Ducks Unlimited Podcast

John Gordon: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. We're talking with Craig Koshyk here today about the Labrador Retriever, and specifically the history of the lab. And we've talked at length about the primitive era, and we moved into their development on English soil. So now we're at the point where the Labrador really makes its triumph and return to North America, and specifically really in the Northeast United States. Craig, talk a little bit about, you know, the first lab was registered in America in 1917. So, this is a very, very fast progression with the lab at this point from the time they were really used and it started dominating trials in England. Fast forward to what you would really call the American aristocracy wanting to use Labradors on this soil and they started incorporating their first trials. So, let's pick it up from there.

Craig Koshyk : Yeah, that's exactly it. Now, we just spoke about the fact that in England, you know, their entire hunting culture and their entire way of doing things and therefore the dogs that they need for that culture changed, you know, during the mid to late 1800s. Well, a similar change came in America and that change came over a little bit later and it took a little bit longer period of time. You have to understand that in England and in much of the continent, hunting was for the nobles. It was really sort of aristocratic sort of thing to do. You needed money to do it, you needed permission to do it. Slowly but surely, those things sort of went away and the common man there did get the right and the ability and the desire to go out hunting. over there. In North America, hunting took a different sort of trajectory. At first, hunting was for the pot. I mean, obviously you have, you know, the pilgrims coming and Thanksgiving dinner and all that sort of stuff. And you've got people living off the land. But there was a fairly long and significant part of American history when hunting wasn't actually seen as a good thing. I've done an entire podcast episode on my own hunting about confidential. I've written articles about this, but In the US, the idea took hold that really farming and raising of livestock was the noble pursuit and that hunting was kind of a savage pursuit. In fact, there were some people that thought that consuming wild game rendered a man wild. There was sort of a prejudice against hunting. People did it, of course they did it, but it wasn't seen as a polite thing to do, it wasn't seen as a productive thing to do, because if you were out hunting, you weren't working the land, you weren't clearing the bush, you weren't doing the things that you were supposed to do. And it took a long time, and of course, any dog associated with hunting wasn't considered a good dog as well. So hunters, dogs, and dog trainers also had a sort of a bad reputation for a while. And then starting with a guy named Frank Forrester in the mid-1800s, that attitude started changing. And with the opening of the American West, the attitude towards the sort of outdoors as being this prior to that, it was seen as a as a foreboding, dangerous place with wild animals and savage natives, you know, and you need to stick close to the farm and work that land. That was our safe spot. Well, eventually with the sort of moving in westward expansion, that attitude changed. And same thing with the changing of the attitude towards hunting. More and more people were living in cities. So hunting in the pursuit of game was seen as a healthy thing all of a sudden. And Frank Forrester really, and others, promoted that idea. And so more and more Americans started taking to the fields unashamedly, and they would even brag about it. And, you know, organizations formed and wildlife organizations and magazines were founded that sort of took this whole idea of hunting as being a negative into a positive thing. And so what did they do? Well, they hunted with setters and pointers, which were the first ones to come over. They hunted with crossbred dogs. They hunted with Irish water spaniels and American water spaniels, and they mainly hunted game where they found it. So they were in the marshes and they were on the fields and they were hunting quail and they were hunting ducks. There was also a market for it. Market hunters made a fortune, you know, bagging ducks for this booming market out east. Then In the late 1800s, early 1900s, things started to change and that's when the lab came. It was the right dog for the right time. Now, again, the elites on the east coast of the United States, they had their pointers, they had their setters, they were doing field trials, they were doing all that stuff that, you know, the sort of the average guy was doing, but they also had a little bit more money to import, for example, or to invite Scottish gamekeepers because they had heard about driven game shooting out in that area. And so they organized that sort of thing. They organized this sort of idea that we could have these driven shoots and have dogs pick up afterwards. Because prior to that, all those market hunters, all those American hunters that were out there enjoying this new type of hunting or this new idea that hunting was a healthy thing, they mainly needed a dog for what we call work before the shot. You needed a pointer and setter to find the birds. You shoot a couple of quail, you could probably pick them up yourself. You needed a dog to get out there and find. So working before the shot, flushing the bird, tracking it down, doing these things before the shot. Once you go to driven hunting, there is no before the shot for the dog. The dog sits there and he waits for you. The same thing now, we've got blinds developing in around water areas. We've got new modern shotgun shells. We've got new modern long range shotgun shells and long range guns like Nash is shooting. He had his own famous gun that he's shooting ducks at, you know, prodigious distances. So now you need a new type of dog for this new style of hunting. And that's really the lab all of a sudden comes in at that time. Yeah, it's at the right place at the right time for a new changing style in American hunting. It's best boat whoop you're referring to on the Nash's gun.

