Alice White
The Irish Setter (Irish Red Setter) is a hunter, an intellectual prone to extroversion, and an adherent of an active lifestyle with luxurious chestnut hair.
#1 The Irish Red Setter is one of the most “secret” hunting breeds, the first written mention of which dates back to the 15th century.
At first, the term "setter" did not denote a specific variety of dogs, but entire groups of animals, whose main qualification was working with wild birds. In particular, setters were often attracted to hunting partridges with a net. Possessing an extremely keen instinct, the dogs always accurately determined the location of the prey and indicated the direction to it, performing the function of a living navigator.
#2 Little is known about the closest relatives of the Irish setters.
There is an assumption that the blood of several varieties of spaniels, bloodhounds, pointers, and even wolfhounds flows in the veins of modern representatives of the breed. However, it has not actually been possible to confirm the guesses so far. Purposefully breeding hunting dogs with reddish-brown hair in Ireland began at the end of the 18th century, as evidenced by the herd books of those years. Nevertheless, until the middle of the 19th century, the breed was not considered formed, therefore, in the rings, animals performed in groups with other varieties of setters.
#3 The official starting point for the history of the breed is considered to be 1860, when it was decided to separate the Irish Setters into a separate type.
In 1882, the first Irish Red Club was opened in Dublin, and three years later the first breed standard was issued by the same organization.
