So, first impressions after her first year and shooting season? I’d liken her to the Hush Puppy of shooting dogs
because she’s been so comfortable to live with and shoot over. She’s very intuitive and people centred, so easy to build a close bond with, oozing with natural ability and has a super temperament. But it’s a super soft temperament that is unforgiving of clumsy handling and would have been completely squashed by even relatively mild corrections, so not for everybody. She was also very vocal as a pup and I thought this would mean she’d whine when out shooting but it seemed to be a response to her strange environment and quickly faded but she is quite a a talkative pup around the house, but not so when out shooting where she’s been completely mute, except when she found her first cock pheasant runner and skirted around it barking. She’s since got the knack of picking runners.And it did take me quite a while to learn how to read her and make adjustments because she was completely different to what I’d been used to with my GSPs. Apart from the soft temperament, her people focussed Velcro stage went on for many months longer than I’ve ever experienced in any other breed. This is essentially down to her being of a less independent nature. For dogs to get out into the country a few hundred yards away from the handler requires them to have developed the Confidence and independence to do so, and sometimes they are too confident and independent
My GSPs had this by 6 or 7 months of age but it’s taken twice as long for the Viz to reach a similar stage. So there were times in the first few months when I’d once have written her off as pottering for she’d often amble about and was more interested in keeping in touch with me than in heading out into the country. She also had a Lassie (for older members
) behaviour, where She’d keep stopping for me to catch up. Which was quite handy in broken country but has gradually diminished as her confidence grew. But she’s still very good at keeping contact, which, considering I like to get through a hunt with the minimum of Commands, suits me and my style of training just fine. She has her moments but is a bit of a couch potato in the house and is just happy to hang with you when out in the yard and garden, but out with the gun and she’s always been up for the hunt. She was straight out on gamey ground from when I first got her home at 8 weeks of age and was out looking for game two or three time’s a day right through her first year and shooting season. I follow a bump and chase routine on wild game to develop game finding and pointing and the first point kicked in at 16 weeks, just as it did with my GSPs. By 6 months she could work ground and air scents, was already proficient at working sitting and moving birds and was just about free of serious chase.
However, she was a bit of an enigma because she didn’t have the hard running, slash and burn style of a GSP at that age but clearly had a great nose and a knack of knowing when to use it and step up a gear. I think there are several factors that contribute to this. For starters I used to have the sneaking suspicion that she tended to favour working ground scents over air scents, which always tends to slow a dog. She was also ultra cautious around game and became very creepy and stop-starty. One day I noticed a hare sneaking off a hundred yards upwind and when I saw this replicated it explained her cautious behaviour. But with experience and a growing confidence she gradually learnt better discrimination and this behaviour died out. She still is very cautious around game and, apart from slamming into a point when she happens upon game unexpectedly, whenever she has the opportunity of winding it in timely fashion she will draw on and go into a ‘soft’ point much farther out than the GSPs, which tend to go in up close and personal before going into a hard point a few feet from the bird. I call it a ‘soft‘ point because she’ll hold it until I get within a few yards of her but it’s not rigid as a ramrod point and she’ll keep glancing at me to check on my progress. The only time my GSPs do that is if they’re on an unproductive point. Once I’ve caught up she’ll start walking me in before finally coming on hard point within feet of the bird.
I’ve noticed this more cautious, stand off approach on videos of Vizslas so guess it’s pretty typical. I used to dislike all the creepy creepy stuff, preferring the direct approach to game of the GSP, so it took me a while to get used to it and work out what was happening but, upon reflection, I’m now of the opinion that it’s a more killing method. The GSPs certainly have no hesitation at getting in close to their birds before pointing but on flighty birds, like snipe and grouse, already feeling under pressure from the dog being so close on point, the Sight of me looming in on their horizon is frequently too much for them and they break. That often results in rushed shots at greater range on rapidly disappearing birds. With the Viz’s stand off approach we walk in as one threat and the result has been that birds hold better and if they do flush it’s when I’m much closer for a more considered shot. That’s how I’ve found it.