John Gordon: It's right here in front of DU headquarters. It's a really prized thing. We got boat whoop one and two up there. They were Nash's guns. Right. So you've got that at that point. And so the Americans really started doing their own field trials. And I think the Labrador, because it was an established breed at that point, really, you know, started out as the king of the American trial. Am I correct?

Craig Koshyk : It really did. I mean, the very first American field trials were open. They were duck dog events, whereas in England, all of the field trials there were on land. You know, they were pheasants and hares, and they were mainly land-based field trials. In North America, they were duck-dog events. And the earliest retriever trials consisted of, you know, mainly Chesapeake's and water spaniels and Labradors. But the labs proved to be easier to handle than the Chesapeake's, and they were faster in the water than some of the spaniels. I photographed and I've been around some water spaniels, Irish water spaniels in England, and they're fabulous dogs. And their coat is wonderful. I love their coat, but it is a drag in water. Like they're not fast because they're dragging this big old curly coat behind them. So that's what they found in the first trials was that the labs, they were just easier to handle, easier to sort of get along with than some of the chassis, easier to train, faster developing. And they were faster, literally faster in water than the water spaniels. And so by the 1930s, the lab was in field trials, was king on both sides of the ocean. It had blown everything else away. Due to its qualities as a dog, but also due to the breeders who got a hold of it. There were some very, very talented and dedicated people who dedicated their life's work to the Labrador. And there was a booming market for them. There was a booming market because you talk about Nash's gun, you know, and the 30s and the 40s. Well, what happened then? Well, first of all, we have interstate highways being developed. We have roads being developed. We have cars that are now affordable for the average man. I don't know where you guys hunt, but where I hunt, I can't imagine how my grandfathers got out there. Well, I can't because they lived there and they used a horse to go the mile from their house to get there. But anybody living in the city of Winnipeg, where I live now, in 1920, going to where I hunted as a kid in the 70s, 80s, and now today. I can't imagine how they got there. It would have taken them days, you know, a day on a train and then they would have had to walk. Well, what happens in America, in North America, when all of a sudden people can afford a car and they can afford to drive to some of these spots and now it's just a short hike into the marsh or to the river or to that, you know, flooded out timber where I can hunt. You didn't have to live there. You didn't have to camp there for months on end just to get some good shooting in. You could actually go there. And so the accessibility of our wildlife and the accessibility to those grounds that hold those wildlife became way easier. We had much more accessibility to these places. And so obviously, and then the war happens. And then after the war, you have thousands and thousands of returning servicemen. who are young guys that now have been introduced to automatic weapons, who have now been introduced to modern cartridges and modern shooting things. And so the whole scene just exploded again. And who's there? What's there? The lab. The perfect dog at the perfect time for this particular thing that's happening. It's kicking ass in all the field trials. It has the support of wealthy, well-known, well-established people. And yeah, people are going to glom onto that dog because it's just an ideal dog for the situation that's just unfolding in front of people every year.

