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Llewellin Setter — BetterBred Breed Page – BetterBred.com
BetterBred Breed Profile

Llewellin Setter

Temperament: Hardworking, birdy, and driven. Llewellins are affectionate family dogs with high hunting instincts, strong noses, and the stamina to work long days in the field. They are biddable and do best with active owners.
Height: Males: 23-25 inches (58-64 cm), Females: 21-23 inches (53-58 cm)
Weight: 35-55 pounds (16-25 kg)
Life Span: 12-15 years
Outlier Index ?
0.50
Born before 2016: 0.48 Born after 2024: —
Avg Genetic Rel. ?
0.05
Born before 2016: 0.03 Born after 2024: —
Internal Relatedness ?
-0.04
Born before 2016: -0.06 Born after 2024: —
#NameGender OIAGRIR
1 Bristle Ridge Royacelle M 0.22 -0.14 0.03
2 BR Shoeleather Cady F 0.74 0.11 0.02
3 BR Shoeleather Bindie F 0.57 -0.01 0.08
4 Bristle Ridge Rosa May F 0.42 0.11 -0.23
5 BR Shoeleather Otis M 0.48 0.06 -0.24
6 Jennie F 0.55 0.15 -0.04
7 BR Tiskilwa Tillie F 0.46 0.07 -0.02
8 BR Shoeleather Agustus M 0.53 0.04 0.10
The Llewellin is a strictly field-bred line of English Setter traced back to the breeding program of Richard Purcell Llewellin in the latter half of the 19th century. Llewellin started with Edward Laverack's English Setters - then the standard for the breed - and crossed them with dogs from the Duke, Rhoebe, and Kate bloodlines, aiming for superior field performance rather than show conformation. The resulting dogs dominated field trials and were exported widely, especially to the United States, where they became the foundation of the American field-trial setter tradition. The American Field (FDSB) registry, in partnership with UC Davis VGL, now uses DNA-verified parentage to confirm pure Llewellin lineage. Llewellins are smaller and lighter than show-type English Setters, with less coat and more stamina, and the strain has been maintained as a closed working line for over 150 years.
Because Llewellins descend from a narrow working line, the health profile tracks English Setter risks generally. Hip and elbow dysplasia, hypothyroidism, and deafness occur. Cancer and autoimmune disease have been reported. As deep-chested dogs, bloat is also a risk. No Llewellin-specific disease patterns have been formally characterized.
VGL has reported Llewellins carrying an average of around 6.52 alleles across the 33 STR loci, with an effective allele count near 3.25. For a closed line with 19th-century foundation stock, those numbers are better than might be expected. The gap between average and effective alleles follows the usual pattern: a subset of alleles dominates, and the rarer ones are the ones most worth preserving. VGL testing has found Llewellins with observed heterozygosity modestly above expected, giving a small negative inbreeding coefficient. That suggests breeders in the tested population are actively selecting unrelated pairings - a good sign for a line that has been closed for over 150 years and carries a well-known narrow founder base. Individual IR values still vary, and the breed-wide number alone does not tell the full story.

Average metrics by birth year for dogs with recorded birthdates in the BetterBred database.

A 3D genetic map of enrolled Llewellin Setter dogs in the BetterBred database, based on allele-sharing distance across 33 STR loci. This is not a complete picture of the breed — it reflects only dogs whose owners have enrolled them. Drag to rotate · scroll to zoom · hover for dog names (public profiles only).

Historical founders — oldest 25% of enrolled dogs     Current gene pool — most recent 50% of enrolled dogs
Building plot… this may take a minute for larger breeds.

The Dog Leukocyte Antigen (DLA) region controls immune function and is the most polymorphic portion of the canine genome. Every dog carries two sets of DLA haplotypes — one from each parent — which almost never recombine across generations. Frequency percentages reflect how often each haplotype appears across all allele copies in the breed, not the percentage of dogs carrying it.

Class I Haplotypes

HaplotypeFrequency
1077
56.3%
1054
25.0%
1026
12.5%
1030
6.3%

Class II Haplotypes

HaplotypeFrequency
2005
56.3%
2022
25.0%
2012
12.5%
2023
6.3%

Class I & II Combinations

Class IClass IIFrequency
1077 2005
56.3%
1054 2022
25.0%
1026 2012
12.5%
1030 2023
6.3%

The Canine Diversity Test from UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory is the foundation of BetterBred’s breed management tools. Testing your dog adds to the breed database and gives you access to the full suite of breeding analysis tools.

Order from UC Davis VGL →
OI
Outlier Index

The Outlier Index (OI) measures how unusual a dog’s allele combination is relative to the tested population of its breed. A higher OI means the dog carries alleles at lower frequencies across the breed — genetic variants that are underrepresented in the population as a whole.

Dogs with high OI are genetically valuable because they carry diversity that most other tested dogs don’t share. Breeding them thoughtfully into the broader population helps redistribute lower-frequency alleles rather than allowing them to become even rarer over generations.

The breed average shown here reflects all dogs tested in the BetterBred database. The senior and youngster comparisons show whether diversity is trending up or down in recent generations.
AGR
Average Genetic Relatedness

Average Genetic Relatedness (AGR) measures how similar a dog’s DNA is, on average, to every other tested dog in the breed. It reflects the dog’s mean kinship — how closely related it is to the population as a whole.

A lower AGR means the dog is more genetically distinct from the majority of the breed. Dogs with low AGR carry alleles at lower frequencies across the tested population, making them higher-priority candidates for inclusion in a well-managed breeding program.

AGR is conceptually related to mean kinship used in conservation genetics for managed species populations. A declining AGR average in younger dogs suggests the breed is successfully redistributing genetic diversity across generations.
IR
Internal Relatedness

Internal Relatedness (IR) measures how much identical genetic material an individual dog inherited from both parents. IR is a useful indicator of inbreeding: lower IR generally reflects lower inbreeding, and it is widely used and reported in the scientific literature.

A high IR is not the cause for alarm it might appear. Elevated IR can often be resolved in a single generation by pairing with a dog whose ancestry is less represented in the breed. It is a signpost, not a sentence.

BetterBred reports IR for reference, but it is not our primary breeding guidance tool. OI and AGR together give a more complete and actionable picture of a dog’s genetic value to the population.

AGR tells you which dogs are genetically unusual relative to the population. OI tells you which dogs are most valuable to preserve. OI specifically weights mid-frequency alleles, identifying dogs whose ancestry is underrepresented in a way most likely to benefit the breed.