The only setter I ever owned was a male orange and blue belton that came out of Grouse Ridge Kennels above Norwich NY. When I got him he was 5 1/2 years old and in fighting trim, weight hovering around 55 pounds. His owner had field-trialed him and completely trained him, but had been molested by the GSP mystique and had come to neglect him, so he gave him up for adoption. I knew nothing about upland bird dogs but had raised and trained 2 Labs, both of which turned out to be excellent waterfowl dogs. So,........
I would call him a "small" setter, but then I don't know what I'm talking about, except that he was only about 21 inches from his front feet to his withers (shoulder at the backbone). He was lean, trim and muscular (think cage fighter physique) and his personality was quite aloof (his donor warned me, "He's not unaffectionate, but he's no Lab!").
I soon learned that what he lacked in affection he more than made up for in a Hell-on Wheels drive in the field. His previous owner said he was a hell of a grouse dog and invoked the "rule of the tens" in rating him: out of 10 good upland bird dogs, you'll get five that are worthy grouse dogs, out of that 5 you'll get 2 that are very good, and one that's exceptional.
"Smoke" turned out to be that one in ten. He would crash through brush, stab his snout through thorny hedges and briars, and whine and snarl when he had to back out of an impenetrable hedge or cover. He would hold a grouse on point at 5 or 20 feet, never budging after the shot until I sent him. He didn't like to retrieve; I think his former owner force-broke him; his version of retrieving to hand was to slow down to a trot while he passed me and spit the bird out at my feet. To keep up his "edge", friends and I would train nearly every week in the off season with live pigeons and chukars and the occasional quail using hand cage traps and remote release controls.
We had almost 8 more years together in the field. When he was 12, he ate some sort of whiffle ball-type crap in the woods that convoluted his stomach-intestine interface and he stopped eating and almost died. I opted for surgery with the vet telling me he might die due to his age and the stress of the operation. I decided to risk it for the both of us.
Smoke survived and we hunted together for another year and a half. In September of 2015, he developed a massive inoperable malignant tumor at the juncture of his foreleg and his shoulder and I had to let him go. He taught me a hell of a lot more about upland bird dogs than I ever taught him, and I miss him to this day.
So much for "small" English Setters!
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