Nathan Ratchford: What were some of those, and we talked broadly about these things, Craig, but what were some of those specific traits that the Labradors had that translated so well from The field trial style over in England, with the emphasis on handling that, that really made them the perfect, and still to this day, one of the most, if not, it is the most. popular waterfowl dog out there, that handling ability specifically. Talk a little bit about that and how still to this day, handling translates so well from trials over there to that is still the most important part of a trial over here.

Craig Koshyk : It's bitability, it's cooperation, it's trainability, it's the fact that it is a labrador, it's a worker. That's what it lives to. It lives to please us, it lives to do its particular job. So of course it's going to excel in field trials where precision handling and cooperation are extremely, extremely important. Of course it's going to excel in the duck blind where you and your buddies are sitting there all morning waiting for a mallard to come by or a flock of geese to come by. So of course it's going to excel at being a family dog because it's not in the blind 24-7. It's not running trials 24-7 or every day of the week. It's living with people and what better breed to have than a dog that just that's all it wants to do is to please you. You're a blind man. You need a dog to guide you across the street. What do you do? You look for a lab. My goodness, there's no better dog around than some of these labs that have been trained and developed specifically for, you know, as seeing eye dogs. You need a dog. You know, I've done some podcasts with people who do detection work, and they've talked to me about various breeds and their abilities to do detection work, whether it be, you know, explosive detection or contraband detection and things like that. And one of the traits, and I didn't know this until I started doing this, was that Some of the dogs that they would use, like imagine a Malinois, you know, and these Malinois, I love them too, they're great dogs, but they're an impressive dog, even German shepherds, you know, I mean, there are people that you just look at a German shepherd, it gives you a little bit of side eye from a Malinois or a German shepherd, you're getting nervous, right? So some of these dogs might be good detection dogs, but could you imagine taking a Malinois or a German shepherd to sniff out bombs in a crowded stadium somewhere or at an airport? You're gonna freak people out. You take a friendly lab, It could be the best detection dog in the world. It's got a great nose. It's bittable. It's calm. And people look at it and go, yeah, it's a lab. Hey, buddy, how are you doing? In fact, you have to put a tag on a lot of the labs I've seen doing service work or service dogs. They actually have to put, and you see this, a big thing on them that says, hey, people, I'm working. Don't pat me. All right? A lab needs that because everybody wants to pat a lab because they're just great. Malinois doesn't need that. No German shepherd needs that sign. Nobody's going to go up to that dog and try and pat it. That's the fact of it. So the reasons that it excels in just about anything is the fact that it's a lab and that it has all of the ingredients to excel in these things that are so close and so important to us human beings. That's why.

Nathan Ratchford: And it kind of did from the beginning, right? I mean, to back up into everything you talked about in that primitive area, the dog shaped in that culture in different hands could have been a very different dog, right?

Craig Koshyk : It definitely would have been.

Nathan Ratchford: But to all the things that you brought up, they needed to be okay on a boat for extended periods of time. They couldn't be starting dogfights, all those things that were foundational still carrying through to modern day.

Craig Koshyk : You know, when we look back at the history and Walters and others are sort of guilty of this a little bit, they try and paint a picture of Newfoundland and Labrador as being kind of like the Wild West. And to a certain extent, it's true. I mean, just imagine living on this rock, you know, back in the day with these rough and ready guys, you know, and then the whiskey is flowing and the fists are flying once in a while. And these are rough and tumble times, rough and tumble place with rough and tumble people. And so sometimes it gets a little bit glorified that way that, oh, wow, this dog came from these, you know, Wild West days. But you have to understand as well that, yeah, the Wild West did select for sort of toughness and ruggedness, but it also selected for smarts, for brains, for cunning, for negotiation skills, for the ability to get along with others. You can't be gun fighting and fist fighting all the time. You've got to be able to form bonds with people of trust and with your animals and with the environment around you. The people who survived, the dogs who survived were the smartest and the best adapted to that situation. Not the toughest, not the most killer of them all. These were highly cooperative people that were tough as nails, but also smart enough to get along.

