Our Philosophy on Breeding Hungarian Vizslas

We have owned Hungarian Vizslas since 1986 and in that time have bred only 7 litters. We take a very serious approach to breeding puppies and spend a lot of time , thought and energy on each litter. We are having a bit of a break before our next litter which will be in 2011 from Edie (Ch Kenazorora Krani JW). All our previous litters were "spoken for" a long time before they were even born so if you would like the opportunity of owning one of our babies get in touch for information on how to get on the waiting list... When we living in the UK people could easily get to know us and our breeding philosophy by meeting us at shows, socially for walks, at our fundraising Vizgility Days or on the big Christmas Walks we organised as the South West Walkers. We preferred for people to meet us and our boys and girls before the mating for pups had been done. We knew, that especially if you have not owned a Vizsla before it was important to see a fully grown dog/bitch displaying the vivaciousness and liveliness of the breed rather than meeting a contented nursing mum with all her babies. Who could not be smitten by that? Rachel and Harry Joyner visit Nattie when her first litter was 3 days old. Jane Mills visits when Nat's third litter were 2 weeks old. A good temprament is THE most important thing... Nattie did not know either of these lots of visitors.. However in Australia things are different due to the distances involved and although we would positively welcome visits from prospective puppy owners we know that realistically it is difficult for people ,hence this new page giving just a flavour of us and ours!

We start thinking about each litter a long time before it arrives. We have many aims in mind when we plan our rare litters. Topmost of these are health and temperament. This of course starts with the temperament of our girls! We are very proud of how our two girls from the UK coped with their journey through quarantine, their excellent character and steadfastness was remarked upon by the staff there. Lyla was already part of our family when Nattie and Edie came out of quarantine but everyone became friends straightaway , as if they had lived together all their lives! There is no point having the best show dog in the world if his/her temperament means that he/she is hard to live with or untrustworthy around children, cats or other beings. When starting the search for a stud dog we know as well as certain lines we "want" there are also lines we want to avoid. This can make selecting a stud dog a complicated business but we have to be 100% happy before we will go ahead. As well as breeding for temperament and health we want to produce the truly versatile Vizsla. Pups from our previous litters are doing diverse things such as working as PAT dogs, working with a Harris Hawk as well as the more accepted show/companion dog and working gamekeepers and professional deer hunters gundog. A puppy from Lyla's first litter is undergoing training to be a canine support dog. We think that breeding a pup with a strong work ethic also helps "pet" owners as having a dog who wants to work for you makes even basic training easier. We will only use a stud dog who has been hip scored and we of course hip score our girls. We understand that we cannot "guarantee" any puppy to have good hips ( it would be a very foolish breeder who did that) as genetics are endlessly complicated but we know that we do our utmost to minimize the risk. In the UK there are breeders who hip score their bitches, and after being given an unfortunately high score will breed from their bitches anyway. What is the point of that? There are also breeders who will score their stud dogs but not bitches - puppies get their characteristics 50% form each parent so another pointless exercise. Above: Edie, happily feeding her pups in the company of a visitor she had only met minutes before. We start taking people onto our puppy list long before the litter is due. We do not ask for any financial deposit once a prospective puppy owner has been accepted onto the list , the only thing we do ask is if they have found a puppy before ours appear that they let us know. We generally ask people a LOT of questions from "why a vizsla?" and " where will the puppy sleep" to "who will be the puppy's main care giver". It might even seem like I don't want to sell you a puppy but we all want there to be no hasty decisions made and no puppies returned to us because of un-suitable homes. Our last litters before we left the UK attracted 55 serious enquiries, 3 of those "puppy people" had been waiting for 2 years or more to get a puppy specifically from us.

Rearing our litters. All our litters start off life in the house where we keep them for at least the first 5 weeks. We want to produce well adjusted family members so take great pains to introduce the pups repeatedly to the sights and sounds that make up normal family life. This means that the pup are repeatedly "Dysonned" around, they have the washing machine and tumble dryer going, the sound effects CD not to mention my very loud music! This all starts from when the pups are very small and is repeated frequently. Some friends told us a story about how , when they went to see the litter their first Vizsla came from, they were ushered quietly into the whelping room and asked to sit quietly and not to disturb the pups. Contrasting this with when they came to see us to get their second Vizsla , I took them into the whelping room where the pups slept in their box and woke up the litter by clapping my hands and banging on the side of the whelping box! All the pups woke up with a jump but were not distressed,they knew that loud noises meant good things, food, people etc. so were raring to get up and out of the box to find out what was going on. Guess which of their two Vizsla bitches is the better adjusted ,confident one? Yep, the one they got from us! (Mollie - Nattie's first Miss Red). I think this is all the more important raising puppies who may need to fly to their new homes at 8 weeks of age as is the case here in Australia. England Tasmania The environment in which we raise our puppies in is very important. We change their surroundings every day,both inside and outside, giving them plastic bottles to play with, tarpaulins to shake, rope to pull, things hanging at head height and above, bones, broccoli and vegetables to chew. We spend a lot of time watching how the pups cope with changing environment, in fact we spend a lot of time looking at the pups and getting to know their individual personalities so we can place them with the people best suited to them and vice versa. This selection process of pups for people is not made until the pups are 8 weeks old and we are ready to release them to their new homes. If you use Facebook then lots of video of our pups is posted there so you can see their developement. The pups wear colour coded collars so you can watch the progress of "your" particular puppy. We ensure that we have plenty of visitors gently handle the pups making sure that each experience with new people is a positive one. It is also important to introduce the pups to all ages of people and to make sure the pups see people wearing hats, using umbrellas and wearing noisy or floaty clothing. Funnily enough there is no shortage of people wanting to visit us when we have puppies!

Feeding The feeding of our dogs is something I feel very passionate about. We feed the RAW/BARF diet. See this page for further details. Put simply feeding RAW means that we feed our dogs a diet as close as possible to that that they have evolved for millions of years to eat. That means no grains or cereals, no dairy, no additives or colourants or preservatives. It does mean that we feed RAW meat with bones, RAW fruit and vegetables. The fruit and veg are pulverised to make them digestable for the dogs. They mimic the fruit and veg that a dog would eat as part of an animal carcass i.e. the contents of the prey animals stomach! We have always found that our dogs have enjoyed vegetables even as a treat, cucumber, broccoli and cauliflower being particular favourites. We start weaning our pups onto raw foods whenever they start showing an interest in Mums food. I start them off on raw (ALWAYS raw) minced chicken or beef. From the age of 3 weeks or so I start giving them chicken wings to chew on - letting Mum clean up the bit too big for babies to eat. One of the big advantages to feeding the pups raw is that the mother dog continues to "clean up" after he babies up until the age of 6 weeks or so. If pups are weaned onto a dry dog food that is when the mother stops tidying up! Most of the puppies we have bred have continued to be fed this way, even when the new owners have had to make the food themselves! We very firmly believe that his is the BEST way to feed our dogs. More info on feeding this diet in Australia here. Puppies will go to their new home with a huge pack of information on this way of feeding as well as information on crate training and socialization and a five generation pedigree, Tasmanian Canaine Association registration/ microchipping papers. Pups are vaccinated at 6 weeks, wormed at 2,4 and 8 weeks and micro-chipped. We consider ourselves to be part of the pups lives for as long as they live. If one of our pups needs to be re-homed for any reason we ask that the pup be returned to us for re-homing. We never want one of our babes in a dog pound. We actively encourage new owners to not only stay in touch with us but also to be in contact with each other. For this we have found Facebook to be very helpful.

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