Emerson was Right
James Lamb Free did the retriever world a great service by writing his classic, Training Your Retriever, which is not only an informative book about retrievers and their training, but also a masterpiece of enjoyable how-to literature, a real page-turner. I treat my own first edition copy with a reverence inspired by awe.

When hunting over decoys, the blind can be quite simple if the background helps hide both the hunter and the dog.

However, Mr. Free did the retriever world a disservice, and the spaniel world an injustice, by claiming that Labs can equal spaniels in the uplands. Granted, retrievers can do journeyman upland work. But to see a master at it you need to follow an FC English springer, English cocker, or American cocker through a few fields.

In 1985, at the first AKC retriever hunting test, I had an irresistible opportunity to disabuse all hands of any notion of retriever/spaniel equality in the uplands. Back then, the master level (which I was judging) included an upland flushing series. So I had Chad Betts run one of his field-trial springers as test dog in that series.

Wow! What a show! Compared to the work of that little bundle of slash and dash, the work of the best of the 25 entered retrievers was underwhelmingly ho-hum. I've never since heard anyone in attendance utter the previously often-uttered James Lamb Free "heresy" about retrievers equaling spaniels in the uplands. (In 1987, when judging the master level of an early AKC spaniel hunting test, I had Perry Overstake run his field-trial Lab as test dog in the water blind, with similar comparative results.)

So, when speaking of the versatility of retrievers, let's omit comparisons with other sporting breeds and focus on the abilities of retrievers. Ralph Waldo Emerson put it so well, with "Comparisons are odious." If you're happy with your retriever's work in the uplands, what difference does it make how he stacks up against spaniels?

Ditto if you hunt raccoon, or bear, or elephant with your retriever. If you refuse to be happy unless your pooch is at least the equal of all other pooches in whatever specialty, you're sentencing yourself to a life of either misery or delusion.

What is a Versatile Retriever?
Realistically, a versatile retriever should satisfy the canine equivalent of Cardinal Newman's definition of an educated person: One who knows a little about many subjects and a lot about one particular subject. For example, a truly educated doctor should know a little about law, business, history, literature, and so on, although his expertise is necessarily in medicine.

Applying that concept to retrievers, we would have to say that a versatile retriever excels in non-slip retrieving and does acceptable work in other types of hunting, especially flushing (or pointing, whichever the owner prefers) and retrieving the various species of upland gamebirds.

Non-Slip Retrieving
In non-slip retrieving, the dog remains at heel or in some designated place near the blind until sent to retrieve. This can involve both water and land work on waterfowl or driven upland gamebirds (as in English-style hunts).