HPR breeds...

Spudlet

Spudlet

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...info please:D

I met two Large Munsterlanders yesterday, and wow what stunning dogs - both rescues too;) I was very taken with them. Have been thinking about having an HPR breed in a few years anyway, but they are not dogs I know much about. How do they work - could you take one beating, or would they be unsuitable for this job? Are they more suited to picking up?

Tell me all about them please:)
 
They are indeed a good looking dog! All the ones I seem to meet do seem to be LOUD though. I believe that they will work the same way as all the HPR breeds so will find game and pick it up, I think that they will also retrieve in water. We met one at a field trial training day last April that went on a quite spectacular hare chase and then crashed through a covey of partridge, so perhaps steadiness is something needs particular work! LOL! Luckily for me my dog saw the birds, suddenly realised what we were there for and proceeded to work brilliantly for the rest of the day! LOL!!
 
lol, the people with the Munsterlanders said they were a bit chasey:p My trainer adores HPR breeds, so I will have to ask her next time we go for a class. She has a factsheet on her website all about these breeds, have to say they sound like a challenge, but a fun one:)
 
I LOVE Large Munsterlanders, they are giant Ottos! :D
Although I was put off slightly by two which came into the kennels, they were both grumbly, nervy and snappy. We get a lot of that in the kennels, but usually we get round them and find a waggy dog underneath, these two were not going to be friendly no matter how much time we spent trying!

I think the HPR tests can require a dog to work a huge amout of cover independantly. So they are not ones to work in close like a Spaniel should naturally, although not to say they can't! Look how fab Flora is at beating!
For me they are a breed that I would only look at if I had a lot of HPR support around, which I don't! So I'll stick with my stick with my stinky Springers! :D
 
That's just how they looked! These two were not overtly friendly (unlike the Gremlin with strangers) but they were quite relaxed, running about happily, seemed like very chilled dogs. Although I was a bit put off by the fact that they had e-collars of some kind on, the owner was chatting about them chasing and said he had some help with that, and pulled out some kind of remote. I didn't enquire precisely what it was, as you guys know these kinds of 'aid' are not something that figures in my own approach to training.:)

I'm just daydreaming at the moment really, as it will be several years before I can have a second dog anyway:)

Interestingly, I mentioned that I knew a Springer owner who was very taken with the breed, and the owner said he thought Springers were very hard work (I think he used the word 'mental'), so you never know... maybe they would be easy after Snots;):p
 
HPRs do what it says on the can......they hunt the game, point it, flush it and then will retrieve it. Therefore they are best suited to rough shooting or walked up over pointers on the moors.

HPRs in the beating line (IMO) are not a good idea. Firstly, HPRs are wide ranging dogs and their natural beat would be 100 yards plus - not exactly what you get in a beating line!!! Also, a beating line will discourage the dog from pointing......not enough time and too many other non-pointing dogs as competition who won't back or honour the point. Very few keepers in my experience welcome HPRs in the beating line. If you get the opportunity, give yourself space and try to get on the flank.

As for picking up, it is generally the R bit of HPR that is the weakest link - they are hunting nuts! :D TBH if you want to beat I would say get a spanner and if you want to pick up get a lab.

If you have access to the right environment to utilise all the skills of a HPR then go for it. They are fascinating to train and watch....makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end when they point.
 
gunnergundog said:
HPRs do what it says on the can......they hunt the game, point it, flush it and then will retrieve it. Therefore they are best suited to rough shooting or walked up over pointers on the moors.

HPRs in the beating line (IMO) are not a good idea. Firstly, HPRs are wide ranging dogs and their natural beat would be 100 yards plus - not exactly what you get in a beating line!!! Also, a beating line will discourage the dog from pointing......not enough time and too many other non-pointing dogs as competition who won't back or honour the point. Very few keepers in my experience welcome HPRs in the beating line. If you get the opportunity, give yourself space and try to get on the flank.

As for picking up, it is generally the R bit of HPR that is the weakest link - they are hunting nuts! :D TBH if you want to beat I would say get a spanner and if you want to pick up get a lab.

If you have access to the right environment to utilise all the skills of a HPR then go for it. They are fascinating to train and watch....makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end when they point.
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Well said, every point made, is correct. I've only ever had 3 HPRs. One was mine, and two of other peoples. None of them were used for their pointing ability, sadly. If I'm honest they were all used as spaniels. They were all GSPs. As a 'keeper, I would have not allowed one in a line of beaters.