Nathan Ratchford: there's plenty of noteworthy Labradors in North America that were a lot of people mentioned when you talk about Labrador breed history. But one in particular we wanted to talk about today, Craig, was King Buck and how his accomplishments impacted the perception of the Labrador and specifically the perception of Labrador in the waterfowl hunting community. King Buck is iconic.

Craig Koshyk : I mean, there is no greater lab ever to sort of, you know, be the face of the Labrador in North American modern times. I mean, King Buck, you know, his accomplishments during the 1950s have been, are unparalleled, and I don't think will ever be surpassed by any dog. It was just, again, the dog, a particular individual of a breed, at the right place, at the right time, in the hands of the right people. You know, King Buck, it's one of these great stories, you could totally make a Hollywood movie about this, because as a pup, he almost died of distemper. which again really harkens back to an era that we don't think about nowadays. We give our dogs shots for distemper. But that vaccine wasn't developed until 1950 and wasn't commercially available until the early 50s and he was born in 48. So he was born just before that vaccine actually came out and almost died of it. And it's a fact that back in the day, breeders with large kennels, they would, they said they would wait till, like a lot of breeders of all breeds didn't train their dogs until they're about a year old. And a lot of people speculated why, weren't they developed, you know, did dogs back in the day develop more slowly than today? Well, the reality is that breeders typically would wait until they saw, and they, you know, they would say that they would wait till disease visited the kennel. They waited until the Black Death visited their kennels because they knew every year a certain percentage of their dogs, sometimes 80, 90%, Edward Laverick lost almost all of his last dogs he ever had in his life. They waited. They waited until they saw which dogs survived because they didn't have the vaccines that we take for granted to this day. And so King Buck was born in one of these kennels where you just knew that at a certain point some of your dogs are going to come down with some of these terrible diseases and they're not going to survive. And he wasn't supposed to survive. I mean, there wasn't a lot of hope that he would survive, but he did. And he survived and he became a decent dog. And then he changed hands a couple of times until he was finally in the hands of, you know, a rich and famous person, Olin, by the name. I can't remember Olin's first name, was it? John Olin. And Olin, like Robert Whealy of Elhu Kennels, well he named his kennel with his name spelled backwards. So his was Nilo Kennels, Olin backwards. And under his stewardship and the trainers and the people who worked with King Buck, He basically went and cleaned up. I mean, there was just, you know, he probably demonstrated the greatest trainability and versatility of any lab. I mean, people who saw him, and you can read reports, you know, Sports Afield and all those magazines, you can get their archives online now. You can read the reports from the day. And the guys writing about this dog, you know, will say things like, well, He performed this particular triple blind, you know, retrieve or something like that and that the third blind was through a hole in the cover of reeds that you had to go through and get this dog. And he did it and then every other dog that managed to actually do it had to be hacked almost the entire way to get this done whereas he just did it. Just on his, you know, he was sent and he just did what he had to do. along the lines that he was, and with speed, with grace, with agility, and he came back. And, you know, some of the reports say that there was just no debate. There was no choice. The judges, it was clear to everybody watching the dog that day, doing that particular thing that, yeah, that dog won. And so he became the face of it. I mean, Ducks Unlimited, I can't remember the year, but you guys will know that, but he was the only dog featured on the federal duck stamp. And I think that that was in the early fifties. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong.

null: 59.

Craig Koshyk : It's the 59 stamp, yeah. Yeah, so in the 1959 stamp, there he is, King Buck on the cover of Ducks Unlimited, probably more famous than- Yeah, United States Fish and Wildlife Service. I'm sorry, on Fish and Wildlife, yeah. Yes. Yeah, on the duck stamp, I'm sorry. Yeah, on the Fish and Wildlife Service, so it's almost as like being on the cover of Time Magazine. at that point.

Nathan Ratchford: And oddly enough, he actually did appear on the back cover of the first edition of Ducks Unlimited Magazine.

