Why a Setter?

[rosie beere]

Hi Guys,

 was wondering why in the first place you decided Setters were the only dog for you.

We had a young child about to start crawling, (he is now 40) when we thought about getting a pup.

Many years earlier I had been given for Christmas a book on dog breeds, so we got it out and went through it many times both Geoff and I always coming back to the beautiful Irish Setter, I remember it saying the lovelest of all breeds, gentle, great family dog easy to train.

So a trip to Coventry from Wales and we bought our first pup, a Wendover Irish Setter bitch, we named her Bonny and she was. She was all that the discription in my book had told me.

So that my friends was our begining of our love of these wonderful dogs.

Rosie

[Howard Glansfield]

My wife and I have always liked setters from childhood.Joan was in love with an ES from an early age.When we got married we had mongrels and they were delightful then we moved and a neighbour had two Irish,we got involved with them,that was it, we were hooked!

We got our first Irish about 35 years ago and have had nothing else since except we rescued a IS x collie who lived happily with and amongst the setters. 

[Fran Griffin]

When I was approx 10 years old, I saw a beautiful red galloping along a beach with a huge smile on its face. I decided at that point "one day I am going to have one of those dogs" It took a further 20 years, and one of those dogs has now become a total of 7.  I wouldn't have had it any other way.

[Christine Pullen]

My experience is very similar to yours Fran!! I always wanted and irish setter...if it was a boy I was going to call it Merlin and if it was a girl it was going to be Sheena, no idea why thse names but it stuck through many years and different dogs plus an ex husband until finally, 6 yrs ago I got my Merlin!! Of course once you have one it's never enough and so we added Jack and now have Harry as well. It was worth the wait!

[Fran Griffin]

Oh goodness. I was going to call one Merlin as well, however, a friend of mine had a Merlin, so it didn't happen.  Perhaps I will get my Merlin one day though..... hopefully.

[Gillian Kennedy-Sloane]

Did I have a choice?????

[Ellen Turberfield]

When i was about 8 we had a poodle my dad took in when owner couldn't look after it on a trip to the vets they had a dog breeds poster on the wall as soon as i saw the picture of this beautiful red dog i was hooked, i went home and told my mother that was the dog i wanted, she said when i was older and had my own home then i could and about a year after i left home i got my first boy and that was in 1980,funny thing i was named after my grandmother and she always wanted a setter i was told, sadly she never did, ,

[Margaret Sierakowski]

Having previously owned working springers, and never even considered having anything else, I was at Crufts in 1994 and saw IRWS on the benches there. It was like a light switching on in my head! This was the dog I had been searching for all my life, cant explain it, but a few other people have the same experience when they first met an IRWS. I spent all that day on the IRWS benches, went home with dozens of photos, A few weeks later I saw an advert in the Aberdeen Press and Journal for an IRWS litter, phoned up, and got on the next plane to Aberdeen to pick up my puppy and take him home to Shetland

[sue morgan]

Ha ha  @Gill,  same here,My father always had Irish,so  thats what  I grew up with, loved and knew,  also tried an English Settter and a Beagle along the way ,but The Irish are my 1 st love and soul mate s

[Lois McCullough]

All because my Mother said 30 odd years ago I looked like an IS with my red hair and Mothers are never wrong or are they......!!!

[Fran Griffin]

Haha. I have given up saying this one will be my last lol. Since I got a Setter, I haven't had  anything else (no disrespect to my other lovely old past doggies) and wouldn't want to... apart from a cocker spaniel.... maybe...perhaps..... one day. hmmmmmm

[Howard Glansfield]

We said that Fran two years ago when we had just Ellie and Fred......then we got crazy Arthur!

[Philip Hall]

We had booked to go and look at a litter of Welsh Springer Spaniels but stopped off to see a little litter that a friend of a friend of a friends bitch had just produced.......35 years later we are still in love with the big bundles of Red Dynamite who's love and energy knows no bounds. Bless them all :-)