I don’t rely on command based training in the Traditional sense but concentrate on developing routines and rituals around all the roles my dogs play on a daily basis. As a bit of fun I decided to try as much as possible to use game rather than dummies so didn’t do much by way of dummy training other than some delivery and steadiness games but that was only over a few yards. Apart from a few retrieves when at exercise with my GSP to teach her patience in taking her turn I did no ‘Marking’ training at all. In fact I didn’t want to get her fixated on marking because in my experience they pick this up very quickly, and naturally, when you start shooting birds over them. But I did a lot of retrieving on cold game blinds, gradually extending her confidence on getting out and hunting on longer retrieves. Her attitude to retrieving is markedly better than any of my GSPs and her default position is to have something in her mouth to Carry. She can’t come out of her crate without dragging her fleece out with her and parading it about.
She also has a markedly soft mouth and you don’t get any mouthing or messing about on the pick up. I also did a lot of drop to shot work and must have fired getting on towards 200 shots over her, mainly .22 starter pistols but .410 and 12 bore in the later stages.She started her shooting career almost by accident.
We were hunting a moor last September and I’d taken my .410 along to get some drops to flush and shot. She was proficient at it by then and had already had a few on snipe that afternoon without any issue so when she had a cracking find and point and remained stationary when a snipe flushed I thought ... what the hell ... and shot it. I was confident that she’d handle the retrieve OK. and after a brief sniff she picked the bird no problem, her first snipe and her first retrieve if warm game. 10 months old. From there we started hunting in earnest with the twelve bore. I shot a few more snipe over her and then her first cock pheasant, a dead bird which she handled ok. Next a cock bird that ran 25 yards before tucking in but she worked it and picked it fine before realising it was still moving and spat it out before circling and barking at it it. I knocked it on the head and tossed it out and she had no problem at picking it after that. A few more snipe and a couple more pheasants and then I shot her first grouse over her point, which happened to be a hard hit runner that flapped off in front of her and taught her how to handle wounded birds. She handled it well. The photo of her with this grouse, a woodcock and a snipe was taken when she was 12 months old. They were the first grouse and woodcock that she’d ever retrieved and she took them both in her stride. She’d now had every quarry species that she’ll encounter shot over her points. By the end of the season she was working runners like a pro and I’d shot 24 birds over her points and she was still steady to flush, shot and fall, not that I’m particularly bothered about that.
So, first thoughts, I like her.
I like a dog that’s easy to live with around the home, trains up quickly and without any hitch and retains that training, and then we go hunting, where my first priority is an effective game finder and she ticks all of those boxes. I’m not so sure the breed would suit anyone more interested in Training and I can’t see her ever quartering like a metronome on gameless ground. But she’d take a lot more handling and retriever training than I’m interested in developing. She’s more like a Labrador in that respect. Head to head she’s faster than my GSPs in an outright sprint but her hunting gait is marginally slower but enough to get out 2-300 yards without slowing you down. I guess that on average my GSP’s natural range is 50-200 yards and they’ll go out to 300 on occasion, whereas the Viz is more like 50-100 yards but she’ll go out to 300 yards on scent. But I’ve never come back from a hunt thinking I’d have done better with a GSP, often the reverse. These last few months she’s matured both mentally and physically and has grown greatly in confidence, independence and range so I’m looking forward to seeing how her hunting develops next season. All in all she’s been a joy.
Great read Naj, Welcome to the `minor' breeds 
) both to live with and hunt over. I've found over the years a good hunting dog hunts what ever the breed, its in the style they hunt which either matches the owners needs/preferences or it does not, and moving forward will influence how they see and comment on a breed.
But in all honesty it is the breed that is probably the best HPR for our current shooting/living environment in this country. ( Although I won't be trading in my Munsters anytime soon, sanity is not my strong point 
