper stratum and learning to share its rarified concerns made this dog more than the mongrel he’d been, or the cross-breed lesser men still said he was, until the Kennel Club, under royal authority, finally intervened in 1903 and knighted him and his descendants with official purebred status.
But ever since the St. John’s dog got off the boat, there’s been something fishy about the Labrador retriever’s family tree. Against a backlog of praise, legend, and a few exceptional deeds, what these new and improved dogs originally did for those humans who stooped to scoop them from the sea isn’t so impressive. The latest addition to aristocracy’s predatory pleasures took part in what was a sort of overdone pageant that seemed no more sporting than any fox hunt with class-coordinated costumes. In fact, the whole operation was as staged and choreographed as any dog show in years to come. According to the Scottish aristocratic style of gun shooting, neither hunters nor dogs made a move before the hired help ran ahead to scare birds into flight for easy killing. More servants trailed closely behind to keep the master’s gun loaded, or added to his hunting vigor with a quick gulp of spirits. Among so many actors with specialized tasks to perform, the early version of the Lab, properly attired in his black coat, was restricted by breeding, culling, and often harsh training to retrieve inanimate objects and do virtually nothing else while out of kennel confinement. In other words, as show dogs would one day be bred for stylized appearance, the Lab was bred for a single stylized behavior—maniacal retrieval for a fancy fetch fest—at the expense of other talents and perhaps a more balanced character.
Here was an old dog with a new trick, and how easily we forget that there’s a difference between ritual hunting, or for pure pleasure, and poaching for survival as the lower classes did with their lowly curs. The question of where function begins and pageantry ends is not as cut-and-dried as assumed, and the AKC’s admission that modern-day retriever trials “no longer represent practical hunting situations”4 is a non sequitur because these games were modeled after previous games designed to mirror the sportsman’s self-image and his place in society, not to provide anything vital. “Usefulness came to be shunned as a commoners’ trait,” writes Donald McCaig, a Virginia farmer and author who, like many, traces the downfall of useful dogs to a preference for fancy show dogs in the nineteenth century.5 But prior to being remade for the stage, many types had been groomed for dramatic roles in aristocracy’s fowling follies and formal hunts where they became playthings for the idle rich.
“Hunting is the amusement and not the business of a gentleman,” commented the Duke of Beaufort, making no apology for utter pointlessness in Hunting, a nineteenth-century treatise on upper-class diversions.6 Flash to gentlemanly pursuits of the present day, and an article in Gun Dog Magazine gives the Labrador retriever a high likability rating that may not have “anything to do with a dog’s skills,” a shocking confession, except that sportsmen have long preferred a pooch that’s “outgoing, interesting, and just plain fun to be around” to one that isn’t. Style often overrides substance as gunmen gladly pass over a more cunning companion for one of the “guys” or “‘good ol’ boys’ ready to belly up to the bar and tell a joke.” The Lab is described as “a canine L’il Abner, that splendid comic strip character—kind of gawky and country and always wearing a grin.”7
Gun dogs like the Labrador retriever would seem to be products of more ease and excess than industry or thrift, and the attraction to sporting breeds is often more about the names of previous owners than usefulness, strictly speaking. By the time of the Lab’s arrival on the social scene, upper-class English were the world’s leading canine connoisseurs, the inventors of a host of dazzling new breeds, and they wanted to improve any dog that wandered into their kennels. Hired hands did most of the work of breeding, feeding, training, and reloading, while their masters refined luxury hunting to an art form with their educated eyes and an almost instinctive knowledge of which dogs to buy and which to let die, which purveyors carried the latest firearms, and which tailors made the best hunting costumes.8 The English could lay no claim, it was true, to having first envisioned ritual hunting. The new leaders, who’d read their Greek hunting treatises like they’d studied their French and Italian manuals on court etiquette, self-consciously strove to recreate the legendary pastimes of other ruling classes to whom they believed themselves the rightful heirs. But they extended the idea to extremes. After a few centuries, the English torch bearers had every sport of the turf, chase, ring, and stage neatly covered with animals specialized to perform every minute role imaginable and with apparent ease.
Why anyone even needed Labs is a good question never asked. Continental hunters, for their part, had been content with more versatile dogs. American hunters, before the corrupting influence of Anglophilia became deeply rooted in their soil, wanted dogs that did it all. The English were not satisfied with multitaskers. They had dogs allowed only to hunt hare. They had dogs strictly forbidden from chasing anything but birds, and then only certain species of birds, depending on the type of bird dog. They had dogs assigned to birds at wing and dogs confined to birds already grounded. They had dogs for water and dogs for land, then dogs with short legs for some terrains, and dogs with longer legs for others. They had dogs calibrated for tearing the flesh off rats in the fighting pits, dogs designed for tearing the flesh off bulls, dogs for tearing the flesh off bears, dogs for tearing the flesh off badgers, and dogs for tearing the flesh off each other. They had dogs for driving wolves extinct, dogs for tormenting cornered foxes, and dogs for holding larger beasts at bay until their master arrived with his big gun.
To a more demanding degree than their sporting predecessors, the English bred dogs for compulsory setting, chronic flushing, perpetual pointing, and, last but not least, dogs for fanatical retrieving. How much easier did they want to make it on themselves? Listening to modern-day hunters elaborate in hairsplitting detail on why, exactly, they need to send a very specific bird dog with a very specific leg length and a very specific coat color—often to match the local landscape—after a no less specific breed of bird is a constant source of skepticism. Likewise, the argument for buying a single-minded maniac—a dog that will only set, point, or retrieve—is that while a more balanced animal might be able to “do it all,” he does nothing “perfectly,” meaning in the artificially enhanced fashion that betrays luxury, free time, wastefulness, and all those qualities known to come with an item that’s been custom made—including a higher price tag.
Aristocratic sportsmen of the old school, and their hangers-on, looked down on the new dog show fanciers at first and wanted nothing to do with the vulgar arrivistes. Perhaps their imitators were coming too close for comfort, and they blamed canine beauty pageants, with their concern for form over function, for the degeneration of traditional dogs that only they used in fitting and noble ways. The Kennel Club Stud Book, pointer man Wi
lliam Arkwright wrote, was having a “demoralizing influence” and could only be “advantageous to the ‘idle’ breeds,” which so many of the best dogs were on their way to becoming. The new “field trials” were “tainted by the omnipresent spirit of fancy,” he claimed, and said little of a dog’s real hunting abilities. Arkwright recalled a staged performance in 1901 where a setter actually ran away—“galloped far out of sight of both judges and handler”—and was still awarded first prize! The only purpose of the corrupt new dog business was profit, he claimed, observing: “The modern fancier, unlike the hunter of old, exaggerates useful qualities until they become useless.” It would be no less absurd, he added, to “give our servants wages not for their skills, but for their looks!”
A Matter of Breeding Page 19