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Contact the folks at The National Red Setter Field Trial Club and find out what a real Irish Red Setter can do!
But, check your preconceptions, prejudices and memories of bench bred Setters at the door, because these dogs are the real deal, as many folks who run FDSB Pointers and Setters can attest...

As the commercial says... "This ain't your father's Oldsmobile"

http://www.nrsftc.com/

What wonderful dogs and a great video. Makes me want to go visit the Wife's relatives in Jamtland. They just sent us pictures of 81 year old Nils Emanuel with his Alg from last fall. We call them Moose here in my yard.

I am not a regular member of this list, but joined today in order to respond to the series of questions and comments regarding Irish red setters that have been posted the past few days. As a point of reference, I am a member of the National Red Setter Field Trial Club (www.nrsftc.com) and am currently a member of the Board of Directors. I also am currently serving as their Futurity Chair for our National Futurity, and have been serving on the Board in one capacity or another for about 12 years. I have owned red setters for about 15 years.

Much of the information posted about Irish setters, referring to them as undisciplined, stupid, untrainable, nonhunters, etc., etc. is highly inaccurate. I must assume that these individuals have owned or had experience with Irish setters out of bench or show stock, or perhaps what are often referred to as "dual dogs". Red setters out of hunting or field trial stock do not exhibit those behaviors. A bit of historical clarification would help explain...

In 1950 a group of gentlemen from eastern PA (who hunted with Irish setters) got together and formed a club with the specific purpose of restoring the Irish setter as a class hunting dog and field trial competitor. These men formed the National Red Setter Field Trial Club, and the club has been in existence since that time, and our purpose has been unbending... to produce high quality Irish red setters that can compete on the same level as English setters and English Pointers in championship field trials. The results of this endeavor (commonly referred to as "The Purest Challenge" by those in the field trial community) have been nothing short of miraculous. The restoration of the Irish red setter by breeders in our club has produced a dog that is highly intelligent, biddable, well gaited, with intense pointing instinct, high desire to hunt, and excellent temperment for both hunting and companionship. These dogs compete on the American Field (FDSB) field trial circuit, and are quite competitive. In fact, the pointing dog with the highest number of placements in the United States in the history of the American Field trials (dating back to 1898) is a red setter by the name of Bearcat. No other pointing breed has beat his record, including English setters and pointers. (this dog passed on in 2002). I currently own 10 red settes, with which I run walking trials on the eastern part of the U.S. I also train in North Dakata. All of my dogs are proven on wild birds in the Dakotas, and can point and hold pheasant, huns, grouse, and woodcock. My 7 year old red setter King Cormac (Mac) was the 2005 Amateur Shooting Dog of the Year for Pennsylvania. He has over 30 field trial placements, and, by the way, I have also shot several dozen pheasant over him. Most of my dogs have both horseback and walking placements. I can run my dogs in a horseback trial and have them reach out over a 1/2 mile on one weekend, and the next weekend I can hunt over them on foot and they will adjust accordingly. The reason is intelligence. Not only are they intelligent in terms of adjusting to proper range, but they also are bird intelligent, and quickly figure out how to handle wild birds. All of my dogs are also housebroken, and I routinely rotate them into the house. As I type this note, I have two red setters lying at my feet... one is my old red setter Finny, who has had several hundred pheasants shot over him, and the other is Ruby, who, last March won the National Red Setter Futurty with a scorching horseback race, topped by a quail covey find, in a blinding snowstorm with 30 mph winds and horrific conditions that would have put most hunters and dogs in the house. Finny, who is 11 years old, will retrieve birds out of water with a 1/4" of ice and will retrieve to hand. These dogs live to hunt and be with their owners. I'm not telling these stories to brag... I'm telling you that if you want to hunt over an Irish setter, then you need to get a red setter out of the National Red Setter Field Trial Club restoration effort. Do NOT purchase an Irish setter from a "dual" dog person, a bench dog, or show dog... RUN AWAY from those people... they don't hunt, and neither do their dogs. If you're buying a red dog for hunting, insist on ensuring that the dog has a history pointing to the National Red Setter restoration efforts. If the dog does not, I would recommend against buying the dog for hunting purposes.

I would encourage you to look at our website, and to make inquiries from the list of breeders noted on those pages. Our organization is small (less than 200 members), but extremely dedicated to pursuing The Purest Challenge. We have a performance-based standard (the ONLY pointing breed in the United States to have a standard based upon performance and not conformation). Our dogs hunt, they do it well, and they do it with the style befitting an American bird dog. We breed for intelligence (a bird dog must be smart), gait (gait is essential for maintaining endurance and stamina), nose (a bird dog must have a good nose), biddability (a bird dog must hunt for the handler), and temperment (a bird dog must be trainable and family oriented).

