Landseer

Edwin Landseer was a painter. The above photo is a copy of one of his paintings, it is titled "Saved". The dog is said to be either a Newfoundland or a Newfoundland mix.

Some say he painted a real black & white Newfoundland dog. Others claim that all Newfoundland Mastiffs, at that time, were black.

But that a solid black dog is hard to paint, so he must have either painted a Newfoundland mix, or simply used artistic license to paint a black dog as a two color dog.

Whatever Mr. Landseer himself did, his paintings became popular, and people wanted a "Landseer Newfoundland" - a newfie that was both black & white.

The fact that the two color Newfoundlands were named after a painter, makes me wonder if the two color Newfie did originate in art, and then dogs were cross bred to look like the painted dogs.

For many years, the black and white Newfoundlands (the Landseers) were longer legged than the solid black Newfoundland dogs - another reason to suspect they were cross-bred, which would be a good thing, since too much in-breeding tends to have a bad effect on a breed.

The black & white Newfoundland dogs didn't drool as much as the shorter legged solid color Newfoundland dogs. Some people even drug their show type Newfoundland dogs so they wouldn't drool as much.

There are also bronze colored Newfoundland dogs, which are a beautiful reddish chocolate color. The breed name is often shortened to "newfie".