The
big Chesapeake showed what a marvelous breed he
was by leaping into the freezing water, swimming
swiftly to the edge of the ice, then breaking
a way for himself, right to the goose. Clutching
the big bird proudly in his jaws, he plunged into
the icy water, pushed aside the frozen chunks
and returned to the blind, entering it with a
mighty water-spraying leap. “That’s what I call
a dog,” Jake said proudly. And the men agreed.
—James
Michener: Chesapeake: The Watermen, 1972
Bay lore tells of a time when every one of the
26,000 families of the Eastern Shore
 |
Laura Waid’s champion
showdog Chessie, Sol del Caribe. |
owned at least one Chesapeake Bay retriever.
Maryland governor Edward Lloyd thought so highly
of the breed he sent a Baltimore clipper just
to fetch one. In 1964, the Chesapeake retriever
was legislatively proclaimed the official state
dog of Maryland.
Yet today the Bay’s own dog is considered a rare
breed. Fewer than 1,300 were registered in the
entire United States in 2004.
Perhaps the Chesapeake retriever is too stubborn
and independent for modern tastes. Perhaps the
dog is too big or too smelly. Or perhaps these
retrievers no longer have the skills they once
had. The answer is more complex. The decline of
the dynasty must be tracked through three entwined
stories: one about the ducking dogs of the Chesapeake;
another about the Bay itself; and a third about
the people of the Bay and how they’ve changed.
A Dog of Many Collars
The Chesapeake retriever is a breed that wears
three collars — loyal pet, hunter and show dog
— and whose reign in Chesapeake Country has spanned
centuries. Legends range from famous owners to
valiant rescues, as their stories fall in line
with our own. The most modern of Chessies live
with us in Bay neighborhoods.
Walk down King George Street on a sunny afternoon
and you may encounter Chess, a Chessie who’s made
a niche in Annapolis. This Bay retriever walks
herself on occasion, checking on shopkeepers or
the workers up by the State House.
“She’s so friendly; people always ask me to bring
her back to visit,” says owner Bevin Bucheiser.
But Chess first came to live with the Bucheiser
family for protection.
“We wanted to get a dog for safety reasons,”
Bucheiser said. “She raised our first son, who’s
now in college, and now she is helping raise Aiden,
who’s nine. We’ve always felt safe with her around.”
If the gate is closed, no strangers are allowed
onto the property without her owners; if the gate
is open, Chess knows that company is expected,
and she permits guests to enter and knock at the
door.
For Laura Waid of Wye Mills on the Eastern Shore,
Chessies earn their place by style and achievement.
Ches-Shores breeder Waid’s Chesapeake retrievers
swept the 2004 American Kennel Club Nation
 |
Bob Sheppard, here with
his dog Ben, raises Chesapeake retrievers
on the Eastern Shore. |
al Specialty class, she says.
“My champion show dog, Ches-Shores Sol del Caribe,
knows the routine well,” she says. “When he wins,
he retrieves the blue ribbon from the judge and
proudly carries it about.”
On the Eastern Shore, Bob Sheppard of Sheppard’s
Chesapeakes works to bring back the old-style
hunting Chessies. Sheppard tells of a hunting
trip in 1977 when his friends were debating which
dog to take hunting, a Lab or a Chessie.
They took both.
“Each dog made a couple of marked retrieves that
were around 30 yards. As the weather got worse,
the flocks started to come in and the action increased,”
he said. “Many downed birds later, the Lab became
reluctant to get into the water as the ice started
to build up on the dogs. The icicle-covered Chessie
was given a mark on a downed bird.”
Then the Chessie proved itself king of the Bay.
“Without any hesitation, the dog took off, breaking
ice, and made the retrieve. A second mark was
given and the Chessie repeated the performance.
That did it for me,” Sheppard says. “I decided
that it was time to purchase one of these fine
dogs.”
Shipwrecked Treasure
The breed named for the Chesapeake began with
two castaways off Maryland’s shore. In a letter
dated January 7, 1845, George Law of Baltimore
wrote of their coming.
“In the fall of 1807 I was on board of the ship
Canton, belonging to my uncle, the late Hugh Thompson,
of Baltimore, when we fell in, at sea, near the
termination of a very heavy equinoctial gale,
with an English brig in a sinking condition, and
took off the crew. … The brig was loaded with
codfish, and was bound to Pole, in England, from
Newfoundland.”
