The Lab's Early History
What is known, however, is that by the beginning of the eighteenth century, there were a number of dogs referred to as Lesser Newfoundlands, St. John's Newfoundlands (in reference to the town of St. John's in Newfoundland), or simply St. John's dogs. Where does the Labrador reference come in? As noted above, it may have been a Spanish or Portuguese term for the dogs, or it may have been a way to distinguish these dogs from others found in the Newfoundland region.
The first published reference to the Labrador was in Colonel Peter Hawker's Instructions to Young Sportsmen, In All That Relates to Guns and Shooting, in 1814.
Sportsmen Discover the Lab Prototype
Colonel Peter Hawker, a well-known sportsman who visited Newfoundland in 1814, described the St. John's Newfoundland dog as having an excellent sense of smell, flexibility in the field, and speed. In Hawker's diary, he says of the St. John's dog that it is:
oftener black than of another colour and scarcely bigger than a pointer. He is made rather long in head and nose; pretty deep in the chest; very fine in the legs; has short or smooth hair, does not carry his tail so much curled (unlike the ordinary Newfoundland [dog], which had a rough coat and a tail that curled over its back), and is extremely quick and active in running and swimming … The St. John's breed of these dogs is chiefly used on their native coast by fishermen. Their sense of smelling is scarcely to be credited. Their discrimination of scent … appears almost impossible … For finding wounded game of every description, there is not his equal in the canine race; and he is a sine qua non in the general pursuit of waterfowl.
The Water Dogs
The dog's hunting abilities were noted even earlier, in 1662, when W. E. Cormack, traveling through Newfoundland, observed some small water dogs. Of them, he wrote that they were “admirably trained as retrievers in fowling and are otherwise useful. The smooth or shorthaired dog is preferred because in frosty weather, the longhaired kind become encumbered with ice on coming out of the water.”
Cousin to the Newfoundland?
The Labrador Retriever and the Newfoundland may well descend from the same ancestor. One of the speculations about the Newfoundland's heritage is that he descends from Great Pyrenees dogs brought to Newfoundland by Basque fishermen, and as noted above, a similar supposition is made about the Labrador's beginnings. The Newfoundland is much larger than the Lab (which is why the Lab was originally known as the Lesser Newfoundland or Little Newfoundland) and has a long, heavy coat.
