WHV puppy Quodian’ Yoker retrieving a bird wing. Photograph by Ron Baltus.

All this means that training a WHV takes more time, more patience, and more thought than training a tougher breed. However, the WHV is so cooperative, so appreciative and such a buddy that you’ll enjoy the extra time and effort this takes...that is, unless you’re a tough, hard-boiled individual who wants quick results at all costs. If that’s the case, do yourself and the WHV breed a favor by looking elsewhere for a dog.

Like most soft breeds, the WHV retains his training very well. You won’t have to re-train him at the start of every hunting season. He wants to please you and he’ll remember what that required last year.

Incidentally, being such a people-loving animal, WHVs need to spend a significant amount of time in the house with the family. Left in an outside kennel run all the time, they don’t develop properly.

Think of their time in the house as “training time” as well as leisure, for the bond the dog makes with his people while in the house contribute significantly to the success of his training.

“If they don’t get to interact frequently with their people,” Deb Wall said, “they become bored, and eventually turn manic and neurotic. Sure, they can eat and sleep in a kennel run, or be confined there while the family is at work, but left in a kennel run 24/7? No, definitely not.”

Besides, being calm and laid-back, not “wired” (please pardon the awful pun), they are pleasant companions around the house. Then, too, they accept your “house rules” most graciously.

Hunting Niche
For a typical WHV, any critter wearing feathers is fair game. They’re very birdy, and they have a strong pointing instinct. They retrieve naturally, sans force-breaking, and they take readily to water. Here and there, a falconer uses a WHV in his sport.

Upland gamebirds, of course, are their favorites. In upland hunting, they have more endurance than slash and dash. They won’t electrify the horseback field trial set by hunting the horizon and beyond.

They tend to hunt close to the boss, always anxious to stay in contact with him. They don’t point with the “high on both ends” loftiness expected in field trials, but the do lock up rigidly, leaving no doubt that they’ve found birds, which is more than enough style to delight most hunters.

Like other versatile breeds, they have good noses, and with a couple years of experience, they can develop uncanny bird sense. And at their relaxed pace, they can go all day, day after day.

Hunting with such a dog can be a very personal, a very memorable experience.

“I’d grown immune to hunting,” said Mike Kinsella, “because it’s part of my work here at the lodge. But since I got my WHV, Zeke, I’ve developed an enthusiasm for hunting like I’ve never had before, not even years ago when I got my first dog. I’m actually disappointed when a guest wants to hunt with my flusher instead of Zeke.”

“My WHV hunts within about 50 yards of me,” said David Nackerud, who hunts all the various gamebirds found in the Northwest. “He handles runners quite well, relocating as often as necessary, pointing staunchly each time the bird stops. He retrieves naturally and with a very soft mouth.”

Deb Wall, who hunts mostly quail and pheasants in Kansas, said that her WHVs hunt within about 100 yards, are very biddable and retrieve naturally.