Lorna, Countess Howe believed that the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) portrayed the Labrador and none other breed in his poem The Twa Dogs:

                        “His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,
                        Shew'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs;
                        But whalpit some place far abroad,
                        Whare sailors gang to fish for cod.”