Breed Myopia, Mine is for English Setters

I love all horses, some dogs and no cats.  Two of those animal groups are self explanatory, but when it comes to dogs I favor sporting breeds.  Pointers, flushers, versatile dogs, and retrievers, I love ‘em all.  When it comes time to pull out my wallet it’s a different story.  Then, it’s English setters all the way.  I suffer from a malaise called Breed Myopia.  That one-track mind is powerful, and odds are pretty good that you suffer from it, too.

Setter wins at Ames Plantation have been a tad bit lopsided.  In the beginning, the dogs were in the winner's circle each year for about a decade.  Almost out of nowhere English pointers delivered a beat down of epic proportion.  Pointers stole the show until 1970 when Johnny Crocket reclaimed the coveted first place.  Hope was again lost for a generation until Shadow Oak Bo won back-to-back victories in 2013 and in 2014.  With luck some of his progeny will return to center stage and setters can make more regular appearances

It happened once, then it happened again, and I’m a setter man.  Some of my friends call them pretty dogs or sissy dogs and other things best not repeated.  They favor their own breeds, and that's all well and good, but know this; to a man they smile when I put down my dogs.  Like ‘em or not, a setter on point connects each of us with a long-standing legacy.  That legacy is far greater than each of us, and it connects our pasts with the present.  The future of setters?  It's about as bright as could be.  Why?  'Cause setters do it better.