John Gordon: Well, you can see King Buck tags on vehicles these days, right? I mean, he's such an iconic dog in the sporting dog world period, and especially in waterfowl conservation, because that stamp Just, you know, raise a lot of dollars for wetlands conservation and, you know, you have to, you know, a big gratitude to King Buck.

Nathan Ratchford: And the first and only dog to ever appear on the federal dog stamp.

John Gordon: Yeah, now there'll never be another, right? That's, they decided that that's it, that it will only be Waterfowl from that point forward on the stamp.

Craig Koshyk : I actually love that illustration. And as I was researching, and I'll do a lot more when I'm writing my book on King Buck, when I look up pictures of him, there's so many really great paintings and stuff. And what it says to me is that I think any waterfowler, whether you own a lab or not, anybody who's ever hunted with a lab, you know, as waterfowlers, we oftentimes drift off to sleep and we're replaying the day or imagining the day to come. And it's always whistling wings, you know, it's always, you know, they're cupping their wings, they're coming into the decoys, you always see, the ducks but that stamp as soon as i saw it it's like yeah and i also see a dog's face and if i'm thinking ducks if i'm thinking i'm in a in a you know canoe in the lebel netley marsh if i'm in the delta if i'm out there hunting the old ways you know with my waders on my old little hip waders you know and my camel coat if i'm thinking and dreaming about those old days and dreaming about my uncles and and that i'm dreaming about those ducks but i'm also the face of a dog if i imagine a dog It's that face, it's that black lab face. And King Buck had that face. And I think that whoever the artist was who made that duck stamp, that's what he caught. I think he caught that kind expression, that kind but intense, loyal expression of not just King Buck, but King Buck as he is standing as the Labrador. That to my mind is the iconic image of the Labrador retriever.

Nathan Ratchford: Absolutely. And if you walk around, that was done by Maynard Reese, if my memory serves me right. But you walk around here at headquarters, and to your point, Craig, I couldn't agree more. We have plenty of Labrador artwork in these hallways at Ducks Unlimited National Headquarters, and they've become so intrinsic to waterfowl hunting culture. And I think King Buck was very significant in that, especially appearing on the federal duck stamp. And after that, Craig, talk a little bit about just Labradors leading up to 1970s or how they kind of became intrinsic to waterfowl hunting and waterfowl hunters during that period of time.

Craig Koshyk : Well, again, this goes back to two factors. One, in field trials. I mean, they absolutely dominated. And field trials, the real, you know, golden years of field trialing is, you know, from the 1950s till about the 1990s. Field trials are still wildly popular today. But, you know, things are changing. Demographics are changing. Every time I go to a field trial, it doesn't matter what the breed is, there's a few more gray hairs on my head, but gray hairs in the crowd as well. You know, hunting numbers or hunter numbers are In some areas, stable. Among women, they're increasing, which is a great thing to see. But overall, around the world, the numbers of hunters is in a slow decline. In some places, it's a fast decline. But that's just the reality that we're living in today. Things are changing. Cultures are changing. So if we talk about the field trial glory days, they were, you know, again, from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, when field trials were at their height of popularity and their height of complexity. Labrador trials, retriever trials in general just became more and more highly sophisticated and complex and detailed. And they're just the most fascinating thing to see. The competition is, still is to this day, super hot. And so they're producing these amazing dogs. But at the same time, and again, we're talking these sort of glory years. So I went to school here in Manitoba in the night, like I was in high school and junior high school in the seventies. And when I opening duck day in my high school, half the boys weren't at school. My nephew went to that same school 30 years later and on opening duck day, he's not there because I've taken him out of school and we're in the duck blind, but maybe only two of his friends are missing school. The rest is different. So it was really that time when there was the wherewithal. People had the disposable income. There was access by cars. There was a lot of game around. I mean, game numbers and duck numbers go up and down. but others are hurting bad, you know. So times are a little bit different now, but during those years and to this day, if you're in Manitoba and you see anybody, hunter or non-hunter, and you're just, you know, having a chat and you mentioned, oh, I'm a hunter, oh, and I have a hunting dog, they will automatically assume it's a lab. Here where I live, there are very few pointing dogs and very few flushing dogs. There are lots of labs. In fact, there is a thing called the Manitoba Gun Dog Club, and it is basically a lab club, but they call it the Gun Dog Club. It's open to various breeds, but they're mainly labs. Because in Manitoba, and I'm suspecting in other parts, When you say hunting dog, the image that comes to almost everybody's mind is a lab. It's just that ubiquitous. It just became the dog. And you mentioned earlier, Nathan, that it's the most popular of the retriever breeds. In certain countries, it is the most popular of all dogs, of all breeds. It outnumbers every other breed. In some countries, in some areas, it outnumbers all breeds combined. That's how popular it is.

