When the historical drama, The Crown, premiered on Netflix, the production company that commissioned it, it was the most expensive TV series ever made to date. Its popularity also led to a resurgence in searches for the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, a breed that had been listed as vulnerable by The Kennel Club. The club reported that interest in the breed shot up by 22% in 2017, and breed registrations rose to 456 between 2016 and 2017. This was good news for a terrific breed, but it got even better. After The Crown’s second season, the Kennel Club saw enough interest in the breed to take it off the vulnerable list entirely.
After the first season, Netflix UK wisely capitalized on the show’s canine stars and released a version of a key scene between Elizabeth and Philip, but with different “actors” standing in for Claire Foy and Matt Smith. Check it out:
Fans of the show who are also dog people noticed, however, that there were many purebred dogs in The Crown.
Sussex born and breed Labrador Retrievers, “Rea” and “Mole,” were spotted at an agility competition. Owner of the mother and daughter dogs, Tracey Kavanagh, later said: “It all happened so quickly and unexpectedly. We were taking part in an agility competition a couple of years ago. A lady came up, introduced herself as an animal film/TV agent and said she was looking for well-behaved labradors to star in The Crown.” Rea played the part of Lord Mountbatten’s dog, and both she and Mole had scenes portraying a family barbecue the Queen and Prince Philip were having with their children. Tracey intends to continue her dogs’ film careers.
There were other breeds in the series, as well: In one season, Princess Margaret was seen with Pugs, in another, she had a blonde Long Dachshund. There are scenes of English Springer Spaniels at work, and a Bernese Mountain Dog has a “cameo” appearance outside Number 10 Downing Street.
I loved the scenes in The Crown” which included the two black Labrador Retrievers. This might seem like an ignorant question, but are these agility trained dogs of English stock or American? Viewed on TV they seem very lean and athletic, unlike the typical heavier set English type of Labrador and more like the American type that I grew up with.
An Confused American
It’s not an ignorant question, Anna, but we don’t know the answer. We’ll see what we can find out about these dogs, and if any readers can help, we’re all ears!
https://projectupland.com/hunting-dogs/english-lab-versus-american-lab/
They are British working Labradors.
The dichotomy of English and American Labrador is a sort of myopia that comes from how the breed was introduced to this country.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the breed was introduced as a gun dog. Many elite on Long Island were extreme Anglophiles, and tried to get the British driven shoot for pheasants established there. The first trials were based upon this type of shooting. Later, they became waterfowl trials, and the trial developed into something very different from how the British did it. The dog had to be hard charging and able to put up with lots of pressure to be trained. The body became more lithe and the coat less profuse.
The dog did not meet the conformation standard. To bring show quality strains to the US, breeders bought dogs from England. They were called English because the meet conformation standards, but the dogs should be called bench bred or show bred.
The same division happened in the UK. The working trial dogs were bred to be calm and handler soft. Blood from flat-coated, goldens, foxhounds, greyhounds, and border collies was added to these strains well into the Post War Period. The show dogs had to be pure as of 1921, which made these differences more extreme.
British working Labradors are becoming more popular in the US. They are lighter boned than the show dogs and tend to be smaller than American trial dogs. They have thick coats, like the show dogs, but they are almost never chocolate. In the UK, the chocolates became mostly show dogs. Many of the yellows in the British working lines are fox red.
American trial dogs are not popular as gun dogs in the UK. They are not as calm or soft as to fit into their trial system.
So if you see a lighter boned dog in the UK or Ireland, it is almost certainly not an American Labrador. It is a British working Labrador.
A really excellent comment, Scottie, thank you for sharing it! It doesn’t feel like we’re seeing as much from you since you changed platforms….are we looking in all the wrong places?