doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Glourious 12

I doubt that is a Lab, Rev. Lagopus is absolutely correct, the Lab was originally called the "Lesser Newfoundland", after the breed it was developed from.

It wasn't all that long ago.

Best,
Ted

Drew, I would say that is a Flatcoat in the Thorburn picture. They were very popular around that time and the sort of dog a Gentleman would have.

I understand you have that exported programme over there called Downton Abbey; the one where as time goes on nobody gets to look any older. It shows His Nibs with a yellow Lab. A bit of bad casting. I don't think the Lab gets any older either! Lagopus.....

The yellow Lab in that fairy-land Limey show is named Isis-- maybe a subliminal message therein?

About 30 years ago I flew over the Firth of the Fourth to enjoy the Glorious 12 and first tuned up on Wood Pigeon for 3 days. I spent a week in Scotland combining driven shoots with rough shoots and enjoyed both. I had the pleasure of gunning with folks from Spain, France and the UK. The keepers were wonderful and the dogs were outstanding. I was under dressed, no tie and did not shoot a Purdy or H&H, but instead I shot a brace of 20 GA BSS's with beautiful wood and the little guns gave me a 99 bird day.

Lagopus, Downton Abbey takes place between 1910ish and 1930ish. Weren't labs developed by then?

As an aside I watched very closely during the one episode where guns were visible during a shoot. While not close enough to identify the guns by maker, all appeared to be reasonably highly engraved sidelocks, the type of gun I would expect those people to have been using. Made me feel better about potential historical accuracy.

Yes, but the yellow ones were not popular. Most yellow pups were put down at birth as only the blacks were wanted then. I suppose one might have been saved but unlikely. Labs were only just taking off. I think it was the Duke of Buccleuch who popularised the breed. Just had a good dig in a book I have called The Labrador Dog Its Home and History. It seems that the first dogs in (all black) came to Britain around 1928/9 and further imports around 1932-4. Britain's strict import laws due to our eradication of Rabies and needs to quarantine made imports from Newfoundland very difficult. So, there were Labs in around the end of the programmes period but only black.

Didn't know the dog in the programme was called Isis. I will store that information as it might turn up in a quiz. It's the sort of programme that 'The Leader of the Opposition' aka 'She Who Must Be Obeyed' watches while I have my nose in an improving book, from which I may make the odd observational remark. Lagopus.....

Gents,

The Duke of Buccleugh and The Earl of Malmsbury founded what became the Labrador in the 1830's. by 1932 the stud book was well established and had been for many years. See the current Buccleugh website
Buccleugh Labs history

I've worked my own dogs for the previous Duke and he was a smashing chap and a great supporter of gun dogs and game shooting.

The Thames in it's upper reaches near Oxford has been called the Isis since Adam was a boy. The reserve boat in the University boat race is named "Isis" to this day. Isis was a god in the Egyptian pantheon associated with healing. So the Duke in Downton might have called his dog "Isis" for several reasons.

Eug

Eugene,
1830 is not that long ago, when you are speaking of bird dogs. The Second Duke of York, finding himself imprisoned from 1406-1413 spent that time translating the book "Livre de la Chasse" to English. This book had been written during the middle 1300s by Gaston de Foix, Vicomte de Bearn.
Mentioned in this tome are orange and lemon belton "Spaniels", that were called that because the examples the writer saw were from Spain-but, they were clearly Setters. By the mid 1300s they were well established as a breed, and had been for quite some time, perhaps from about 1000 AD.
No one can be sure when the breed developed this trait, but, the dogs were bred to "Sett" or crouch when a net was tossed over them and the birds they were pointing.
It would take a while for guns to be developed that were specific to the sport of "tir au vol", or, wingshooting, but King Charles II brought a pair back from France in May, of 1660, after the monarchy was restored, and he was invited back from exile. Charles had picked up a bad habit from his years of exile, namely, wingshooting. Although the guns needed development and improvement, the bird dogs he would have used were very well established by that time.
They just weren't Labs.

Best,
Ted

@ClapperZapper

Interestingly here on the Isle of Man, between England, Scotland and Ireland, our opening day is the 25th because the Grouse sit later and consequently mature later.

A bit of August splendor: