Ted, first of all that was my opinion of what a setter should look like. If you looked at the video, that is what I was referring to. All old pictures show the exact same type of setter, like the ones in the video. Some of the setters now were bred to be smaller and to me lost the look of the "older" setters.
David, I don't want to get into a pissing contest about dogs....we all have our favorites for whatever reasons make us happy and I'm good with that.
However, as the owner of 4 Llewellins over the last 20 years, it has always struck me that they look most like the old pics I have seen of setters in the field. And when I say old, I mean 1860 to 1910 kind of old. I always think of my Llewellins as English setters from the 1880's, before kennel club ideas of what they should look like took hold. I have taken comfort in the belief that Llewellins have been bred primarily for behavior, not appearance. I'd be interested in your, and anyone's else's, thoughts on this.
edit to add: I have a number of original prints by Alexander Pope Jr of some of the first Llewellins to make it to North America in the 1880's, including copies of the dogs' pedigrees on the back of the prints. These are dogs that are within 3 generations of Llewellin's foundational dogs. And they are dead ringers for the llewellins I see today.
