I still wouldn't recommend going to a shelter for a hunting dog only because he has a one-year old around. If the kids are alittle older then I'd say no problem. With a shelter dog, you just don't how the dog will react under stress until you spend time with them.

We hada goldie we adopted that really didn't care for small children. He was fine around them but really could care less. Our neighbor had a german shepard in which he kept asa guard dog, vicious, constantly abused.Dog got loose one day attacked our goldie. We had justgrab them and pulled them apart, when the neighbors 5 year old inadvertantly came behind our goldie to pet it. Our dog thought it was being attacked again and turned quickly, teeth out. She ended up with 3 stiches on her chin. Well, in short, we paid for the medical bills, etc. the neighbor realized she shouldn't have approachedthedog fighting, etc. and wefinallysaid there were too many children and it could very well happen again. Wegave the dog to someone who didn't have any children and away from the shepard.

It could have ended up much nastier involvingthe courts but they were understanding as she approached the dogs while they were still fighting.

As to setter vs. gsp, bothcan be calmor hyper. I have owned a couple of setters and around the house they were alwayssomewhat mellow. Thequote "never met a stranger"seem to apply. The only other setters and GSPs i'vemet have always been in the 'field' and weremore interested in finding out what's out there.