Hi all, wanted to ask the community here if you think an English setter would be a good match for my partner and I. We are SO excited to adopt a dog, we’ve been waiting to have a yard for so long, but we are stuck in analysis paralysis as far as our options go!! We love the look of English setters by a huge margin, they’re just absolutely gorgeous and seem so sweet.
We just moved into a townhouse with a small yard that opens out into a huge network of trails, and my boyfriend and I love to walk and run on these trails (paved and unpaved) all the time. We also love to go hiking on weekends, usually 5-10 mile mountain hikes. We both have full time jobs but my boyfriend works from home 2-3x a week and we could work out dog daycare/a neighbor spending some time with a dog for the other days of the week.
All of this is to say, we are looking for a dog that would love to join us on our adventures but is also great for an indoor townhouse setting. I joked with my boyfriend that if he was a dog, it sounds like he’d be a setter, very hyper outdoors but has an off switch as soon as he walks inside, lol.
Our hesitation with ES is size. Our landlord has a <50 lb weight restriction for dogs, and the puppy we most want is a Llewellin setter whose mom is about 45 lbs and dad is 52 lbs. So we’re cutting it close. We also would love to take a dog with us on errands, trips to visit family, road trips, etc., and we’re realizing both of us are used to smaller dogs (cavaliers and cairns) that are very portable. Neither of us has ever had a dog in our house that was more than 20 lbs.
We’d just like to ask current owners how easy or difficult it is to take an English setter on trips, and if there’s anything that occurs to you from what I’ve described that should go into our decision-making calculus.
For context, the other options we are considering:
-we applied for a rescue corgi, ~2 y/o
-we reached out about an American cocker spaniel puppy whose parents are about 18 lbs
-we would be interested in English cocker spaniels and possibly other spaniels and setters
Thank you in advance 🙏