The sinking English ship held not only sailors
but also a pair of Newfoundland pups. Law bought
the pups and gave both away.
“The dog was of a dingy red colour; and the female
black. They were not large; their hair was short,
but very thick-coated. … I gave the male pup,
which was called Sailor, to Mr. John Mercer, of
West River; and the female pup, which was called
Canton, to Doctor James Stewart, of Sparrow’s
Point,” Law wrote. “Both attained great reputation
as water-dogs. They were most sagacious in every
thing; particularly so in all duties connected
with duck-shooting.”
The dogs and their offspring became “well known,
through Patapsco Neck, on the Gunpowder, and up
the Bay.”
The English strove to preserve the original Newfoundland
breed, but Marylanders looked to improve it. Within
25 years of the shipwreck, the American Shooting
Manual of 1827 called this new retriever the Chesapeake
Bay Ducking Dog and hunters from Maine to the
Alaskan wilderness sought to own them.
A Dog for Its Time
In the 19th century ducks were so numerous they
darkened the sky. With the birds, professional
hunters also flourished, harvesting flocks of
waterfowl to satisfy appetites and to adorn the
hats of the upper classes.
Demand from Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia
was so great that a pair of birds would bring
$1 to $7. Hunters used punt guns and boat-mounted
cannons that could be fired repeatedly along long
lines of flying birds. Firearms could bring down
100 to 200 birds in a day.
Chesapeake retrievers could track, swim and bring
back all those birds — proving themselves royalty
among hunting breeds.
That’s the job Chesapeake Bay retrievers were
bred for.
Until the late 1800s, any bird or duck dog was
called a retriever. Along the Chesapeake, retrievers
included water spaniels, straight- and curly-coated
retrievers, otterhounds, coonhounds, bloodhounds
and the old English spaniel.
Mixing retrievers to get certain characteristics
was like seasoning a stew. Enterprising breeders
would pick dogs with friendly temperaments and
the right build to produce the hunting dog they
hoped for.
The defining feature of the new breed was the
“true Chesapeake coat”: thick fur with a dense
curly undercoat and oils so thick they could be
squeezed out by hand. Oils provided waterproofing
and insulation, allowing Chesapeake retrievers
to work long hours without getting cold.
At a New York dog show in the 1880s, breeders
seeking to prove the endurance of the breed brought
in tubs of ice water to better test each dog’s
water and cold tolerance.
Oily dense coats and webbed feet make the retrievers
take to the frigid waters of the Bay as if they
were ducks. Braving choppy waves, strong currents
and floating ice, these 80-to-100-pound dogs were
powerful enough to break through thick reeds and
shallow ice shelves again and again to bring back
their catch.
Working alongside the hunter as a partner, Chessies
learned with few commands — some say they knew
instinctively — to first seek out injured birds,
then the dead, working until the last duck was
recovered.
Hunting legends of the breed were the stuff of
campfire stories.
Unweaned puppies were said to bring back live
birds; adults were famous for the ability to mark
and remember where birds had fallen. As a bonus,
hunters could warm their hands in the dogs’ weatherproof
coats.
Initially, fur color wasn’t important, and Bay
retrievers came in a rainbow of hues: black; browns
in light cocoa to deep bittersweet; sedges in
strawberry blonde to russet chestnut; dead grass
shades in faded tan to a pale, creamy white. The
dominant shade was a rich dark brown, and over
time this became the standard Chesapeake color.
A New Job for the Red Chester
By the late 1870s, geese and ducks had been overhunted.
By 1918, the problem was so severe that the migratory
bird act was passed, restricting the hunting or
sale of migrating ducks.
The days of the commercial duck hunter were essentially
over; duck hunting shifted from job to sport.
Sport hunting was not new. Throughout the 19th
century, gentlemen and politicians flocked to
the Bay seeking the best guides and dogs. Every
creek had a hunting club. Hotels rose all along
the Chesapeake. At one hotel on Cobb’s Island,
from 1874 to 1882, dude hunters from 27 states
and Canada came to shoot ducks. For these sports
shooters, birds were trophies. Ducking dogs delivered
for the paying client.
So important were the dogs that most hunting
clubs had their own kennels. At the clubs, Chesapeake
breeders like O.D. Foulks helped standardize the
breed. Shortly after the Civil War, Foulks was
promoting his “red chesters,” boasting that they
were the only real ducking dog bred for that purpose.