A friend of mine had a Weimaraner, and he won the Met Police Championships with it. As gun dogs, they really are best suited to the lone shooter who walks up. That's what they were bred for. They are not best suited to the full battue of a shoot day, in my view. They tend to be sensitive, and call for experienced handling. All pointing dogs need space.

Where most of them do excel, is as house hold pets. Brought up properly, they can be amongst the most amenable, and happy of dogs. I know nothing of Munsterlanders, but can only imagine that they would be as other HPRs.

As you say, GD, watching the best, is stirring!!

Alec.
 
I have two!!!

As HPR gundgos they are drastically under appreciated. They are a true versatile gundog and work very well in all aspects of their job.
I wouldnt agree that they are loud they just have a 'talky-ness' to them, they like to tell you whats going on but not in an over the top collie kind of way! Most i have watched work are no noisier than the other dogs.

As for their pointing ability I would like to correct you that Munsterlanders are very good at pointing and the working ones i have known do very well on the point. They are commonly used in America for pointing too.

Not sure what else to say really - just excellent family and working dogs that are very sadly under sappreciated

My boy Loki
loki.jpg
 
I wasn't referring specifically to Munsterlanders, unfortunately I have never seen one work, although that's probably just as well for the owners because I would snaffle them away! :D
It's just my experience that the HPR breeds (more specifically GSPs) seem to be noisy, whingey whiney dogs, that sit crying in the beaters wagon and don't settle. Whining is my biggest pet hate, can't stand the noise, so it would really put me off those breeds. My Springer is highly strung, but stick him in the wagon and he curls up under my seat, as quiet as a lamb. In fact he has squeaked twice out beating - both times have been sat watching the duck pond and have been the quietest, one off squeak.
 
Well Flora isnt a conventional member of the beating team/line! But everyone agrees shes an asset to it. No she cant work cover like a spaniel, but thats not everything. The amount of birds she points sat real tight that the spaniels have all run straight over is unbelieveable. She has never shown me up on a shoot. However, yes she is the only HPR on the shoot and yes she had to be assessed before she was given the all clear to be allowed in the beating line (a week before our first shoot). HPR breeds can be frowned upon, they have bad rep but I believe its bad rep due to the fact they are difficult to train, well trained HPR's are fabulous. Everybody loves her and all the guns and beaters love having her around. She's too blooming clever by half and has taken to picking up for the back guns and giving them their own bird back ;) Nice work Dory dog...mummy doesnt have to carry em! :p :D She is also the clown :rolleyes: and provides light entertainment to anyone that wants it on lunch and between drives! :D She is a very vocal dog but not vocal in the field at all. She never ever chases birds, has a better flush and stop than most of the spaniels out. Her retrieving isnt up to par to go picking up IMO but I dont doubt she will get there. A just turned 2 year old HPR breed is still a pup! They don't have the same natural retrieve of a lab, it requires more work.
Get one...you'll be hooked! And I absolutely adore LML's..they are beautiful dogs.
 
Haha cheers! :p :D
She is...well at least to me. BUT she is pretty breed typical...a tad more laid back in some circumstances than your average vizz (she manages to turn 'vizziness' on and off as required!) but on the whole vizzy personality doesnt vary much! She's just a vizsla thats been allowed to use her brain in the correct way, with a touch of guidance from moi!
Forgot to say, she also works close and steady and is the only dog in a line of spaniels allowed to go through crop cover teaming with birds off lead...she wont run on the birds and she wont go more than ten yards ahead unless told. She very rarely goes on a lead all day and I trust her completely not to feck off and ruin the shoot entirely!
Through woods and thick cover she will point tight sitting birds, catch the nearest persons eye wait for 'well done flora' and move on (while they shout for their spaniel to go in and flush it from its nest of brambles! She wont go in on a bird like that, and I wouldnt want her too, she would be ripped to shreds!) I can only describe her as a real team member, shes a lovely dog and I'm proud the rest of the beating line enjoy having her out as part of the team and that she is of benefit to the shoot. She gives HPRs a good name (that IMO they really deserve).
 
gunnergundog said:
If you have access to the right environment to utilise all the skills of a HPR then go for it. They are fascinating to train and watch....makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end when they point.
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It is a wonderful sight seeing that point! I almost get tears in my eyes when I see one of our Pointers on point, then working the scent! My Husband is off up to Scotland at the beginning of Feb for a week on the moors with one of the dogs, I am sooo jealous!!!!
 