If you're looking for a bird dog that lives to hunt, lives to be loyal to his owner and family, is great looking, is well behaved in the house, and will hunt all day every day, then you should consider checking out a red setter.

Hope this will clarify the situation.

Best regards,
Allen Fazenbaker
Conneaut Creek Red Setters
Kingsville, Ohio
http://www.redsetter.us
http://www.nrsftc.com
http://redsetters.blogspot.com

An Irish Setter as a hunter takes a big dose of romanticism. I'm not saying that there aren't a few out there that do good work in the field, but rather than take the chance of beating one's head against the wall trying to disprove conventional wisdom, push your friend to a short-haired pointer, a Lab, or any of the other breeds we know work. It just makes so much more sense.

Maybe I'm just bitter. I let a friend bring an Irish Setter on a hunt once where I knew pheasant abounded. We could keep track of the dog by the birds that were getting up a quarter to a half mile away. It took about three or four hours for the hound to tire enough that we could sneak up on him, collar him, and drag his sorry ass back to the car. The only time we ever saw him, actually saw him the whole day, was when we let him loose and when we kenneled him again.

Wow, I didn't realize the 'Red Setter' breeding went all the way back to 1950!! The thing I love about an Irish Setter first and foremost they are the most beautiful of dogs and they are definitely built to run!!!

When I was a young lad back in the 70's, we "rescued" an Irish Setter. To summerize, every bad thing posted in the previous 3 pages applies.

Since I started my search for a sporting dog back in 01, I have seen many varieties of setters. I will say they all exibit the same high drive, hard headedness. Most I would rate as "kennel only" type - do not turn loose in a house.

As a side note, my Small Munsterlander has been to many NAVHDA and HRC events, and he has been attacted twice, once by an english setter and once by a gorden setter.

Gary

You rescued "an" Irish setter? Who was responsible for the breeding? What did it say on the pedigree? Who worked the dog and was responsible for it's training before and during your ownership? How many hunt events did you participate in with the Irish Setter? How much money did you spend on care, training and professional guidance? How long did you own it?

Some would have us believe that all setters and especially Irish Setters from the period of forty or so years past are useless. There was a time when anyone with a female Irish setter could breed her in the backyard and reliably sell the pups-they were the most popular dog in the US for a period of time back then. Still, there were good dogs then, but, they didn't come from a backyard, or from a rescue situation, usually.

Is your Munsterlander a rescue dog? Tell me, why not? On second thought, don't bother. I think I know why not. I think everyone does.

Yet, it's the dog's fault, and nothing has changed, and what was going on with the dogs in any other part of the world doesn't matter. Or, so you woyuld have us believe.

My Gordon setter came to work with me every day for two years. If he had been anything other than calm and well mannered this simply would not have been possible-the owner was not a dog lover until after being around my Gordon. "Stoke" could sleep next to a Heidelberg KORD printing press running wide open. He never caused a problem at the job. He never missed a retrieve in his life, either.
Every setter I've ever owned lived in my home, with my roomates, or, today, my family. Not much trouble, except my English destroying TV remotes as a pup. She grew out of it.


No breed of dog throws perfect dogs with every litter. But, since the field Irish setter of today is being pretty closely held by hunting people, for hunting people, the breed as a whole has improved much from whatever you remember about your "free" dog, which, it would seem, was worth about what you paid for it.
Best,
Ted

Jimmy W, you made me just about pee my pants. How that brought back memories of my own Irish. Puddle Rat, mine was a “rescue”, from the side of the road.

Back in the early 70’s (notice maybe a pattern there?) my folks were on their way home from Kingston, NY. (We live up in the Northern Catskills,I was about 13) they noticed a small pup running in and out of RT 28 near Bellayre Ski Center. Well, dear old Mom had those motherly instincts and insisted that my Dad stop and get that puppy out of the road before it got hit. They picked up a 7-8 week old Irish Setter pup and went to all the houses within eyesight to see whose dog it was. No one claimed it. When they got home , with the pup, I saw it and fell for him immediately. He had that sort of cross eyed Doofus look about him. Of course we all thought he was cute and he was pretty placid at the time. Must have been the shock of starving and running wild.

Anyway, life in our household would soon change forever. Probably if I listened real closely I could have heard the Jaws theme song in the back ground. Within a day he was up and running, figuratively and literally. We named him Sundance after the Sundance Kid (that flick was pretty popular in those days. Who knew how prophetic that choice of monikers would be. An outlaw and thief he was to become. We also had a middle aged cocker spaniel that ruled the roast. She was the big dog!!!

