blog-rolling

Thanks to The Regal Viszla for inclusion on their blog roll. Stories about hunting dogs are always a welcome part of the web and I'm flattered to be linked. I hadn't really looked at their site prior to noticing a couple of referrals, and wanted to call attention to it as well as use the linkage as an excuse to put up some pictures, older and not.

First, my sister's wirehair viszla, Bator:





He is quite probably the smartest dog I've ever been around.
Grouse hunting in southern Colorado, Labor Day snow:



My folks wirehair, Liszka, a water monster and shown here as just a pup dealing with East Texas heat:



and relaxing on a New Mexico grouse hunt:



And then back to the smooth coat viszlas I grew up with- Red and Anya. I'm lazy, so I'll quote what I wrote earlier about them:

"The first vizsla we got as an adult; he'd been abandoned by someone and came to us as a burly and wild two-year old. He turned out to be a wizard bird dog with a great nose: capable of pinning of covey of blue quail as he literally slid into a point, dust raising around his feet from the sudden stop. He also ate the birds he picked up for the first couple of seasons. He never got over a hard mouth but we accepted the few extra puncture wounds as the price of doing business and finding more birds. The female was a decent bird dog in her own right, though her nose never matched Red's. She particularly loved to fish in small mountain streams, shuttling back and forth between anglers leapfrogging each other to hit the pools and runs. Every so often she'd wade out next to your fly or bait and look intently in the clear water for fish. Of course, finding none with forty-some pounds of bird dog in the middle of the hole she'd give you a quizzical look as if to question your choice of spot. I'll probably always have an affection for red colored dogs after those years."

Here are serious Red and clowning Anya:


and Anya grinning in a posed shot with a cock blue grouse:



and last posing photogenically in some Texas bluebonnets as an old girl:




I have to say, one of the really nice things about the Chessie is his insistence that he be right next to you almost all the time you're home, shades of a velcro viszla. In any event, this recent bit of linkage is perhaps more apropos given my viszla history and connections.