Nathan Ratchford: To my understanding, too, that's been the case here in the United States up until recent years. I think the French Bulldog has eclipsed it in popularity. But certainly, yeah, definitely. And I think it held that title for maybe two decades or something like that.

John Gordon: Yeah, it was number one. That's what they did. That was number one most registered AKC dog, right, was the Labrador. And there certainly were a lot of labs born that probably weren't registered too, right?

Craig Koshyk : That's true. Tons. So, you know, because I'm known now sort of as a dog guy, I get an email probably a day or every two days I'll get an email asking me about a particular breed of dog.

Nathan Ratchford: Some of those are from me, Craig, too. You got to get back to me on a few of those. Well, there you go. Just kidding.

Craig Koshyk : Well, so, you know, I ask a few questions and sometimes the guy or the girl will give me, you know, answers that point me to one particular breed. But when I get, you know, I'm just starting out, I don't really know what I want to hunt, I'm in this area, I do a little bit of pheasant, I do a little bit of duck, I do a little bit of this, I do a little bit of that, I got kids, basically there's a profile of person which is the most common, you know, my go-to answer, get a lab. Just get a lab. Why? Because it'll probably suit you. And also, it's really not hard to find a good one. Of course, you have to do your homework. Of course, you need to sort of narrow it down to a couple of breeders, to a couple of traits that you want. There are differences within the breed. There's a spectrum within the breed and you need to find out where you are on that spectrum and where your needs are. Find a breeder that fulfills that. But they are, compared to other breeds, they're super easy because chances are, There is a breeder of really, really good Labradors that will fit your needs not far from you. You're not going to be traveling around the world to get this. You're not going to be waiting years on a waiting list. You're probably going to be able to find one relatively easy, relatively soon that will be perfect for you. Because it's just the easiest go-to dog that you could find for the average hunter. In fact, if I lived, for instance, in the Dakotas and my main quarry was pheasants and ducks, I don't think I would have point and breeds. And I love me a point and breed, don't get me wrong. I'd probably still have some, but I would definitely have a lab, for sure.

Nathan Ratchford: Well, we're going to wrap things up here, Craig. Thank you so much for your time. If people want to follow along, where can they find you?

Craig Koshyk : So, my website is dogwilling.ca. I'm up in Canada, so I got the .ca instead of the .com. So, you can go to dogwilling.ca and check me out there. I have a podcast called Hunting Dog Confidential. You can check for that online. All the links are on my website. You can check it out there.

Nathan Ratchford: Well, thank you so much for your time, Craig. Thank you, Nathan. Thank you, John. It's been a pleasure. I'd like to also thank my co-host, John Gordon, and our podcast producers, Chris Isaac and Rachel Jarrett. This was the final part of a full series on the history of the Labrador, and I have to say this was one of the most interesting projects I've worked on. If you've missed the previous episodes, you got to check them out. We talk about its origins. We talk about its development in England in part two. And honestly, if you're a breed enthusiast or you just like dogs, this is something you gotta check out. Thanks again for your time here today, and we'll see you next week.