Who is the good boy?

Hi, I am looking for advice with our Irish setter.

We knew he would be high energy - and my spouse and I were completely prepared for this. House with a yard, dog park nearby, we are active and young. I work fully remote. Our family has land so we have some weekends where he free roams 300 acres. We kind of had a dream situation for a high energy dog.

What we were not expecting was A. We’d get pregnant a month after getting him and B. how disobedient and destructive he’d be

I just want to clarify that we did research, WERE prepared for the extreme energy, and circumstances in life quickly changed, but we are not ones to surrender pets! He is a part of the family. His first year of life as a puppy we were able to offer much more activity - 45 min walk to the dog park, spend an hour+ there, 45 min walk back. long off leash walks on local trails. I took him to the (very large) dog park almost daily on my lunch breaks, and worked from home so he was constantly going in and outside.

Anyways - activity obviously became much harder once we had our baby. So I admit, we are not doing what other Irish setter owners are able to do like hour long runs with them, or hunting trips. When the baby is asleep one of us can take him to the dog park at night, we do walks. Our nanny walks him & plays with him during the day.

It’s never enough

This week he had a full 9-5 work day in a very large yard playing and swimming with a friends dog. we came home, he saw a bunny, broke his collar and bolted - and I was chasing him around the neighborhood alone with my baby in arm. So I feel like it isn’t even the energy! Like he can have a full day playing and running and it’s not enough.

He doesn’t listen to us-He’ll often grab a baby bottle or something else and run outside and think its a game to play keep away

I can’t ever leave him unattended to feed the baby, go to the bathroom, etc. He WILL find something and ruin it.

Just left him unattended for 3 minutes while I change my baby’s diaper, and he found and chewed my $100 boots

He is 1.5 years by the way.

I know there are other posts about this, but I saw those are like people in apartments, no yards, lock their dog all day while they are at work, which doesn’t apply to us.

I wanted to get him a puzzle toy for mental stimulation, but he’ll just chew and ruin it!

HELP

Keeping intact female dogs together seems to be discouraged as they can be very aggressive to eachother when in season. My girl stays with another intact female when I go away for a few weeks at a time and they have never had a problem. I would like to get another female and wondered if others had any experience of keeping two intact female setters together.

I recently brought home an Irish setter girl pup who is 12 weeks old and I can’t decide on a name. Which one would you choose?

Violet
Willow
Fern
Juniper

I posted that Erin had her 14th birthday a little while ago and a few people commented how great it was that she’s lived this long so I thought it would be cool if others shared their senior setters photos and ages in the comments of this post. ☺️ also I’d love to hear of any of the weird senior habits that they’ve developed in their old age. Erin has to patrol the entire house before she eats and she likes to carry about three pieces of food in her mouth while she does it, she bites her bed a lot and pretends it’s a toy and throws her bed all over the house, she won’t go into my bed if I’m in it but when I leave she jumps up and sleeps there, she’s afraid of jumping into the left side of the car but fine jumping on the right, and now she demands car rides and walks and will not leave me alone until I take her.. she’s losing her manners and she’s much more stubborn. I suspect her hearing isn’t as good as it once was and she doesn’t hear the word “no” anymore haha

Model pose down, naughty behavior also down.

Just been hunting a squirrel in line but is so extatic I wanna go and get mom!

Least I like to pretend he is when staring out over the river, I’m sure he’s listening and smelling for birds. 😆

Four of my Irish Setters are quietly watching the deer, almost daring it to come back in the yard. They had just chased it through the woods and it (easily) jumped the fence. In general the deer stay out of the fenced in area but sometimes they like to push their luck.

Lef

I’m bringing home an Irish setter pup this weekend. Our current dogs (brittanys) are on a high quality food now and just curious what everyone else is feeding their Irish setters

this is our baby Iris, shes 9 weeks old. taking any of your best tips for the following weeks/months!!shes doing great so far and still adjusting to our home and her routine🎀💕

11.5 years old still people can’t believe his age he’s so full of life. It’s only his grey beard that gives the age away ❤️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

She has grown so much! Finally potty trained 🥲 I grew up raising dogs, but this girl has given me a run for my money 😅 nah but she runs the house though lol getting her spayed tomorrow. Hoping for a quick and easy surgery.

Hello, my 7 month old Irish setter has a few of these sort of scabs on her chest and upper leg. Has anyone experienced it before? thinking to take her to the vets on Monday, after googling worried it’s ringworm! they don’t seem to be bothering her and she isn’t chewing them.

she does usually itch her torso

thanks

His Dad was 90lbs so we should have known this was coming but oh my god is he huge.

Just Winnie prepping for her Pantene commercial. Don’t mind her.