Other Chesapeake breeders regarded their bloodlines
as a secret recipe.
Joe Batt, an English researcher, found that between
1914 and 1933, Chesapeake retrievers and flat-coated
retrievers had been bred into Labrador bloodlines.
The records had been removed to obscure the out-crossings,
especially in chocolate labs.
Bob Sheppard has spent 22 years researching the
Chesapeake retriever.
“Even today, I can’t get some [local] breeders
to talk about their dog’s lineage,” he says. “They
just won’t say.”
Distrustful of government, registrations and
licenses, most old-time watermen never registered
their dogs, and many modern men maintain that
tradition.
Still, in 1878, through the efforts of Foulks
and other sporting hunters, the American Kennel
Association registered the first retrieving breed,
the Chesapeake Bay retriever. That first dog was
Foulk’s Sunday.
The other retrieving breeds were recognized later:
flat-coated retrievers in 1885, Labrador in 1903
and golden in 1932.
Holding Its Own
In the 19th century, the Chesapeake Bay was a
maritime version of the Wild West. There were
gunfights over oysters, waterfowl, terrapins and
fishing. Crabs were restricted to local consumption,
because they were too delicate, but with the advent
of new canning techniques around 1865, crabbing
also added to the industry mix.
Guarding skills made a hunting dog more valuable
to the men who supplied oysters, fish and waterfowl
for local and big-city markets.
The Chesapeake Bay dog fit the bill. Still does,
owners say.
“You can tell a Chesapeake retriever to stay
in the back of your truck and come back three
days later and he’ll still be there guarding it,”
says Jim Suite of Anglers Sport Center. “You may
find an arm or two, but the dog will not appear
to have moved.”
New Times, New Values
Throughout the 19th century, demand for Chesapeake
retrievers remained steady. A good hunting Chessie
commanded several hundred dollars in the mid-1800s,
the equivalent of $1,000 or more today.
From 1860 through 1904, Jay Towner on the Western
Shore’s Bush River advertised his dogs to hunters
all over the country. He classified the colors
of coats as light or dark and would ship either
as requested.
But changes loomed. Just before World War I,
western breeders of the Chesapeake retriever began
focusing on upland game hunting, where the oiliness
of the coat was less important. They favored a
smaller dog with lighter, dead-grass shades, better
to blend in with the western grasses.
After the wars ended, many men found that hunting
was a good outlet for their military training.
Upland game hunters favored Labs as their weekend
gunning companions. The population of registered
Chesapeake retrievers remained constant as the
population of Labrador retrievers skyrocketed.
As Labs dominated, competitions changed to favor
their skills. Instead of being free to retrieve
all downed birds one after the other, new rules
required a dog to retrieve one decoy, then sit
awaiting direction. Instead of ice-choked rivers
and frigid conditions, water trials were held
in sunny ponds during summer and fall. These trials
did not fully test the Chessies’ skills.
“On a warm autumn day, with a plastic decoy,
there is one sort of competition,” Butch Goodwin
wrote in 1997. “But when it is windy, minus 10
degrees with three-foot seas and the goose is
alive and unhappy about getting grabbed by a dog,
that is another test entirely.”
Not Pet But Partner
The independence of mind, tireless energy, oily
coat and dauntless devotion that made the Chesapeake
retriever the premiere dog of the 19th and early
20th centuries are the same qualities that make
them less desirable today.
The Chessie is no less a duck hunter, but fewer
modern dog owners hunt. Today’s preference is
for domestic companions easy to care for and control.
It’s said that you can order a Lab, and you can
ask a golden. But you must negotiate with a Chesapeake.
A Chessie doesn’t learn commands; it learns rules
and routines and makes decisions. It needs to
figure out how things fit together. Chessies think
like a partner, not like a servant. Bred to work
10 or 12 hours a day five to seven days a week,
the Chessie needs a job.
The marshy, choppy and sometimes frigid waters
of the Bay have shaped the Chesapeake retriever.
Like many Bay creatures — the great flocks of
birds, the oysters and the crabs — so too have
retriever numbers dwindled.
Loyal Chessies owners will tell you that’s one
more reason to save the Bay.
prominent families. Their more
famous owners included our 26th president,
Teddy Roosevelt. In his autobiography,
the famous Rough Rider described his dog
in terms that suited himself equally well.