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My friend in Italy has had English Setters for all of her life. Her last was bred by the breeder to show, but was too small so my friend was able to adopt her - a wonderful dog. Her pup died in March at age 9 - could no longer walk, but that can happen to any breed. After our last mini Dachshund died in 2004 - and after our stay at my friend's pensione we were seriously considering looking at English Setters on our return to Canada. My friend did say though that she had been seeing fewer and fewer English Setters in Italy and had been told there could be a neuro problem that was showing up in current litters - but she wasn't sure. When we got home I started to investigate and could find very few breeders - and I did a bit of research and also found reference to the neuro problems. Don't know if I am right or wrong, but we couldn't find a breeder with pups. I did find a guy who was breeding the Gordon Setter - as well as Beagles - and he didn't know that Beagles are becoming increasingly prone to back and neck disc disease much like the Dachshund (our Dachshunds neuro warned us of this, having just done same surgery on his 2 Beagles - and many others) - but he also didn't have any litters of Gordon's coming due. Now just over the past 3 weeks I have seen 3 young Gordon Setters - probably 8 - 10 months of age - left outside stores of all places, so maybe whatever health issues the breed had been experiencing has been resolved. So we ended up with the American Eskimo who is also a baby at age 4 years and 4 months and difficult to train. I absolutely loved my friend's English Setter and she me - would sneak into our room and I made it easy for her. Now as for the Irish Setter, in 1971 I lived in Kingston while attending school. The owners of the house rented rooms to students and they had an Irish Setter. This dog made by dog's SA look like nothing. I remember the night the dog ate the loveseat in half - and that was only the beginning!
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 :king: 
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