Family

Vizslas are a great addition to a family even if there are kids around.  Since vizslas love to run around and play, they will defiantly enjoy having kids to run, cuddle and play with. I have never had a problem with my vizslas, Drexel and Scarlet, not getting along with children. They love that kids have all of this energy and they will play in the yard with them for hours! However, I will say that they act a little strange around infants/babies. We were watching my 6 month old cousin the other day and Scarlet seemed to get protective of us when the baby would cry. She didn’t get nasty, bark, or growl but she seemed to try and get in between the baby and whoever was holding him when he cried. We are not sure if she just didn’t know how to handle the situation or if she saw the baby as a threat to us. Or maybe she was just trying to get him to stop making a crying sound, we won’t really find out why…trust me I tried asking. The only concrete idea that I have is the fact that Drexel and Scarlet have never been around a child under the age of 7 before. That was kind of a red flag to us. I don’t think we really had them around any younger kids at all. In fact, and I will talk about this more in detail when I talk about adding a new puppy to the family, Drexel was TERRIFIED of Scarlet when we first brought her home. They just are not use to smaller puppies or kids because our specific family doesn’t encounter them too often.

If you want your vizsla to be comfortable around smaller children, or dogs, I would recommend introducing the dogs to them when they are puppies (around the 1 year mark or so). This way babies and smaller dogs are no big deal. Other than that vizslas are a great addition to a family especially if you have kids!

Environment

One of the first questions when researching a dog breed is what type of environment they thrive in. Unfortunately, Vizslas are a particular dog that will not strive in all environments. Vizslas love to run around, play, hunt and explore. Because of these traits an apartment is not the ideal home for these dogs. Even in a larger sized home my Vizslas still run into walls if they don’t cut a corner fast enough. You need to be able to have a back yard or large fenced in area for them to run around in a couple times a day. Vizslas are very fast dogs and cannot be kept in a house all day. All of that energy will build up inside of them and you’re usually stuck with a destroyed house if they can’t release that energy. They will run holes into your carpet if they do not have a good 15-20 minute run at least twice a day. We currently live on ¾ an acre of land and we recently had to fence in our entire property line because our girls didn’t have enough room to explore and run around. We also had to cut down some trees because when they make sharp turns they sometimes slide into the sides of trees. Trust me this will help cut down your number of vet visits and expenses.  This is a very energetic breed that will not be happy if they are only given a small amount of space to work with.They will let you know when they want to go outside to run. They will literally stare out the window and bark until you let them run outside freely.

The ideal home for this breed is a house with a large fenced in property preferably without a lot of trees and vegetation.