Hungarian Vizsla

The breed's ancestors worked alongside Magyar tribes as early as the tenth century, but the Vizsla as known today was refined in the nineteenth century by Hungarian nobility who valued a dog that could hunt fur and feather over open grassland and marsh without the coarse coat of pointers bred further west. The name is thought to derive from a Slavic word for "seeker" or "tracker". Two World Wars and the Communist era nearly wiped the breed out, and it survived largely because a handful of breeders smuggled dogs out of Hungary in the 1930s and 1940s and re-established lines abroad.

Living with a Vizsla means accepting that the dog will want to be within touching distance at almost all times; the breed's nickname among owners is the "velcro dog". It needs a genuine amount of off-lead running, ideally an hour or more daily plus mental work such as scentwork or gundog training, and without it will find its own entertainment, usually destructive. The coat is short and needs little more than a weekly wipe-down, but the thin skin means the breed feels cold quickly and is not suited to being left outside.

Today the Vizsla is popular as a family dog with active owners as well as a working gundog, and does both jobs well provided its exercise needs are taken seriously. It is generally good with children it is raised with and sociable with other dogs, though its intensity and need for company make it a poor choice for households where it would be left alone for long hours.