Are Irish Setters Easy to Train? – A Guide to Irish Setter Training

Bring home an Irish Setter and you bring home a contradiction. They’re one of the brightest, most willing dogs you’ll ever share a sofa with, and also one of the most gloriously scatterbrained. I’ve lived with the breed for years now — my own girl, Maeve, came from field lines and has the attention span of a struck match — so when people ask me whether Irish Setters are easy to train, I never give them a one-word answer. The honest version is: yes and no, and the “no” tends to turn up somewhere around the seven-month mark.

Here’s the short version before we get into the detail. Setters learn fast and genuinely enjoy working with you, so the teaching part is easy. What’s hard is everything around it — the energy, the painfully slow road to maturity, and a nose that will choose a passing scent over your best recall every single time. Sort those three things out and you’ve got a wonderful dog. Leave them unmanaged and you’ve got a fast, happy, 65-pound problem with beautiful hair.

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So, are Irish Setters easy to train?

Set them next to a properly stubborn breed — a hound that was bred to work away from people, or an independent spitz type — and an Irish Setter is a joy. They want to be near you, they read your mood off your face, and they’ll happily repeat anything that earns praise or a scrap of chicken. The challenge with this breed has almost nothing to do with intelligence and almost everything to do with temperament.

The thing nobody warns you about is how long they stay mentally young. Setters were bred to range across open ground for hours, and that big, joyful, slightly daft puppy brain sticks around far longer than it does in most breeds. Plenty of setters don’t really settle until somewhere between eighteen months and three years old. So you’re not teaching a dog who struggles to learn. You’re teaching a clever teenager who would honestly rather be doing something more fun than whatever you’ve planned. Once you accept that, the whole approach changes.

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What makes them a pleasure to work with

The good news is real, so let me give it its due. Irish Setters are quick studies. Maeve had “sit” inside an afternoon and “shake” by the weekend — and then spent the next two years pretending she’d never heard either word the moment a butterfly drifted past. That’s the breed in miniature: fast to learn, slow to grow up.

They’re also deeply people-focused. Setters are the kind of dog that follows you from room to room and leans on your leg while you’re trying to make coffee — “velcro dogs,” some owners call them. For training, that attachment is gold. A setter wants your attention, which means your praise actually means something to them. A soft, pleased “good girl” often lands harder than any treat, and it’s one of the reasons harsh methods are not just unnecessary with this breed but actively counterproductive.

Food helps too. Most setters are happily greedy, which gives you an easy currency for the early work. One thing worth knowing before you start: field-bred setters tend to be wirier and more driven than the heavier show-line dogs, so if you’ve got a working-line pup, expect a little more engine and a little more independence to go with all that willingness.

The first time I let Maeve off the lead in an open field, she came back beautifully — three times. The fourth time she caught the scent of something in the hedgerow and was gone for a heart-stopping ten minutes. That walk taught me more about training this breed than any book had.

Simone Hopkins

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Where an Irish Setter will test you

None of the hard parts make this a “difficult” breed in the way people usually mean. They’re just the predictable cost of living with a sensitive, high-energy gundog. Know them going in and they stop being surprises.

The energy is not optional

This is a dog built to cover ground all day. A wander around the block won’t touch it. An adult setter needs a good one to two hours of real exercise daily — proper running, not just a stroll on the lead — plus something to do with that busy head. Skip it and you don’t get a calm dog who’s “saving energy.” You get a bored one, and a bored setter will find a job for itself: chewing the skirting board, excavating the lawn, or barking at nothing for the sheer entertainment. Honestly, half the “training problems” people bring me with this breed are exercise problems in disguise.

That nose has a mind of its own

Setters were bred to find birds by scent, and that wiring doesn’t switch off because you’ve signed up for a puppy class. When a setter ignores your recall mid-walk, it’s usually not defiance — it’s a couple of centuries of breeding telling them there’s something far more interesting on the breeze. This is exactly why off-lead reliability is the genuine exam with this breed, and why I keep a long line on a young setter long after I’d have trusted most other dogs loose.

They’re soft, and harsh handling backfires

For all the clowning, Irish Setters are emotionally sensitive. Shout, yank, or push too hard and you don’t get a more obedient dog — you get an anxious one who shuts down and offers you less. Loud noises and chaotic environments can rattle them too. The flip side is that gentle, upbeat, reward-based training works beautifully on this breed, precisely because they care so much about getting it right for you.

They hate being left alone

That velcro nature has a cost. Setters are not the breed for a household that’s out ten hours a day. Left alone too long and too often, they get anxious and destructive, and you’ll spend more time undoing those habits than you ever spent teaching cues. If your life genuinely can’t make room for a dog that wants to be with you, this isn’t the breed — and I’d rather say that plainly than have you find out the hard way.

