Tilda Tuesday: Training Your Vizsla to Hunt by Katie at Prairie Ponderings

Welcome to Tilda Tuesday, that special day of the week where the Right Fits goes to the dogs! 

I often post about running with my vizsla Matilda. She's one of my favorite running companions and a beloved member of our family. But this breed is actually raised for a whole different reason- hunting! 

Thought we don't hunt with Matilda, I still think it's a great way to get outdoors, be active, and bond with your pup. With that said, I am excited to share with you today a guest post from a fellow blogger with a vizsla, Katie!  Katie blogs at Prairie Ponderings and we connected over our shared love of running and vizslas. 

Katie is here today to share with you how she trained her vizsla Harvey to hunt. I found this post to be really fascinating to read. I hope you do too!

From Katie:

I still remember when Jeff announced to me that he knew what kind of puppy we’d be getting. At the time, we were engaged, but not living together, and talking on the phone daily.

He had been rattling on and on without much pause about this type of dog that I had never heard of before. He was excited to tell me that these dogs were energetic but snuggly and affectionate, very intelligent, and were excellent hunters. I could take him running with me if I wanted to, and on the farm where we’d be living he’d have plenty of free space, and Jeff would train him as a bird dog. He wasn’t going to be too big, and he was really clean—with short hair and a habit for licking and cleaning himself…. Jeff kept going naming all the virtues of this mysterious dog breed I had never heard of before.

“Wait—what kind of dog is it?” I had asked.

“A vizsla!”

We picked up Harvey as a puppy from a breeder in Iowa, while on a trip there to visit my family. This was about four years ago in September. 

Harvey rode all the way home with us as a teeny tiny seven-week old pup with huge ears, blue eyes, and a cute little pot-belly. We loved him from the start. He would be our companion, best friend, running buddy, snuggle-man, and hunting guide from that day on.

As a hunter, Harvey showed his instincts right away, as many vizslas do. Vizslas are actually an incredibly old breed, used by the tribal Magyar people in Hungary about a thousand years ago or so. They were bred from the start to hunt, so as a breed they have excellent stamina and athletic ability (which is also why they make such great companion dogs to runners!)

Within the first few weeks we owned him, Jeff had Harvey on another road trip and actually ran into a man at a rest area who was on a hunting excursion with his own dogs. He had a spare pheasant wing and gave it to Jeff. They laid the wing down on the ground a little ways from the car and then let Harvey find it. He didn’t exactly point right away, but he definitely keyed in on the wing and was very interested in it, his instinct driving him. We knew from that short episode that Harvey had the instinct to smell out birds.

Since I actually didn’t live with Jeff at the time, or even in the same town, Jeff was really the one to do most of Harvey’s training as a puppy. Jeff worked with him on all kinds of training and obedience- things that all dogs should learn- but also on honing Harvey’s hunting skills. It was only on my visits to the farm, and after I moved here permanently, that I was more involved, but Jeff certainly laid the foundation for our success.

Let me be clear that Harvey is not a strict working-only hunting dog. He is very much our best friend and family dog, too. A person training a Vizsla, or any breed, for that matter, to be strictly a hunting dog would go about things much differently than we did. From the start, we wanted Harvey to be part of our family, to treat him like we would a pet and companion, but also to be able to work with him to hunt. These are all more great reasons why we ended up with a Vizsla. To us, Harvey has shown time and again that he is happiest in three situations: running, hunting, and snuggling with us.

Thinking back on his formative years of training, Jeff and I have come up with some tips that worked for us when helping Harvey train himself as a hunting dog. We believe that the best kind of training feels more like you’re guiding and encouraging the instincts your dog already has. Here are a few things to keep in mind if you are thinking of training your dog to hunt!

Use a Reward System. 

Vizslas are very sensitive dogs and don’t respond well to punishment for doing something wrong. They are very responsive, however, to being rewarded for doing the RIGHT thing. Find out what rewards seem to motivate your dog, and use those when training. For Harvey, he seemed to care most about verbal praise from us and receiving a treat, so we made sure in training to reward him with both.

Be Consistent. 

Once you have your reward figured out, be consistent and use it EVERY TIME, or at least as often as you can, when your dog does what you want. This was especially important when training Harvey on the mechanics of his point. He would sometimes pick up the wrong paw or not pick up any paw at all, but he learned that he’d only get his reward when he picked up his front paw. Now, it’s not an issue, and he uses consistent body language each time he points, thanks to consistent reward and training early on.