Tillypup said:
It is a wonderful sight seeing that point! I almost get tears in my eyes when I see one of our Pointers on point, then working the scent! My Husband is off up to Scotland at the beginning of Feb for a week on the moors with one of the dogs, I am sooo jealous!!!!
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Do you have a copy of the book Training Pointers and Setters for Field Trials, by Beazley, Manners and White-Robinson? It's only a very small book, but I'd wonder if it actually needs to be much larger. It's packed with common sense. It was printed in 1973, but I don't think that there was ever a reprint. It's now scarce, and increasing in value. If you don't have a copy, and they're hard to find, then you better talk to me nicely!!

I sometimes think that the purist pointing breeds tend to be more like hounds, than gun dogs!! The best that most can manage, is to contain them!! I've watched them at Spring and Autumn trials, and often thought that to see them casting for anything up to half a mile away, and on the moors, takes us back to another age.

I've never been fortunate enough to shoot over them, but certainly Rank did. I'm sure that you will be aware of this, but Alf Manners (a co-writer of the above book) was his professional trainer, when the kennels were at Sutton Scotney, in Hampshire. The estate has long been broken up, and the kennels, I would think are probably gone. Halcyon days!

Alec.
 
Vizslak said:
No she cant work cover like a spaniel, but thats not everything. The amount of birds she points sat real tight that the spaniels have all run straight over is unbelieveable.
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There were a lot of workers said they wouldn't touch the Wire Viz because they don't have the oomph of a Spaniel or a GSP/GWP but actually they're more thorough because they're steadier so where as the Spaniel etc cover the ground faster the Wire Viz picks up or points out - what ever, I don't work lol can you tell! - more game.

Can't comment otherwise though as like I said no experience with working
 
Oh i would bloody love HPRs, and when my son is older I wil be investing in some for my dream picking up team, Weimeraner, GSP, Boxer, Dalmatian, Doberman all of which can pick up if trained to do so.. unconventional i know-and the list keeps growing!

but alas, the OH is a keeper and one of those devoted spaniel lovers who wont have anything else, we arent even allowed a lab :( i dont mind because our spans are beautiful dogs and I do my best with them, but OH is very 'dog for every job' minded and with the spaniels they can do everything and do it excellently.

i like munsterlanders though the only ones i have seen are pets.

Alec, we had two JRs on my dads estate that were probably two of the best line dogs I've ever seen.
 
Lol PP, I used to beat with my old Dalmation, used to get a laugh when he hopped up into the beaters waggon but he didn't do a bad job at all!

Mine (albeit crosses of HPR's) have come on no end this season. Very thorough in the cover crops and also really improving with picking up - prey drive is still very high in both of them but we're getting there.

As for being welcome in the beating line, my boyfriend is the gamekeeper and says they've learnt very quickly and although they have gone off on the occasional bit of impromptu hare courseing :eek: they are very useful and he enjoys watching them work.
 
mollichop said:
As for being welcome in the beating line, my boyfriend is the gamekeeper and says they've learnt very quickly and although they have gone off on the occasional bit of impromptu hare courseing :eek: they are very useful and he enjoys watching them work.
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I wish we could get the dogs to read their job requirements so that they could learn they are not supposed to chase the furries!!!! I was amazed by one of my dogs when she picked up the scent of a hare, it took off, and to my amazement as soon as I blasted the "down" whistle, she dropped like a stone!! If it had been one of the others they would have been in the next county by the time the whistle stopped!!!
 
mollichop said:
Yup - the down whistle is our homework this year. I am determined to have it nailed before next season.
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We started doing that before anything else with Fifi (the youngest) and she is by far the best at dropping. I try not to give the dogs commands and let them ignore them, but the drop is one that we NEVER let go, if they have been told to drop, then they drop, in that plce, even if it means chasing them across three fields and pulling them back to that spot!!! LOL You certainly get fit training a pointer!!!!
 
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