The color of a setter is. . .Red

There's been a great deal of controversy around that subject for many decades. Interestingly, breeders of the 1800s apparently were not so concerned about setter color, or at least color ended up being a relatively minor consideration when matings were contemplated. Irish setters were mated with black and brown Gordon setters. Both were mated with English setters. Other than color, all three tended to possess similar confirmation characteristics back then. When all three colors of setters were first imported into this country during the latter part of the nineteenth century, this philosophy of breeding continued to prevail. The best setters were often bred together--with little thought given to color.

Somewhere along the line this philosophy changed. Interestingly, this old setter philosophy seems to continue with Labrador retrievers. While black predominates, probably because that's the dominant gene, any Lab litter can have yellows or chocolates. If breeders would cull out all yellow and chocolate pups it probably wouldn't take many generations before all Labs would be born black. Lab breeders and Lab dog registries have taken the casual approach with color. But because we have Irish setters registered separately from Gordon setters and English setters, color has long been an issue.

For whatever reason, English setters were (still are) predominantly registered with the Field Dog Stud Book (FDSB), while Irish and Gordon setters were predominantly registered with the American Kennel Club (AKC). While the AKC does have field trials for their pointing breeds, FDSB trials are definitely more for dogs that can really ramble, resulting in a genuine show of their physical prowess. The AKC also has continually placed heavy emphasis on show qualities. With its magnificent red coat, the Irish setter certainly became a crowd pleaser in the show ring. While I have nothing against that, there's no question that these dogs suffer, after generations of breeding, in most all the qualities a shooter wants in a pointing dog.

Thus was the plight of the Irish setter. Through the first half of the twentieth century this breed's hunting qualities deteriorated. A dog writer of great experience, Horace Lytle, brought this to public attention in his Field & Stream magazine dog column in 1946, suggesting that the Irish setter needed some influx of rich English setter blood if they were going to make any comeback as pointing dogs in the hunting field. There was a great uproar over this. In fact, Lytle was gone from the pages of this famous magazine a very short time later. Did he lose his job because of his views on this subject? Some claim this is so.

But Lytle had laid down the gauntlet. Ned Le Grande picked up that glove. So did others. The FDSB agreed to register these dogs, as Red Irish Setters, but only after at least so many generations had been bred. During this period meticulous records had to be kept and submitted to the FDSB until the genes were fixed and these new red setters would breed true to form.

Ready at the breakaway.

I won't go into those early crosses with English setters, other than to say English setter Mississippi Zev's progeny were involved. Later, perhaps Johnny Crockett's progeny got into the act. Both were National Champions at Grand Junction, Tennessee. Let's fast-forward several decades--to a then veterinarian--Roger Boser. He received his first red setter at age 16. Got his second while still in college. He campaigned dogs actively while he was still working as a vet, but he retired from practice in 1988 to devote full time to his red dogs. He has been phenomenally successful--with more than 1000 placements in field trials.

A young dog out of his many time winner, Desperado, has just won the Red Setter National Championship held in Berea, Kentucky. That new champ, Kiski's Big Red, is owned and was handled by a close friend of mine, Harry Rollinson. He lives just down the road from me. But before I get into talking about Harry, his dog and covering a bit of that trial, back to Roger Boser.

Desperado has 120 field trial placements. Roger claims he would have won more, except that he was almost always competing with his sire, Bearcat. This Boser red dog has more field trial placements than any in history--158. So there's little wonder that Bearcat knocked Desperado out of placement at more than a few trials. Boser gives Le Grande credit--for supplying the "foundation" dogs of his kennel. He went on to tell me that because the gene pool of red Irish setters is relatively small, most of these dogs that are winning field trials now owe just about everything to the Ned Le Grange pool of genes.

About three years ago Harry Rollinson began telling me about how great Boser's red dogs were. He was encouraging me to get one for myself. I travel to hunt out of state every year, but I also hunt ruffed grouse every day of the Pennsylvania season. So my dogs get more than their share of hunting time. I guess I wasn't listening to Harry when he figured I probably needed a replacement. Rollinson went on to say that he bought a red setter from Boser, ". . .because I got tired having his dogs beat mine every weekend!" Harry has run English setters and pointers most all of his bird-dog life. Even today he has one English setter and six pointers in his kennel--to go along with Kiski's Big Red (called Jack). During the spring of 2002 Harry placed four different dogs in field trials, so his expertise is not only with red setters.

Harry's wife, Linda, though not currently a handler, is heavily involved with Harry's dogs and field trailing. I asked them both what standout qualities these red setters from Roger Boser had. Harry opened with how easy these dogs are to train. While some English setters might be a little soft (thus might not take to early training all that eagerly) and pointers sometimes tend toward being a bit head strong, these Boser setters don't lean toward either of these characteristics.