Why a Setter?

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Did some of you used to have or have had other breeds? When did you fall in love for the first time (with a Setter :-)) ?

I guess that I was influenced by my parents of course who always dreamed of having an Irish Setter. I even wanted to have a Setter for my Barbie, unfortunately there were only ugly poodles in the toy shop
:-) (Hey, nothing personally against poodles !! )

When I was fifteen years old we have been to Sardegna on our holidays and there we saw an Irish Setter on the beach running and playing. He belonged to an other german family. From that holidays on the idea became more and more concrete. One l o n g year later we got Bora, my first Setter love. Since then I´m so infected with that fascination!
What are your stories?

[Teresa]

When I was 10, a lost IS ended his journey at my door, and he was the sweetest dog I ever met. I was able to find his owner, who was desperate looking for him! that was when iI strated to enjoy setters, but did not know much about the breed.
Then two years ago, I decided to get a dog to keep me companied while studying away from home...Every breeder I called told me the most terrible stories of ded moms and puppes from the breeds i was looking for... I was not looking or thinking about setters at all, and Pitanga almost landed in my lap by a chance, and I actually got her on impulse!
Well, I'm now totally setter adicted, a lot more informed about the breed, somethings at my onw expense... and do not regret the impulse at all!

[Laura Kolbach]

hi Christina,
we had that topic before in the early years of this forum, you might want to read it: http://irishsetters.ning.com/forum/topics/865021:Topic:4199
another one connected: http://irishsetters.ning.com/forum/topics/865021:Topic:9564

[Laura Kolbach]

bitte bitte :-)

[karen jewitt]

There is no other dog in the world as far as i'm concerned. I have loved all 3 of my setter's,they bring so much fun into your life

[Sue and Cash]

Dub is our third irish setter. When I met my husband he had Chico who was about a year old. I fell in love with his dog, then him! After he passed we got Casey, because I wanted my son to grow up with one.
After he passed, we had a Chessie, a Brittany, and a Pointer but never did we get over our love of the breed. When it came time to get a new puppy it was my husband who said, No more dogs, can you find me another irish setter hon? I jumped and found Dublin. Even with his illness, I am so glad to have had him in my life.

[Susie Warren]

We always had gundogs because mum felt that the soft mouths meant that they'd be better for children as they grip instead of bite (this was her reasoning). So we had spaniels when I was little and then moved onto a golden retriever when we had a bigger garden. Mum always said she'd never have the same breed twice as it would be as if she was replacing a dog, but after our retreiver died and we were looking for a new dog I already had my heart set on a setter, I did my research found a breeder and we got Holly. Holly was the worst puppy we've ever had, she destroyed the house as any normal puppy would - the eating furniture was all fine, she was toilet trained immediately but the biting wasn't like anything we've known before. She ripped our arms and legs apart we were covered in red scratches and cuts constantly, she even started jumping up and nipping faces! She soon stopped this and her re-call was perfect (providing there were no birds, children, people, dogs, noise or excitement around) After nearly a year of chasing her around and her even setting light to our kitchen, and a lot of training everything clicked into place and we had the best dog ever.

We loved her from day 1, but now we could truly enjoy her!

Anyway so when my parents had time to forget the mess that was Holly as a puppy they decided IS's were the best dogs ever and it was time to get a second - this time we choose a IRWS as we'd extended our research and decided that this might be an excellent addition to our family. Poppy and Holly are well and truly the centre of our family and now we couldn't imagine life without our irish friends.

We've met a lot of people who've told us 'oh i had a setter once......' and we can't believe they stopped at only the one.

We're hooked now and are even thinking about venturing into the world of breeding as our interest in everything setters has taken over.

I read somewhere that the IS's greatest achievement to date was fooling the entire world into thinking their stupid and I totally agree!