No Time Off. 

You, as the human, need to be vigilant in watching for hunting-specific behaviors in everyday situations.  It’s super important not to pull a hunting dog off-scent, especially when they’re learning. Sometimes this means that you will walk in circles in public areas, looking silly, to follow your dog for what ultimately might be Bunny #762 in your local park. I’ve been there. For example, we wanted Harvey to learn for himself what scents he was interested in, and reward him when he was on the correct scent of a game bird. There were numerous times we’d be out for a walk and he’d start following his nose somewhere. If it ended up being a bunny or a songbird or a squirrel, that’s fine. Once we saw that he knew what he had been trailing, we’d lead him back on course, with no praise or reward. Only if he ended up on-scent for a game bird would he reward him. Again, you can’t take time off from training him on scents, even if it may be inconvenient for you, and stick to consistently rewarding the behaviors you want to encourage. This is how Harvey ultimately refined his knowledge of what he cared about in a hunting situation- and what was just for fun or play-time.

Verbal Commands. 

We trained Harvey on a few basic commands and phrases for hunting, again using reward system and consistency. The phrase we use most often is “Get the bird/Where’s the bird?” meaning we want him to try and find a scent to track. When Harvey hears this, he knows it’s time to hunt. We also use “Leave it!” to mean we want him to drop or leave alone whatever he is interested in. This is for when we shoot a bird and it falls and Harvey helps us find the body. Harvey’s not a retriever, so he tends to find the bird and wants very badly to shake it in his mouth, destroying the meat, etc. A stern “Leave it!” means exactly what it sounds like. 

The third phrase we use most often is, “Far Enough!” This is used when Harvey is getting too far out ahead of us when hunting. We need him to be close so that if he does point and flush a bird before we’re ready, we’re close enough to take a shot.

Visual Commands. We don’t use a ton of visual commands with Harvey, but we did train him to follow a point or directional indication from us. We point or wave one direction or another to show him where we’d like him to start hunting. This usually accompanies the verbal command of “Where’s the bird?” Ideally, you want your hunting dog to sort of zig-zag left to right, right to left in front of you, until he gets on scent. The pointing and hand directions helped immensely with this.

The Right Tools. 

We did use some hunting-specific “toys” and training aids for Harvey, too. We used AKC-issued bird replica stuffies, some actual bird wings and bird scent drops, a bird dummy, and also a 50 foot lead rope. Jeff spent some time hiding scented dummies and objects and turning Harvey loose to find them, earning a reward for a successful point. The objects were also great for training him on the “Leave it!” command.  The most useful tool was probably the rope, actually, in training Harvey on what distance we ideally wanted him to be at as he hunted ahead of us.

Experience. 

As with anything else, the most useful aspect of training with Harvey was practice and experience. We have a naturally full population of game birds where we live, so any time of year we can expect to encounter some while out on a walk or a run. Using all the tips listed above, we’d encourage Harvey’s instincts whenever we could when outside with him, but also took him on plenty of dedicated hunting outings. Even short hikes in the grass of an hour or less were great training tools for him.

Whether you’re planning on training your Vizsla or other dog to hunt is up to you. I never anticipated I’d be interested in hunting before we got this dog, but there’s something so special and rewarding about watching him work. Harvey loves to hunt—it’s a manifestation of all of his instinct, breeding, and training, in one exercise. If you do get a chance to try hunting with your dog, I wouldn’t pass it up. You might be surprised how well he or she does, even with no training at all, and you may even find another hobby. Hunting is a wonderful way to spend time with family and friends and your beloved dog outdoors.

But perhaps the best thing about hunting, is coming home with a tired, but satisfied and happy Vizsla who wants nothing more than snuggles on the couch!

Thank you so much Katie for sharing such a fascinating post about hunting with your vizsla!

Go check out Katie's blog HERE and for more posts specifically about hunting, check these out:

Hunting on the HiLine Part II: Harvey and His Hunting Skills from October 10, 2011 

Hunting on the HiLine 2013: Volume 1 from November 4, 2013

Hunting on the HiLine 2014: Volume 1: Opening Day of Bird Season from September 11, 2014 

Do you hunt with your dog? Any other tips you'd like to add?