Take me to Neverland

IN the paintings—six, in total—that H. Reginald Cooke, doyen of Edwardian flatcoated retriever breeders, commissioned from artist Maud Earl, his raven-black dogs each extend to an unglimpsed handler a single, limp-bodied grouse. The dogs’ tails and legs are well feathered, autumn sunlight glancing off glossy coats. Their mouths are gentle, their heads erect, eyes alert, tails momentarily still. In the manner of Earl’s paintings, her subjects have a heroic elegance. These are supremely handsome gundogs and wonderfully reliable workers: a sportsman’s best companion.

This was how lifelong flatcoat aficionado Charles Eley eulogised the breed in his , a book commissioned at the outbreak of the First World War, although publication was delayed until 1921. Eley celebrated flatcoats’ ‘beauty and charm… coupled with a natural docility and reciprocal love for man’. Today’s owners agree. ‘They’re so charming, they absolutely capture your heart,’ Christiane Bunce, a flat-coat owner for 40 years, tells me. ‘They want to please, they’ll