Thanks Featherfinder, that was an interesting read. I.M.O. our K.C. has not done our setter breeds OR any of our other working breeds any favours ! For example, when I was about 8 -9 years old I once took a show winning Yorkshire Terrier belonging to one of my fathers friends out rat hunting in some nearby pig styes and outbuildings. At that age all I really knew about terriers was that they were supposed to hunt and "kill fings !"
This particular dog had never hunted or killed anything in his life but in no time at all he turned into a raging little monster after encountering a few rats. The two of us rampaged through the mud and the pigsh*t of the tumbledown outbuildings and sheds and we were both soon liberally plastered in very fragrant poo !
We returned to my father's friend's house deliriously happy but not very pretty looking. My father, his friend and that mans wife , looked at us in horror and then the man and his wife both burst out laughing …..my father still looked thunderously at me though..... :roll:
Apparently the wee terrier was supposed to be competing in the showring later that day...... not in that condition he wasn't though ! I was given an immediate bath and then asked to explain what I'd done with the dog. His owners couldn't stop laughing and they remained very friendly with me for the rest of their lives.
When I think back on that incident now I always have to smile, me and that Yorkie must have made a very unattractive picture but somehow I do not think the Yorkies I see now would have been up for a mornings rat hunting. The breed has become a flimsy little shell of what it once was.
Something very similar has, I think, happened to the setters. The show types may look pretty but they are not what I would want as hunting/pointing dogs. I have seen and worked with one very good Gordon ….the exception that proves the rule maybe ?
I was never fortunate enough to see a really good English Setter either out working or at field trials but I'm told good ones do still exist. The examples of the breed I saw working lacked in pace and range …..my Brittany and my GSP's used to outrun them.
I have seen some excellent Irish Setters out working and at field trials …...but they did not look much like their show counterparts !
The working type was far less tall and not as heavily boned and they carried a lot less feathering.
About 20 years ago I was asked to take a training class and answer questions at a seminar for the Irish Red and White Setter Club. A group of people were trying to resuscitate this once proud breeds working instincts after many years of the breed only being seen in showrings . (Except for a few very good workers in Ireland apparently.)
There were two other trainers and seminar "experts" both very experienced F.T. men, we set off across the moors and up over the hills with about 8 dogs and their respective handlers in each group to hunt for red grouse. Of the eight dogs in my group I thought 4 were a "dead loss" and 2 were borderline dead loss. The remaining two were interesting to watch.....they sort of "developed" as they went along gaining in confidence and in pointing ability as they were given chances to hunt.
One of the two I would have liked to develop even further but time did not permit that. Those dogs and their owners all came from "show only" backgrounds …..there is still hope for this breed if a sufficient number of owners, keen to actually work their dogs, keep on trying to improve on what the years of show only breeding left them with.
The questions asked at that evenings seminar were interesting to say the least !
The three of us "experts" (I hate being called that) were bombarded with questions that served to show us the depths of ignorance among those show folk. It was a useful reminder to me not to just assume that people with gundog breeds already know the basics of gundog training and of field work in general.
At least those folk
wanted to know more though.....they wanted to learn.
Bill T.