The Long-Coated St. John’s Water Dog

The last of the St. John’s Water Dogs were living in Newfoundland in the late 1970s. They were smooth-coated and mostly black, and it was easy to see how such dogs could have been selected into the modern Labrador Retriever in Britain.

All retrievers derive from this working fisherman’s dog. Much of the speculation in discussions of retriever origin is really about how this working dog developed, and Labrador Retriever historians have very clearly posited their dog as a derivative of the St. John’s Water Dog. Golden Retrievers and Flat-coated Retrievers, which were similarly derived from the St. John’s breed, are not as well-defined as being from the same stock. But they clearly were, and they were bred by people with the same socioeconomic status as those who created the Labrador.