THE ENGLISH SETTER BREED
This photo shows Beau on the left at 9 months of age. Sitting beside him is his father Sunny, who is now a retired Grand Champion show dog. The English Setter on the right is Lucy who lives with Sunny.
If you look closely, you will see that Beau and Sunny are sitting exactly the same with their left foot forward .. like father, like son.
I hope Beau and his father will be able to see each other again. Sunny is 13 years old now.
Why English Setters ?
Many people ask me .. Why English Setters ???
The loving, gentle, devoted temperament of the English Setter sets them apart from any other breed of dog.
In addition to being amazingly loving, gentle and devoted to you, they are also very active and fun loving, possessing a wonderful sense of humour. They can twist you around their paw with one soulful look from their 'rheumy' eyes.
English Setters are an intelligent breed and they are a 'free spirited' dog. They do not respond to human dominance and they will suffer severely if too much discipline and pressure is placed on them. To me, the Arabian is the equivalent in a horse to an English Setter.
The more love you are prepared to give an English Setter, the more they will thrive and the deeper the connection you will form with each other. The bond between you and your English Setter cannot be described in words.
If you do not give an English Setter enough time or love, and if you do not allow them to share your life as a special member of your family, they will suffer severely. If an English Setter suffers too much because of human ignorance and selfishness, they will not cope. Unfortunately the majority of humans do not notice this. They just think the dog is a little vague instead of realising that the English Setter has been pushed beyond the limits of his or her sensitive, loving, intelligent nature.
Can you imagine the trauma an English Setter will suffer if he is forcibly taken away from his family, his home and his mum who loves him unconditionally as he loves her, and who honours him and cherishes him for just being 'Beau' !!!!
This is a critique of the English Setter breed written by the Kettle Moraine English Setter Club in the USA ....
"The mild, sweet disposition of the English Setter, together with its beauty, intelligence and aristocratic appearance in the field and in the home, has endeared it both to sportsmen and to all lovers of a beautiful, active, rugged dog. Their lovable character makes them ideal companions for children.
To this dog, love and affection are as necessary as food.
The more pleasant the association with people, the smarter the English Setter will become, and his or her inherent good qualities will be more fully developed when there is more frequent chance of expression. Their natural instinct for bird hunting cannot be developed unless given the opportunity to find birds in the field.
Nor will their outstanding characteristics of love and devotion be fully developed without close association with people .. a Gentleman and a Gentlewoman among dogs".
A Dog Named 'Cider' .. a loving portrait of a companion who was proud, domineering, possessive, and every inch an English gentleman.
The following is a story written by Corey Ford in 1966 about his English Setter whose name was Cider.
'When a friend tells me he can't play golf tomorrow because his wife wants him to stay home, I don't jeer and make snide remarks about apron strings. I reply ruefully, "I know how it is. I have a dog .... "
We met for the first time when he was five months old. I had stopped off at a kennel to pick out a puppy (or so I thought) and found myself subjected to the intense scrutiny of six young English Setters in a pen. Five stood with their front paws against the wire, barking and panting. The sixth sat on his haunches and regarded me solemnly until he caught my eye. Evidently he made up his mind that he wanted me, for he thrust a forefoot through the mesh and reached towards me. We belonged to each other from then on.
It was clear at the outset that he had a mind of his own. That night I put him in an outdoor run set away from the house and surrounded by an eight-foot fence. Some time in the wee hours I was woken up by a soulful wail directly under my bedroom window. I have no idea how he climbed out of the run; still less how he knew which window was mine. Sleepily I stumbled downstairs to let him in. He'd never seen a flight of stairs before, but he trotted up them confidently beside me, looked over my bedroom, and selected an overstuffed chair in which he slept every night the rest of his life.
I named him Cider .. it suggested a sparkling Autumn, the time of year I like best .. and I bought a book on housebreaking and obedience training. I never had to use it. He came from a long line of English gentlemen, and good manners were born with him. His only fault, which he never outgrew, was the habit of pawing a rug into a rumpled heap to make a softer bed. After several futile attempts to dissuade him, I found that it was less trouble to straighten the rug afterwards. Once I had made this simple discovery, the whole training problem was solved. All I needed was to determine in advance what he wanted to do, and then tell him to do it. We got along famously.
Somehow I never thought of Cider as a dog, and I doubt that he considered me a master. Ours was a mutual partnership, like marriage. The leash in my hand attached me to him as much as it attached him to me. We could not converse, but that didn't matter; he read my thoughts, and I in turn nearly always knew what he was thinking. From the start there was a sort of telepathy between us. He never barked to wake me up, but sat beside my bed and stared at me patiently until I opened my eyes. In the woods, we could locate each other without calling.
