The Chesapeake Bay Retriever is a hunting dog extraordinaire, and its AKC breed standard calls for the dog’s color to be as close to its working surroundings as possible. This means any color of brown, sedge, or deadgrass. As the AKC writes on the breed’s page on its website, “The deep bittersweet chocolate blends with the mud banks of the bay or river, as the medium milk chocolate melds with the grasses growing along the banks, and the light-yellow “dead grass” coat disappears in the dry, dead wheat stalks and grasses of the autumn fields. Along the Chesapeake Bay in fall, sedge grasses turns bright red, so the sedge-colored Chessie vanishes into the background. Game birds should not notice the camouflaged dog waiting with the hunter in his blind as they fly in.”

Deadgrass, as the name implies, is the color of grass that has passed its “sell by date,” which is to say that it’s the color of grass in the dead of winter, a range of shades and tints from faded tan to lighter yellows reminiscent of straw. It’s said, however, that the origin of the term, “deadgrass” lies with a long departed Chesapeake Bay Retriever breeder from Maryland whose dogs – an entire kennel’s worth – took to routinely emptying their bladders on his lawn. As a result, the fellow once said, “My grass is dead, like my dogs,” meaning that both had the same color. Check out out effective this color is in the photo of this youngster.

Breed legends. They’re not always romantic, but leave it to dog people to be vivid!

Image by ktatarka/iStockPhoto