While some breeds are named after the area from which they hail, such is not the case with the Labrador Retriever, often mistaken for being a native of the Labrador Peninsula.  The fabulous Lab, in fact, is indigenous to the Canadian province of Newfoundland where they were originally called St. John’s dogs after the capital of Newfoundland. There, and from the 1700s on, Labs were companions and help mates to local fishermen who bred them with Newfoundlands and other small local water dogs.

English sportsmen imported a few Labs to England to serve as retrievers for hunting, the second Earl of Malmesbury among the first to do so around 1830. It was the third Earl of Malmesbury whom we believe was the first person to refer to the dogs as Labradors. In a letter he wrote to a friend in 1887, he said: “We always call mine Labrador dogs, and I have kept the breed as pure as I could from the first I had from Poole, at that time carrying on a brisk trade with Newfoundland. The real breed may be known by its close coat which turns the water off like oil and, above all, a tail like an otter.”

“By My Side,” by Molly A Poole
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