Our vision
We strive for sound moving, trainable, healthy dogs that best represent our ideal picture of the Irish Setter. We breed select bitches who have earned titles, are structurally sound, have passed all health tests recommended by our national breed club, and have outstanding traits and features we are looking to continue in the breed.
We consider structure, temperament, health clearances, breed type, and pedigree and strive to produce excellent individuals and consistent litters with quality in every puppy. The way we measure success in our breeding program is:
- Whether puppies have the qualities we predicted in advance of the breeding
- The consistency of traits across the litter
- The depth of quality throughout the litter
- Whether the puppies are equal to the quality of both parents, an improvement over one parent, better than both parents, or are not as good as one or both parents
Why do we breed?
The simple answer? Because a world without Irish Setters would have less joy.
We have met wonderful people we would not have known if it were not for dogs. And we have seen how beautiful and important the bond between human and dog can be when sharing the best and darkest of times. These aren’t just dogs, they are companions that accompany us for part of our life’s path—they are soul friends.
No matter what dog you start or started with, the raw materials that you have are the result of countless other breeder’s hard work, heartbreak, and accumulation of collective knowledge from the breeders that preceded them.
We breed our best to honor the hard work and good decisions of all the breeders who have come before us, and to ensure that breeders of the future will have good dogs to start with.
Factors we consider when breeding
We breed select bitches who have earned titles, are structurally sound, have passed all health tests recommended by our national breed club (PRA, OFA Hips, OFA Thyroid), and have outstanding traits and features we are looking to continue in the breed.
Here are a few of the things we consider when breeding:
- Exceptional features (structural and breed type) of the dam and sire that we want to maintain in the next generation.
- Correct features (structural and breed type) of the dam and sire that conform to the breed standard that we want to maintain or improve upon in the next generation
- Areas of improvement. What features of the dam and sire would we change to make them better examples of the breed. No dog is perfect!
- Qualities shared by littermates of the dam and sire. Are their multiple siblings that have the same exceptional and/or correct features? Is there consistent quality throughout their litters?
- Do most or all of the grandparents have the same exceptional and/or correct features present in the dam and sire that we want to see in puppies?
- In cases where the dam or sire has been bred before, what qualities did their puppies have and how consistent was the litter?
- The dam and sire must have health clearances, but we also value health history information from extended family (siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.). The same holds true for good temperaments.
- Titles in pedigrees. We like to see successive generations of Champions, this indicates these individuals produced animals that were judged to be acceptable interpretations of the breed standard. Obedience, rally, agility indicate trainability; hunt test titles indicate hunting instinct.
