What bloodlines do these puppies represent?

Our girl Red is out of Ariel and Rigby from Crimson Sky Kennels in Illinois.  

Her sire "Rigby" sports the following titles:

AKCField Champion

Amateur Field Champion

National Vizsla Association (NVA)

 Midwest Vizsla Shooting Dog Champion

Midwest Vizsla Futurity 2nd Runner up

Of her dam “Ariel” Crimson Sky says: "Ariel is a very sweet and kind Vizsla. Around the house she is very laid back and easy going. Ariel loves lounging with "her people" on the couch or bed, and also enjoys her own independence. Out in the field she hunts hard with great drive and style. She is the full sister to Ruger out of a repeat breeding of Madison to Raany.

Ariel earned many Puppy and Derby Field Trial placements and earned her Junior Hunter JH title easily. Ariel runs big in the field and will hold a bird forever. She is a broke gun dog with a strong retrieving instinct. Ariel as most of our females spend more time hunting and less time field trialing. Ariel is one of my main hunting dogs and rarely misses a trip to hunt pheasants in Iowa or South Dakota."

We were adamant about finding the Right dog (after living with a bad fit for a decade).  We wanted a good bird dog, but we also wanted a good companion.  My husband flew out to Illinois to personally meet Red’s sire and dam and even went out hunting (pheasants) with them and owner Mark Spurgeon to see how they worked in the field.  He came home with 8-week old Red (perhaps not the most original name – I picked it – but I wanted a single syllable that was easy to call out in the field).  You can read more about Crimson Sky Vizslas at their website http://www.crimsonskyvizslas.com.

Red embodies all the qualities of her mother Ariel, a hard-hunting dog who is laid back and easy going around the house.  She was a breeze to train and is a joy to hunt over.

When it came time to breed Red (we wanted to pick a time when we thought we’d have some time to be home to socialize a new pup) we first called Mark Spurgeon to discuss stud dogs that would be right for her.  Since we live in the west (currently in southeast Idaho where Roger is in graduate school) we thought we might need to have frozen semen shipped from somewhere and do artificial insemination.  Mark however knew of a breeder near Salt Lake City, Utah who has a stud dog he thought would be a good match for Red.  This is the breeder we used and with the closer proximity (approx. 3 hour drive) we were able to take Red to the stud and leave her there for breeding.  Josh McPherson owns McPherson’s Hillbilly Kennels http://mcphersonbirddogs.com/stud_dogs.html and the stud we used (Deacon) is a Field Champion with a sweet personality and a powerful compact build that at age 9 still quivers like a tight spring ready to explode into all day action.

Josh’s webpage has this to say about Deacon:

FC HILLBILLIE'S SHILOH HOLY MAN (DEACON)

2x NVA National Quail runner up Champion

1st runner up – NVA Western Vizsla Classic

2nd runner up - NVA National All-Age Classic

Deacon is one of the most powerful dogs in the breed. He produces big running, hard hunting dogs with tons of style. His puppies exhibit exceptional natural point and superior athleticism. Deacon has a lot of personality and he passes his playfulness on to his puppies. Deacon is OFA excellent and has a permanent QOL and DNA on file.

Why are we breeding?

We aren't professional breeders.  We don’t raise dogs as a business and we haven’t had the time or inclination to pursue field trialing. 

We like to run two dogs in the field, and to give the old pointer some credit, I suspect our Vizsla learned some of what she does by watching and working with our old English Pointer in the field during her first 2 hunting seasons (the pointer has been in a retirement home for the last few years – our eldest son’s house).  We are so pleased with Red that we want a puppy of hers to raise up as our second field dog, and carry on the line when Red is too old to hunt anymore.

We value a really good dog and took care in finding a stud dog for Red that came highly regarded and with qualities that would complement hers and produce puppies that are of benefit not only to us but to the breed in general.

Red (at 3) and Cinder (at 12)

Why Vizslas?

“Life’s too short to hunt over an ugly dog.”  That’s a quip my husband likes to use, but the fact that Vizslas are beautiful is really just a bonus.  We hunt upland game in the western United States, primarily northeastern Oregon and southeastern Idaho.  This is dry, often rugged country.  While Hungarian partridge and various grouse species are the mainstay of what we hunt, chukar and pheasant figure into the picture too.  Chukar country is the most rugged, but huns and grouse can still mean a lot of climbing up and down hills.  This requires a dog with stamina, (one that isn't carrying a lot of mass on a big frame that will burn energy and tire more quickly in the heat).

Hunting with a dog should be a partnership. The idea is to work together.  Before we got our Vizsla we had an English Pointer.  While she had a good nose and knew how to find birds, she was out there to hunt for herself and really didn’t care if we were there or not.  I lost count of how many times that dog ran off in the field (got over a hill where she knew the shock collar wouldn’t reach her) and we couldn’t find her and she spent the night out.  She didn't have much for ‘pet’ qualities either and wasn't a good house dog.. 

Back to our Vizsla.  What a difference!  This dog has an even better nose than our pointer did (which we didn't know was possible), a truly Amazing nose!, and she was very easy to train (so much so that we were quite lax in the formal bird dog training we should have given her).  She is a joy to have in the field.  She listens, she responds, she loves to please.  In the house she is quiet and calm, curls up on her dog bed, plays with the cat and cuddles with us to watch a movie.  An all around super dog.

Note: I have seen a number of Vizsla’s that are large like a Weimeraner (their breed standard ranges from 23-27 inches at the shoulder depending on sex with a maximum 1-inch variation allowed).  Vizsla breed standard (see link at right) is 21-24 inches at the shoulder depending on sex with a maximum 1.5-inch variation allowed.  Red is the smallest Vizsla I’ve seen, though she still makes breed standard at 19.5 inches at the shoulder.  Her powerful compact size makes for great stamina in tough terrain, even in warm weather.

Who are we and why a blog?

We, Mariah and Roger, are the proud owners of a pregnant Vizsla.  We will need to find good homes for the pups we aren’t keeping (in other words, all but one) and we are committed to finding superior homes for those puppies.  That is the impetus for this blog.  I didn’t want to go through the hassle of setting up a website so I decided a free blog would be the most expedient way to get out information about our girl and the Vizsla breed in general.

Please Note:  This blog is a work in progress!  I am not a blogger and I don’t have any websites.  The more I research, the more things I realize I need to find out and add to this site.  If there is something you want to know that isn’t here, I either haven’t gotten to it yet or I haven’t thought of putting it out here.  Email me if you have questions.