We´re here again...

[Katariina Roiha]

Was it a year ago, I posted something here? So I remember. I haven´t been so active cause this site has turned out so full of (sorry to say) dull show pictures.

But here we are,working setters from finnish Lappland...Let´s start with pictures from September

Slightly we have turned to October

and November

and finally to December

^our youngest worker Aapeli, nearly 7 months

[Carmel Murphy]

Beautiful shots especially the snow scenes!! Your young one Aapeli looks very serious about his job!!;o))

[Myra Thomas-Rhodes]

Great to see your stunning shots again, Katarina. We all appreciate the sights, scenery and photographic expertise, and I tell heaps of people to go and look at your site.
Merry Christmas and PLEASE visit with a Blog more often!!
M XX

[ursula wilby]

Welcome back with your wonderful photos, Katariina!

[Thomas&Merete-Kennel Alvertoppen]

Great pictures! Nice to see more working dogs in here. Keep it up! What lines are your Irish setters from?
Merete

[Katariina Roiha]

Our irish are:
* Flamefield´s Beretta( Int. Show Champion Wingbeat Bailey/ "US"Patrice)
* Flamefield´s Evita( N & FIN JaktChampion Douedal´s Irwin / Flamefield´s Beretta)
* Ailigaslammen A-Peli ( Rushfield Finn / Flamefield´s Evita ),Rushfield Finn is an import from Scotland
Evita is out of my first litter which was registered under Evita´s mothers Beretta´s breeders kennelname (Flamefield´s) and A-Peli is registered under my own kennelname Ailigaslammen.

Our english are:
* DV-06 PO Setters Born to Hunt ( Myrheden´s F-Didi / Thodos Mohawk) an import from Sweden
* North Walkers Sheriff ( DV-06 PO Setters Born to Hunt / Monza)
* North Walkers Sirius ( DV-06 PO Setters Born to Hunt / Monza)

and one of our setters is a mixture of irish and english (best hunting dog ever to own)

[Margaret Sierakowski]

Wonderful pictures, and REAL dogs! Interested to see you have Rushfield behind one of your dogs.
John Kerr (Rushfield) lives near me, and I have his Rushfield IRWS behind my dogs.
John's red IS and his IRWS came originally from the same dogs, and were very similar in type
I love the type, but even more, the intelligence of the Rushfields

[Katariina Roiha]

Thanks Margaret for the info clip. It is true that this little "Rushfield youngster" of mine is the wisest of all the setters i have ever owned. I fell in love with his character when he was only 1 week old. He showed that he is the most persistent in everything he does. He is a bit crazy :) but in a good way. I´m looking forward to see him working...

[Margaret Sierakowski]

John Kerr is a very interesting man to talk to. He is now in his 80's and retired from breeding, but bred and worked red Irish Setters for over 50 or 60 years, first in northern Ireland and later in Scotland. His memories go back to before John Nash started breeding, and he has a phenomenal memory for dogs. He can watch a young dog and see how it is behaving and can relate that to ancestors twenty or thirty years back. He was always more interested in shooting over his dogs than in field trials, and wanted a trainable, cooperative, highly intelligent dog as part of his team which he used for walked up shooting on many different estates in Scotland
His red and whites, which he started breeding from 1972, came from his red dogs, and so share a lot of the same type and mental characteristics
I fell in love with the Rushfield type when I bought Rushfield Ruffle, a daughter of Rushfield Rascal, from John in 1998. Sadly she had pyometra badly when young and had to be spayed, and never fulfilled her working potential after that. Later I got Pepperstown Polly, another Rascal daughter, who has been the dream dog that one only gets once in a lifetime , a great worker, excellent brood bitch, and a joy to live with
John had to give up his dogs after a struggle with cancer and the complications of a broken hip, but is still an amazing source of knowledge and experience about setters, and involved in running setter and pointer trials for the North of Scotland Gundog Association

[Susan Stone]

Thank you Margaret for this interesting information. John Kerr sounds like a man with many stories to tell... what is the breeding behind the Rushfield Irish? I assume they were orginally of irish origin?
Katarina, I'm also looking forward to seeing photographs of A-Peli working. He seems to have kept the strong bone he had as a puppy?

[Margaret Sierakowski]

It isnt easy to trace back the pedigrees of the Rushfield dogs. Yes, they were Irish dogs, but I suspect that John sometimes didnt register his dogs or registered them with the IKC. They dont seem to appear in the UK registrations until the 1970s, and there are only a few later ones in Lena Argards data base. I think he was not too keen on the Moanruad dogs so tended to use other lines in his breeding. He had Ballymac Eagle towards the end of his life and says he was the greatest red dog he ever knew. John was more interested in shooting over his dogs than field trialling, so there was less pressing need to register his dogs. But like Billy Hossick, John is something of a legend over in Ireland :)) The last of his red Irish Setters went to Carol Calvert (Glenlark) in N.Ireland, the last of his IRWS are with Alasdair Graham here in Scotland
I tried to get him to write down or record on cassette some of his memories while he was in hospital for a while some years back, but he wouldnt do it