Sundance grew, and grew, and grew some more. The whole time we were trying to figure out who would dump a pure bred Irish Setter on the side of the road. Our eventual conclusion was that they knew exactly what they were doing. He was the forerunner of what is known today as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Unfortunately for me, visions of hunting partridge with him were shattered when we had our first thunderstorm. Bezerk cant describe his behavior. He about chewed through the walls of the house to get inside. He was a house dog but he was out and about when the storm hit. Gun-shy and any noise shy.

Chew? He never met a knife, scarf, glove, shoe, boot, chair, door, that he didn’t like. No, we didn’t leave these laying around. He would stand up on his hind legs and help himself. At thanksgiving he stole the turkey off the counter in the kitchen and three pies. Told my mother it served her right. She was not impressed. He became known as “that damn dog”. Of course her little cocker could do no wrong. My dad and I thought the Cocker was always putting him up to this stuff to get rid of him.

One of his favorite pastimes was killing woodchucks and not eating them right away. He let them age to perfection for a couple of weeks, let the maggots grow and the meat age and then he would ceremoniously drag them on the lawn by the side door we usually used so we could see his prize whenever we passed. Then he would consume these delicacies when he wasn’t rolling on it. Of course the noxious odors he emitted later on in the house would empty a room in a heartbeat. His next favorite pastime was waiting till our neighboring farmer came down to our meadows to spread cow flop and he would literally follow the spreader and roll in the fresh meadow dressing. Of course the Cocker would sometimes follow him and my mom always blamed him as being a bad influence.

He put his head through a window to get at another dog, he destroyed an unbreakable doggie door. He would steal groceries that my mother left on the walkway next to the car as when she came home from shopping and emptied the car. It was always a mystery when she would be in the kitchen unpacking her purchases and would wonder where the box of pastries, pounds of butter, bread, meat went that she knew she just bought. A quick trip out to the yard would usually find “him” sprawled out with half a steak in his mouth or a butter package or box emptied and him nowhere to be seen. He could swallow a roast whole. He could eat a pie before you could blink.

I watched one time when he was about 4 months old, he did something wrong or something that my mother didn’t like. We were in the den watching TV, My dad, my mother and I. She called Sundance over and he walked over and sat down near her about 6 feet frr the wall. She proceeded to scold him, wagging her finger at him. He sat and stared at her. My dad and I were opposite my mom so we only saw him from behind. Next thing we see, emanating obviously form him , is this yellow stream shoot up , right next to my mother, onto the wall about 6 feet high and then it ran down the wall. My mother was aghast, she was speechless. We fell out of our chairs we were laughing so hard.

Of course my dad and I would laugh and watch my Mom go ballistic. WE thought he was great fun when he wasn’t damaging anything. He was also very big and very fast. Huge deep chest, big squared headed son of a gun, long read hair. Not that slender narrow brainless look like most of them. On his hind legs he stood over 5’ 6” tall and after he was finally neutered (A fruitless attempt to get him to calm down) he weighed in at a about 120 lbs. He was very fast. In his prime he would run next to my Rambler 550 Classic at 35 MPH by the speedometer.


But, as far as a friend, a family dog that would never hurt a fly, he was it. Loyal as can be. Entertaining as hell. I wont blame any training deficiencies for his behavior. He was just not the sharpest tack in the box. But a hell of a dog nonetheless. Wish he would have hunted, he had a great nose but was scared to death of any loud noise. Our conclusion was that whoever had him knew enough about dogs that they decided instead of putting him down they would drop him and some unsuspecting fool would feel sorry for him and give him a decent home. Why else would he have been lost ? And in the end he unquestionably confirmed that no good deed ever goes unpunished!!!

redpups logged a great post, and I would encourage anyone with any interest in obtaining a modern Irish Red Setter to follow up his lead and do some research into "The Purest Challenge" in sportsdom.. the return of the Irish Red Setter as a sporting dog with all the attributes to perform and compete in the field against all comers..

The old jokes about Irish Setters just do not apply anymore, and all one need do is ask the folks from other breeds that run against them..

Enjoy the research, as I am... It's an interesting story of saving a breed.

Irish Red Setter Club in Dublin doesn't recognize American FT red dogs.
Also they are very disapoited about dual dogs, the last dual Champion was in Ireland in 1922.
But we got some dual dogs here.
It's all about selection.
Import dogs from Ireland and you will get REAL IRISH SETTERS.