Lord Grantham would have had a flat coat retriever with him at Downton Abbey, being the gundog of choice before labradors stole their thunder.
It seems churlish to criticise an outstandingly good costume drama, but it would have been more appropriate if Lord Grantham had appeared in the recent ITV series Downton Abbey with a flatcoated retriever rather than a pale yellow labrador. The first yellow labrador was born only in 1902, so in the pre-First World War period in which Downton Abbey was set, yellow labs were not only very rare, but fox-red rather than pale lemon in colour. It was the flatcoat that was the favoured gundog of the Edwardian country gentleman, as the labrador retriever had yet to make its mark.
Retriever field trials were then in their infancy, and were dominated by flatcoats. The first trial to be run by the Retriever Society in conjunction with the Kennel Club was a 20-dog all-aged stake held at Horstead Hall, Norwich, in November 1906. The entry consisted of 15 flatcoats, four labradors and a single curlycoat. Though the stake was won by a flatcoat, Lewis D Wigan’s Sweep of Glendaruel, it was a labrador called Flapper that came second. Flapper’s success was a sign of things to come, and before long the flatcoat would be totally eclipsed by the labrador as a working retriever. By the end of the decade arguments raged in the sporting press as to which was the better gundog. A correspondent who signed himself M wrote to The Field in November 1909, listing the good points of both breeds. M regarded the labrador as the hardier of the two, and liked its short coat as it didn’t pick up mud or wet. He thought it the better dog for certain work, such as picking-up after a grouse or partridge drive, or standing at a covert shoot. He also noted that the labrador had a, “good nose and mouth as a rule, but [is] inclined often to use eyes too much and cast forward if scent weak, instead of puzzling it out – at times with great success, but it is a fault to my mind”. When it came to flatcoats, M thought they had excellent mouths and good noses, but in style were inclined to be slow or to potter, or even be slack on a hot day. However, while he regarded the labrador as a one-man dog, the flatcoat was praised for being, “very friendly and affectionate with master and everyone else”. His conclusion was that, “Given a good scent the labrador easily beats the flatcoat and has birds quicker. Given a bad scent, the flatcoat will equal the labrador and probably better him.” However, the flatcoat’s eventual fall from favour wasn’t its pottering or slackness on hot days, but because labradors proved to be quicker to mature and easier to train.
Though flatcoats remained popular with gamekeepers until the Twenties, their heyday was over, and it wasn’t long before they became a rare sight in the shooting field, almost totally eclipsed by the upstart from North America. No one is quite sure of the flatcoat’s origins, but the wavy-coated Newfoundland retriever is thought to be one of the principal ancestors. These dogs were in turn crossed with setters to produce an animal resembling the dogs we see today. The early flatcoats soon proved themselves to be excellent gundogs, quickly finding favour with sportsmen for their ability to retrieve and their enthusiasm for entering water. Early flatcoats were black, with the liver variant not appearing until the early Forties.
Today the flatcoat remains largely ignored by shooting men, but its relative lack of popularity in the show ring for many years has been to its advantage, for there is no visual difference between an individual from a working or a show kennel, not something that can be said of either labradors or golden retrievers. However, flatcoats have become much more popular in the show ring in recent years. At last year’s Crufts there were no fewer than 358 entered, compared with 507 labradors. To put this in perspective, around 45,000 labrador puppies are registered every year, compared with a mere 1,300 or so flatcoats, so a higher proportion of flatcoats end up being shown. They are an unusual sight in field trials, and only one field trial champion has been made up in the past 20 years. I asked Rory Major, one of the few people to have won a trial with a flatcoat, why they are so scarce in competition. “I’ve always found flatcoats to be among the best game-finding dogs, and a good one can be brilliant, but they are slow to mature and can be difficult to train. You can put a dead pheasant out during a training session and a flatcoat is quite likely to ignore it.” Fiona Joint has worked and trained flatcoats for 20 years, and agrees with Rory. “They are often called the Peter Pan of the dog world, and with good reason. If you don’t like being made to look foolish and want to win consistently then you probably shouldn’t choose a flatcoat. There are very few people who are really committed to training and competing in trials with flatcoats and we really need more of the top triallers to give the breed a go. As picking-up dogs, I believe they are unequalled: they have wonderful noses and will always find the bird given up for lost by the other breeds. They are still dual-purpose, as you can work and show them, with working tests often won by dogs that do both. But when it comes to trials it’s really only the pure working dogs that do well.”
So there’s the golden rule. If you want a flatcoat for shooting, make sure that you get one from a kennel or breeder that gives more emphasis to brains and working ability than success in the show ring. Such dogs do exist, though finding one can be just as much of a challenge as training it to be a gundog.