Britain's top dog

Diggory Hadoke charts the labrador’s incredible journey all the way from Newfoundland to the forefront of the sporting scene

- Diggory Hadoke

A shooting acquaintance once bought himself a black labrador — a field trials champion, no less. He spent a lot of time abroad and used to lodge the dog with a keeper friend until he returned and needed to take it shooting.

On one occasion, after a very good drive, with slain pheasants littering the woodland pond in front of his peg, he happily directed his lab left and right, with one bird after another brought flawlessly to hand.

Cheerily commenting to the neighboring Gun, who had sauntered over to watch proceedings, he said, proudly: “Good my dog, isn’t it?” To which his companion replied, “It may well be, but that is my dog. Yours buggered off halfway through the drive.”

Few British shooting days are complete without the appearance of a labrador retriever; either a barely controllable peg dog sitting alongside a city-based Gun, behind the line as part of a pack of superbly trained pickers-up, or padding along at a key point in the beating line, under the watchful eye of the head keeper. The labrador is an essential figure in any still life of modern shooting.

It is used as a stalking companion, a rough shooter’s all-rounder, and as a wildfowler’s goose-getter, working in the most arduous of conditions. It is also a great family pet.

In fact, labrador registrations with the Kennel Club currently number more than 35,000 per annum, making them our most popular gundog breed, by a long way.