Firelight Setters
Let’s face it. When a hunter and their family decide to get a Ryman Setter puppy everyone has a picture in their head of what lies ahead. The hunter imagines a beautiful dog locked on point on a bird. The kids imagine a cute puppy that will play and sleep with them. The at-home parent thinks about the countless trips outdoors to housebreak a puppy. In each image the dog is healthy and happy. No one is imagining a dog who walks with a limp, who by middle-age struggles to get up from their bed, or a dog who scratches raw spots on their own skin from allergies. So what should a family do to get the dog they are dreaming of….and not a nightmare?
Ask questions. Call multiple breeders. Ask which breeders they themselves recommend. Ask for references – and call them. Only when you know you are talking to the right breeder, you then pick the litter. Then pick the puppy. Take your time. Reread this: https://rymansetters.com/finding-the-right-puppy-for-you/
At minimum ask the following:
Do the parents of the pups have OFA rated hips?
Are the parents hunted? What birds do they hunt and how do they handle them?
If the answer to OFA is “yes” and their answer about hunting is positive and believable, you have found a breeder with whom to have further discussion. If they say “no” to the OFA it’s time to call a different breeder. If someone does not invest this minimum amount of care and effort to produce sound hips on their dogs, that is an indicator that they do not pay attention to overall quality or health.
A puppy is a purchase that will share your life for a long time, make it a great time by choosing a great breeder.
Submitted by Lynn Dee Galey, a Founding Member of RymanSetters.com
Couldn’t agree more and I don’t think it can be said often enough.
If someone doesn’t hunt and doesn’t OFA their breeding dogs, how can they possibly produce healthy & competent hunting dogs? They don’t even know what that means. These are minimum requirements. Always make sure the breeder actually hunts and their dogs are proven on wild birds (preserve birds or stocked birds on state WMAs simply aren’t a challenge for a good dog.) If a breeder doesn’t try to reduce the incidence of HD (the biggest health problem in ES and the one most likely to cause pain and suffering) what does that say about their level of concern for the quality of the dogs they produce?
BREEDERS LIE. Since becoming involved with setters in the late ’80s more than half the people who told us they had an OFA on their dog(s) were lying, the latest one just last week. Two of them even had a failing OFA rating. Yes, their dogs were in fact dysplastic!?! In recent years deception has been taken to new heights (one breeder going so far as presenting forged OFA certificates for their dogs), but lying is nothing new.
So ask the questions, verify the answers, and insist on buying only from breeders who are doing it right. 15-20 years ago we were asked about HD all the time but now people rarely ask. Breeders with nothing to hide don’t mind answering your questions, in fact they welcome them. If a breeder doesn’t like your questions or gives vague evasive answers, run.
Don’t be hoodwinked by a breeder who claims HD isn’t a problem and who never gets OFAs on his dogs. We have a client who asked a breeder how he could breed his dog when it had problems with Hip Dysplasia close up in his pedigree. His answer: “No one asks so why should I care?” In a nutshell, that’s the problem. And the answer. The breeder should care because he cares but in this case he doesn’t. He also just admitted he isn’t going to change his practices unless buyers force him to. As a buyer, always make sure the breeder has OFA ratings on their dogs. From the OFA not the local veterinarian. If s/he does you can verify them with a simple and quick online search of OFA’s database. (This post explains how to verify OFA status via the online OFA database: http://octobersetters.com/forged-ofa-certificates.html/)
Cliff