He had one object in life .. to make sure that I took him wherever we went. When he caught me packing a suitcase, he would droop his ears and gaze at me with an expression of utter melancholy, accented by one elevated eyebrow, which gave him a look designed to melt the hardest heart. If that failed, he would curl up in his chair with his back to me and refuse to come downstairs to see me off. This would so prey on my mind that I sometimes cut my trip short. And since even a brief absence upset him, I found myself cancelling social engagements. But if Cider was possessive, it was as much my doing as his. For I am a bachelor, and to a single man a dog is a substitute for wife and children.
Even as a pup Cider had great pride, and a natural British reserve about displaying emotion. Not once in his life did he lick my hand. When I patted him, he showed his appreciation by dry-swallowing several times, or stretching out his legs and spreading his toes in obvious contentment. If something vexed him, his only protest was a quick, false yawn, a device that I've tried to emulate. Not only is it safer to yawn than to make a remark which might be regretted later, but there's no better way to insult the other party.
Cider grew more dignified as he matured. The lanky legs feathered out, the chest deepened, the tail became a waving silver plume. His majestic head and sagging jowls suggested a Supreme Court judge. I would no more have dreamt of tumbling him playfully onto his back and scrtaching his belly than I could imagine myself tickling the stomach of a Chief Justice.
Cider looked on toys and games with lofty scorn. If I rolled a tennis ball across the floor to him, he'd open his red, rheumy eyes and watch it disappear under the sofa .. and then close them again while I got down on hands and knees to fish it out. On the other hand, he had his own idea of fun, and would study a caterpillar by the hour, his brow furrowed in deep concentration.
I was never sure when he was pulling my leg, for his sober face betrayed no sign of amusement. Once, in his awkward puppy days, he overturned a patio table, shattering two whisky glasses and a china ashtray. Immediately he let out a shriek of anguish and started hopping around on three legs, while I ignored the damage he had caused and bent over him solicitously to ease his pain. It was not until he spotted a squirrel on the lawn, and took after it with all four legs functioning perfectly, that I realised how completely I had been taken in.
The older Cider grew, the more we depended on each other. He would not go upstairs without me. If I entertained guests past his bedtime, he would flop down heavily in the centre of the living room and sigh, like an impatient wife trying to signal her husband to say good night and come to bed. Like an old married couple, we had adjusted to each other, our likes and dislikes were similar, we had the same diseases (we were both subject to sinus trouble) and took the same antihistamine tablets. Several people remarked that I was actually getting to look like Cider; the one elevated eyebrow, the sagging jowls, the red, rheumy eyes.
I bred Cider, very late in life, to an obliging female recommended by the kennelman. I was far more excited about the affair than Cider was, and couldn't wait to see the puppies when they were born. One ball of fluff sat in the palm of my hand and yawned, and I promptly marked him for mine. As soon as he was weaned I brought him home, but Cider would have no part of his son and resented him as a rival for my affection. He was so heartbroken that I had to take the pup back to the kennel and leave him, to be kept for me.
Cider was aging fast. They say that each year in a dog's life is equal to seven in a man's, and time ticks off more rapidly than we realise. It seemed only yesterday that he was a gangling puppy trotting at my side; then overnight he was a companion my own age; now suddenly his years were half again mine, as he became a venerable gentleman somewhere in his 90's.
He grew increasingly feeble. Then came the night when his legs collapsed. I had to carry him upstairs in my arms and place him in his overstuffed chair. In the morning he lay in a coma, though the tip of his tail twitched once or twice when I spoke to him. I kissed him for the first and last time.
A friend wrote me later: 'They ask so little, and they give so much'.
I was resolved not to have another dog. I decided to take a trip. There was nothing to prevent it now. I was free at last, I reminded myself .. free to pack my bag and go on a fishing trip.
On my way to the fishing area, I stopped my car at the kennel to give instructions to sell Cider's pup. "Want to have a look at him?" the kennelman asked. I told him I didn't have time. "Only take a minute" he urged. "He's a ringer for his old man".
The pup was in a wire pen, sitting on his haunches. His young body had not filled out yet, but the markings were identical, even to the cocked eyebrow. He looked at me steadily until our eyes met, and then thrust a forepaw through the mesh and reached towards me. It was as though his father, by some transcendent effort, had given himself back to me so I would not be alone.'
