Problems with hunting setter lovers?

[Michaela]

There are some people on this plathform wich seem to have some problems with hunting in general and specially with my pictures of duck-hunting - I have read the comments between Frances McKimm and Susan Morris - also some comments about the video of Petra.

When I startet to be member of "Exclusively Setters - Home for Irish Setter Lovers Around the World" I thoughted this would be also for Setter-Lovers which understand the setter as a hunting dog - I undestand me as setter-lover!

But I if I read the dialog (comments) between Frances and Susann I felt not very welcome on this site with telling hunting stories and showing hunting-pictures. Why I'm not worthy to be a Setter-Lover or Setter-breeder if I show some pictures of hunting with my setter? So I started to think about if it is better to open a new NING only for setter lovers which can accept the setter as an hunting dog - for pointing and versatile used hunting-dog.

On the other side I think it would be a shame to go on with seperating here at Exc.Setters the Setter-Lovers in Hunting and Non-Hunting-only-Showing - it would be poor for each side to do not know from the other side - it would be poor for the race also ..

I think to seperate the hunting ones in a special Ning would not be the solution - I hope - so hwo can we solve the problem?

This are my thoughts - sorry - also sorry for my bad english, I hope you understand what I want to express

[Renata Berlińska]

Quite strange way of thinking, you think about roe deer but write about 8 pheasants (just for example of course). Yes, this photo documents the one case in Jager's life when he worked as tracking dog. Don't worry, he didn't kill that roedeer, only found it. I was proud because I didn't expect he is able to work on the track also. The roedeer and the photo were shot by my boyfriend, who died few months later and also is a keepsake of the past, I'm not going to be ashamed of it. But yes, I can agree that setters should rather do their job and leave big game for other breeds. Have you problem with any other photo? I'm ready to give an explanation.

[Anna Wymyslowska]

Renata, I don't want to argue with you. You showed us your photo so if you are asking, yes I had strange feelings when I was watching them. I didn't see them since than till today. This was just an example - setter with lot of pheasants. I could wrote 6 or 10, my fault I wrote 8...
My feeling is not about setters. All I wanted to say is that some people feel satisfaction and some have sometimes other feelings about hunting.

[Renata Berlińska]

OK, I agree that it doesn't make sense to discuss about feelings - you have right to your feelings, I have right to mine and that's all. And that's why I didn't answer your first post. But in the second one you used the factual argument: you feel bad seeing such photo because of low number of small game in our country. And I just wanted to explain that hunters are not mindless creatures trying to extinct all game around them. The problem with small game has another sources: disapearing of natural animals environment, deacreasing biological diversity:great monocultural fields without any clumps of trees or shrubs, using lots of chemical feritilizers and finally - great number of foxes whose population increased abnormally as result of widespread use of vaccination against rabies. The number of game which can be shot is adjusted to size of their population. In many hunting areas partridge or hare hunting is not allowed at all because of their scarceness. So let's make a truce: I will respect your feelings but let me not agree and correct if your feelings would have wrong basis.

[Kirsty williamson]

very well put ursula, I wonder do the people complaining sit down to battery farmed chicken and pork and beef which never saw the light of the day whilst alive.
kirsty

[Dee Rance]

One is economics and the other is a way of filling ones life, people have a choice in what they do...farming and hunters, and there are good and bad ways of doing both. I think that farmers that farm 'intensively' have a choice of how they farm, we don't have to like it, we also have the rite not to like the fact that some people go out and kill everything that moves, animals that is. BUT not every farmer farm's intensively, and not every hunter kills everything that moves, so what I am saying is that we all have a choice, and that includes what we look at, I didn't like the Video that ALL THIS started with, but I had the choice of looking at it or not, I took that decision. I think that we should all get off this subject, it is starting to divide this site, and that would be a shame, we should try and see the other persons side, even if we don't happen to like it.

[Ewa]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I do not know English enough. I know you are big lover and expert in setters.
But if you leave setter without working with him he will always start running all moving objects and it can get to event like this in the movie. But maybe I’m not right.
I am not hunter and I will never be.

[Henk ten Klooster]

No Carmel setters were not always gundogs. They were birddogs. But yes a lot of people consider a gundog different from a hunting dog. Plus more books like indeed A Survey of Early Setters provide sources sharply dividing between "slaughtering of game" and enjoying perfection of setters & pointers.

So I understand posters here, sticking to a purist-idea of working Irish setters. There are quite few Irish setters used for searching, finding and setting birds for saviour or counts. That shows how important it is to keep original properties alive and well - without it an important instrument for survival of species would vanish.

Whether or not you can use setters for non-specialist tasks, is an academic question. During the international conference in Dublin mid nineties under more this versatile Irish setter was discussed.

Irish setters used for all jobs but still performing their specialist-task tops in field-trials, demonstrate our birddog has more to offer if needed. If the specialist-job is totally absent or fading, breeders of this type do provide -just like show-only people- a danger for survival of the original red setter.

So I've found a way to disagree with all of you:-))))))))))))))),

[Carmel Murphy]

Hello Hank!! I said that setters "are" and will always be gun dogs! I know they "were" bird dogs before guns were used and nets were used to catch the birds that the dogs sett. But I was going by the official FCI terminology which describes them as gundog and family dog!! And I would be only familiar with their use here in Ireland! As I said in another section I found that it was interesting to find out how they are used in other countries!;o)) This site is part of all our education, but we can still have difference of opinion too!;o)

[Henk ten Klooster]

They were and the best still are birddogs. Irish setters are one of the few breeds with strains still showing this while setting Tasting a good glass of whiskey or a cigar like now while typing this down means nothing to tasting this refinement way older than gun experiences.

This whiskey is a toast as well on those showing the Irish setter adds much more. As long as you do not remove roots by wrong selection (be it hunters or the showfraternity), you will guard a heritage responsible for its special communication-tools (companions).

So its for about time ALL of the Irish setter fraternity will guard this soul.

[Carmel Murphy]

Enjoy your whiskey and cigar!!

[Henk ten Klooster]

Well Wilco not reading like we do, but they are capable of reading what is written in the wind. Yes an Irish setter is a gundog AND companion (note: not OR). Whatever else this breed is capable of (even rescue) as well is ok. Like surviving. No doubt you know the famous story about an Irish setter searching his family on holidays for weeks. He must have eaten something....Maybe where chickens were for free?:-))))