History
"Setting dogges" is an ancient term used for setters and the original purpose of the English Setter was to set or point upland game birds. From the best available information, it appears that the English Setter was a trained bird dog in England more than 400 years ago and there are works of art created in the early 15th century showing dogs that are discernible as being of a “setter type”. There is evidence that the English Setter originated in crosses of the Spanish Pointer, large Water Spaniel, and English Springer Spaniel, which combined to produce an excellent bird dog with a high degree of proficiency in finding and pointing game in open country.
Writing in 1576, Dr Johannes Caius states: "There is also at this date among us a new kind of dogge brought out of Fraunce, and they bee speckled all over with white and black, which mingled colours incline to a marble blewe". Argue speculates this may be a description of the blue belton colour found in English Setters.
Caius went on to describe the dog called a setter using the Latin name Index:
| “ | Another sort of Dogges be there, serviceable for fowling, making no noise either with foote or with tongue, whiles they follow the game. They attend diligently upon their Master and frame their condition to such beckes, motions and gestures, as it shall please him to exhibite and make, either going forward, drawing backeward, inclinding to the right hand, or yealding toward the left. When he hath founde the byrde, he keepeth sure and fast silence, he stayeth his steppes and wil proceede no further, and weth a close, covert watching eye, layeth his belly to the grounde and so creepth forward like a worme. When he approaches neere to the place where the byrde is, he layes him downe, and with a marcke of his pawes, betrayeth the place of the byrdes last abode, whereby it is supposed that this kind of dogge is calles in Index, Setter, being in deede a name most consonant and agreeable to his quality. | ” |
By the 17th century setters, or "setting dogges", had become established and were widespread on British estates, although the evolution into the more specific individual breeds of setters occurred at a later date. The interbreeding of the different colours was still taking place during this period but it gradually changed and sportsman/breeders began to segregate matings to dogs adapted to the terrain it was required to work on.
The modern English Setter owes its appearance to Mr. Edward Laverack (1800–1877), who developed his own strain of the breed by careful breeding during the 19th century in England and to another Englishman, Mr. R. Purcell Llewellin (1840–1925), who founded his strain using Laverack's best dogs and outcrossed them with the Duke, Rhoebe and later Duke's littermate Kate bloodlines with the best results.
With time, Laverack bred successfully to produce beautiful representatives of the breed. The first show for English Setters was held in 1859 at Newcastle upon Tyne. The breed's popularity soared across England as shows became more and more widespread. Not long after, the first English Setters were brought to North America, including those that began the now-famous Llewellin strain recorded in the writing of Dr. William A Burette. From this group of dogs came the foundation of the field-trial setter in America, "Count Noble", who is currently mounted in the Carnegie Museum at Pittsburgh. At present, the English is one of the most popular and elegant sporting breeds, often grouped with its cousins, the Irish and Gordon Setters.
Today, you still hear the term Llewellin Setter; in 1902 the Llewellin Setter was given separate strain status in FDSB to put a stop to misuse of the Llewellin name. Only dogs whose pedigrees showed the Duke-Rhoebe-Laverack and Kate bloodlines were allowed to be named a Llewellin Setter and in 1996 the International Progressive Dog Breeders' Alliance and registry gave them FULL New Breed recognition for the first time. Field-bred English Setters are often mistakenly referred to as "Llewellin". However, only pure bred Llewellin Setters may be registered as Llewellin Setters.
Read more about this topic: Llewellin Setter
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