The Word “Setter” Does Not Mean What We Think It Does

While people will always disagree about which breed is the “handsomest and perhaps the most generous,” everyone agrees that trying to follow all the twists and turns of the setter’s creation story is more or less impossible. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn something more about them by taking a look at some of the more interesting, and even surprising, stops along the way. 

 In 1872, Edward Lavarack, the father of the modern English setter answered the question by writing “… the setter is nothing more than the setting spaniel improved.” Ok, so setters are spaniels that, at some point were “improved” to become setters. But what exactly is a setting spaniel, and what exactly were the “improvements” that turned them into setters?