Gordon Setter Rescue Dogs for Adoption

Taking in a Gordon Setter from a rescue centre is one of the most rewarding decisions you can make as a dog lover. This Scottish gundog has a gentle, affectionate and yet bold nature. Originally bred to work closely with people on bird shoots, he craves real family life. If you give a home to a dog with this much character, you gain a confident and deeply devoted companion.

It is rarely a difficult temperament that leads to such a friendly, family-oriented dog being given up. More often it is a change in the previous owners’ circumstances, or breed needs that were underestimated. With a height at the withers of 64 to 68 cm and a weight of 29 to 36 kg for males, the Gordon Setter has a considerable physical presence. His energy level is at the very top of the scale – this dog is physically extremely robust and needs demanding exercise and stimulation every day.

Common reasons for giving a dog up to a rescue organisation include:

• Underestimated need for exercise: The Setter is hardly suited to life as a purely urban dog. If there is no time or space for long roaming walks and scent work, this intelligent hunter will find tasks of his own.
• Hunting drive: Pointing and retrieving game birds is in his blood. Without consistent recall and impulse-control training, this drive can be a real challenge for owners in everyday life.
• Lifestyle and grooming: The long, silky coat with its typical feathering needs regular grooming. If job changes, separations or health problems on the owners’ part come on top of this, keeping the dog in a way that suits his needs often becomes impossible.

If you want to adopt a Gordon Setter, you will usually meet a very people-oriented dog who is suffering from the loss of the people he was attached to. However, his high trainability helps him enormously in adapting to a new routine. Once he is mentally and physically occupied in everyday life, he proves to be remarkably calm, well-balanced and affectionate indoors.

Health considerations when adopting

When well bred, Gordon Setters are considered robust dogs overall, with a life expectancy of 10 to 12 years, but as a breed they are prone to certain issues affecting the hips, eyes and thyroid. Health-focused breeders (for example, those in the Gordon-Setter-Club Deutschland e.V.) have the parent dogs X-rayed for hip dysplasia (HD) and tested through clinical eye examinations and the DNA test for rcd4-PRA (progressive retinal atrophy, rod-cone dysplasia 4), in order to reduce avoidable risks in the line. In rescue, however, the dog’s origins are often unknown.

Other risks typical of the breed are cataract, retinal dysplasia, ectropion and entropion, cerebellar abiotrophy and the risk of gastric torsion. Black hair follicular dysplasia, in which the black hairs fall out early, has also been described. With a dog from a rescue centre, vaccinations, microchip and a veterinary intake examination are usually covered; ask to see the existing paperwork in detail. After adoption, plan regular eye and thyroid checks with your vet, and in daily life feed small portions followed by a rest period to reduce the risk of gastric torsion.

A puppy from a reputable breeder usually costs between 1,500 and 2,500 euros. If you take on a Gordon Setter from a rescue centre, you instead pay an adoption fee, which is usually considerably lower and directly supports the rescue work. Put the money you save to good use as a cushion for high-quality starter equipment – such as a well-fitting harness for long-line training – and for further health checks such as an HD X-ray or a thyroid profile.

To help your new companion settle in safely, clear routines will help you:

• Bonding before action: Even though the Setter is a bundle of energy, in the first few days he needs peace and quiet to shake off the stress of life in the rescue centre.
• Safety with the long line: For the first few months, whenever you give your new dog freedom to run, keep him exclusively on a long line until you can gauge his hunting drive and his recall is reliable.
• Joint-friendly exercise: Focus on scent work such as dummy training or tracking. This occupies his mind in a way that suits the breed, strengthens your teamwork and is easy on the joints.