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Training an Irish Setter puppy: where I’d start

If I were starting again with an eight-week-old setter tomorrow, this is roughly the order I’d work in. None of it is complicated. The trick is doing it consistently while your pup is busy testing whether you really meant it.

Build a recall you can actually trust

With a scent-driven breed, recall is the cue your dog’s safety depends on, so it gets the most work. Start indoors where it’s boring and easy: say the name, the dog turns, big reward. Move to the garden, then to quiet outdoor spaces on a long training line. Pay generously every time — I’m talking real food, not a dry biscuit — because you are competing with pheasants and you need to be worth more than they are. One unbreakable rule: never call your setter to you and then do something it dislikes, like ending the fun or clipping its nails. Call, reward, release back to play. Poison that word once and you’ll spend months earning it back.

Keep sessions short and slightly silly

A young setter’s focus is measured in minutes, so don’t drill. Three or four five-minute bursts scattered through the day beat one long, frustrating slog every time. Finish while your dog still wants more, and lean into their playfulness — a quick game folded into the training keeps them switched on instead of switching off. The cues themselves are the standard ones (sit, down, stay, leave it, a settle on a mat), and most setters pick them up fast. The work is keeping their head in the room.

Socialise hard while the window’s open

The first few months matter more than any other stretch of your dog’s life, and because setters lean sensitive, good early experiences pay off for years. Get your pup calmly meeting different people, dogs, surfaces, traffic and household racket — the vacuum, the doorbell, kids on scooters — in small, positive doses before things start to feel scary. A confident adult setter is almost always a well-socialised puppy who learned the world is fine. A skittish one usually missed that window.

Work the brain, not just the legs

Physical exercise drains the tank, but mental work drains it faster and settles a setter in a way a long walk alone won’t. Scatter their kibble in the grass and let them hunt for it. Teach a “find it” with a hidden toy. Rotate puzzle feeders. Ten minutes of nose work can leave a setter more content than half an hour of fetch — and it’s using the exact instincts the breed was built around, so they love it.

Be patient about loose-lead walking

This is the slow one, so I’ll be straight with you: an exuberant young setter pulling toward every interesting smell takes weeks to settle, not days. Stop when the lead goes tight, wait, reward when it slackens and your dog checks back to you. It’s repetitive and occasionally maddening. It does work — it just asks for more of your patience than your dog’s.

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A few things I wish I’d known sooner

• They mature on their own timetable, not yours. The “teenage” phase, when a dog who knew everything suddenly knows nothing, can drag on past the two-year mark. Ride it out; it passes.
• “Selective deafness” is normal in adolescence. It feels personal. It isn’t. Keep the long line on and keep paying for the right choices.
• A bolt after a scent is instinct, not disobedience. Manage the environment so your dog can’t rehearse running off, and you’ll have far less to fix later.
• Tire the dog before you ask for calm. Trying to train a setter who hasn’t been exercised is like trying to read to a toddler on a sugar high.
• Find a good group class early. The controlled distractions of other dogs and people are exactly the conditions your setter needs to practise in — far more useful than a perfectly behaved dog in a silent kitchen.

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Frequently asked questions

Are Irish Setters a good choice for first-time owners?
They can be, but go in with your eyes open. The temperament is forgiving — friendly, soft, eager to please — so a first-timer won’t be punished for small mistakes the way they might with a sharper breed. The catch is the exercise demand and the long adolescence. If you’ve got the time and the energy, a setter is a brilliant first dog. If your week is already full, a calmer breed will be kinder to both of you.

What’s the temperament of an Irish Setter really like?
Affectionate, playful, and endlessly sociable. They bond hard with their family, get on well with children and other dogs, and stay puppyish in spirit for years. They are not guard dogs — most would happily show a burglar where the good treats are kept — and they don’t cope well with being left alone for long stretches.

How much exercise do they actually need?
Plan on one to two hours a day for an adult, and make sure a good chunk of it is off-lead running or active play rather than plodding on a lead. Add some daily brain work on top. Under-exercise a setter and the energy doesn’t vanish — it comes out as chewing, digging, barking, and “training problems” that aren’t really about training at all.

What kind of home suits them best?
An active household that’s around for much of the day, ideally with a securely fenced garden — setters love to run and that nose will lead them astray. They’ll live happily in a smaller home if the exercise is there, but they are not a dog you can leave to its own devices and expect to find calm when you get back.

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The bottom line

So, are Irish Setters easy to train? I’d put it this way: they are easy to teach and harder to raise. The intelligence and the will to please are all there from day one — what you’re really managing is energy, sensitivity, and a slow march to adulthood. Give a setter enough exercise, plenty of patient and kind training, and a family that actually wants its company, and you’ll end up with one of the most affectionate, fun, downright joyful dogs going. Cut corners on any of those, and that same dog will run rings around you — beautifully, and at speed. Mine was worth every muddy, exasperating, hilarious minute. If you’re ready for the work, yours will be too.