English Setter Grooming

About the English Setter

The Irish Setter page covers the general setter proposition: a fine silky coat with heavy feathering on the ears, chest, belly, legs and tail, needing combing every two or three days and a groom every six to eight weeks.

The English Setter carries more of it. The feathering is longer and more profuse, particularly on the belly skirt and the backs of the legs, and the coat is flatter and finer over the body.

The other difference is color, and it matters practically rather than aesthetically. English Setters are predominantly white, flecked and ticked with color in a pattern called belton, which is a term unique to this breed. A mostly white dog with a long belly skirt that sweeps through everything shows every stain it collects, so the whitening and staining questions that never come up on an Irish Setter come up constantly here.

Belton, and why it is worth knowing the word

Belton describes the flecked or ticked pattern of colored hairs scattered through a white coat, and the word exists only in this breed. It comes from a village in Northumberland where a nineteenth century breeder worked.

The variants are named by color: blue belton is black ticking on white, orange belton is orange, lemon belton is pale, liver belton is brown, and tricolor adds tan points.

Puppies are born nearly pure white and the ticking develops over the first weeks and months, deepening for a year or more. An owner worried that their puppy is losing its markings, or gaining them, is usually watching a normal process.

Practically, what belton means is that you have a mostly white dog. So the things that never trouble a red Irish Setter apply here in full: saliva staining around the mouth and on the feet from licking, tear staining under the eyes, and mud and grass marks on a long belly skirt.

The coat itself sheds dirt reasonably well once dry, and a good deal of what looks like a permanent mark brushes out. What does not come out is porphyrin staining from tears and saliva, which oxidizes in the hair and has to grow out.

Prevention is the answer as always: wipe and dry the muzzle and under the eyes, keep the feet trimmed and dry, and rinse the belly after wet walks.

The feathering, which is more than an Irish Setter carries

The body coat is flat, fine and short enough to look after itself. Everything demanding is in the feathering, and there is a lot of it.

The ears carry long fine hair over a heavy drop ear, and mat where the ear moves against the head. First to fail, on every setter.

The belly skirt is the English Setter's distinctive feature and its main problem. It is longer and fuller than on an Irish Setter, it hangs low enough to sweep through wet grass and mud, and it holds water for hours afterward.

The backs of the legs, particularly the hind trousers, which move against themselves constantly.

The armpits, the classic hidden mat on any feathered breed.

And the tail, which carries a long fringe underneath.

Comb those areas with a metal comb every two or three days, working to the skin, and use the comb as the test rather than your eyes. A slicker over fine feathering skims it and leaves the felting below.

Mats form fastest where the coat is damp, so the single most useful habit is drying the skirt and the ear feathering after every wet walk rather than letting the dog dry on its own.

Never bathe a matted coat.

The ears, and what a walk brings home

The ear architecture is the same as every setter and spaniel: a canal that runs down and turns inward so it does not drain, under a long heavy flap that seals it, with dense feathering on both surfaces blocking what airflow remains.

Weekly, lift the flap, look and smell. Healthy is pale and odorless; yeast is sweet and musty. Redness, dark discharge, head shaking, a head tilt or an ear rubbed along the floor means a veterinarian rather than a cleaner.

Dry the ears and the ear feathering after every swim and wet walk, because the feathering holds water directly against the opening for hours.

Ask a groomer to keep the hair on the underside of the flap trimmed short for airflow.

Then the burrs, which on a long skirted white dog are a routine feature of ownership. Work them out with fingers first, splitting the burr apart rather than dragging it through the hair, then comb from the outside in. A little conditioner helps a stubborn one slide free.

Grass seeds are the dangerous version and work into ears and between toes, causing sudden head shaking or a limp, and needing veterinary removal. Check the feet and ears after summer walks in long grass.

The feet themselves grow dense hair between the pads that mats into hard pellets, holds grit and ice, and costs grip on smooth floors. Keep it flush.

Trimming, clipping and the show and field split

An English Setter is tidied rather than given a haircut. The outline is neatened, the feathering shaped and thinned rather than cut off, the feet and hocks cleaned up, the ear underside trimmed, and the sanitary area kept short.

The traditional method is thinning shears and a stripping comb used to blend, rather than clippers over the body, and the reason is the same as on the Irish Setter: clipping a fine silky coat makes it grow back softer and denser, loses the flat lying texture, increases matting, and on a ticked coat it can blur the definition of the belton markings.

That last point is specific to this breed and worth knowing, because owners are frequently surprised by it.

As with every feathered breed, the honest middle option is to take the feathering down and thin it rather than clipping the body coat, which removes most of the daily work and keeps the texture.

There is also a working and show split here, as on the Springer. Field bred English Setters, often called Llewellin, carry noticeably less coat and are a much lighter grooming job. Show bred dogs, the Laverack type, carry the full feathering.

Most pet English Setters are show bred, which is why the coat arrives gradually over the first two years and surprises people.

A full shave is for a pelted coat only.

What to tell your groomer

Ask for thinning and blending rather than clippers over the body, and say you want the texture and the belton definition kept.

Ask for the ear underside trimmed for airflow, the feet cleared flush and the sanitary area kept short, every visit.

Ask specifically about the belly skirt: whether you want it kept full or taken shorter, since it is the main practical difference between an easy dog and a hard one.

Say if the dog swims or works in cover, and mention any ear or grass seed history.

Say honestly when the feathering was last combed to the skin.

And book six to eight weeks standing, because on fine feathering the interval is what keeps an appointment a tidy rather than a dematting job.

Keeping the coat between grooms

Common Questions About the English Setter