#whicj was just meeting 100 people by 6 months old

[healingheartdogs]

Interesting seeing how handler sensitive and soft most of the common pointing breeds are and then hearing how people talk about GWPs being hard, stubborn, mean, scary. People use physical punishment with their GWPs way too casually ime, stories of them biting judges or handlers are whispered by older people to all the newbies, people are often quick to push for aversive tools and methods in their training, and there's lots of physical manhandling to get them to do what you want. But it has to be that way because however will you control this big jerk of a dog with big teeth that likes to kill and bite things otherwise? /s

Hermes is as soft as any vizsla I've worked with when it comes to handling from people. Yes, he is a hard dog in the field specifically in the context of actively hunting and wanting to kill things, but when it comes to my direction and training he is very sensitive and responds very quickly to even light pressure from just body language. Other younger people in the breed who are less traditional and people who are experienced with working with lots of other breeds, especially actually "hard" or more independent ("stubborn") breeds, that I've talked to seem to share this same opinion with me of GWPs being very soft and eager to please so I know it's not just a Hermes thing.

The key differences I can find that I assume lead to this narrative of the hard mean GWP who needs an Alpha owner to keep them in line coming from people who recognize that other similar versatile hunting breeds are soft and do badly with too much of that type of handling are:

1. the harsh wirey facial furnishings make them seem less soft and baby-like when they express themselves with their faces and makes those expressions harder to read so appeasement and avoidance look more like ignoring and being a jerk to people who humanize their dogs responses and emotions

2. they tend to be higher drive and energy than other similar VHDs and are generally way more motivated by play and hunting than food so will sometimes outright ignore food in favor of play or hunting and really drivey dogs will follow their desire to hunt through discomfort which makes them much more difficult to work with if you only know how to use food or punishment, which seems common among traditional trainers

3. hunting breeds often don't receive enough socialization which makes them more likely to be sensitive to new people and things outside of hunting and sports rings but it's especially bad with GWPs since they are bred to be more like watchdogs and aloof to strangers so they end up becoming reactive or aggressive to people outside of those they were socialized to instead of just ignoring them

4. because people in show and hunting expect this sort of mean and stubborn attitude from GWPs they are harsher with them in training (plus a lot of show and hunting people just use bad traditional training methods anyway) which pushes a very soft and sensitive dog to bite or act aggressively in an attempt to set boundaries, which is often met with more harsh punishment that feeds the cycle until the dog eventually shuts down and the handler/trainer has then "won" against this mean stubborn dog that was fighting them by being "Alpha" enough

And 5. Quite a few GWP people seem to take some sense of pride in the idea of their dogs being harder to handle in the same negative way malinois people do sometimes with their dogs and actually seem to encourage this view of their breed??? Especially to newcomers in the breed, almost as if they're trying to scare people off. I was told by multiple breeders and handlers coming into GWPs that they were hard to handle and mean, that I needed to know what I was getting into, that I had to make sure I was the boss with them at all times, etc. and I witnessed this happen to other newcomers as well. I was just lucky enough to have prior education in dog training and dog behavior that let me realize this was nonsense and raise my dog with more positive methods while some of the other puppy buyers ended up falling into the same punishment cycles with their dogs and having issues in their training.

But they're very hard mean dogs, you see, and I'm just too easy on Hermes. Trying to give him the ability to consent to things? Managing his stimulation level whenever we're out and about or working and he's getting excited or stressed? Managing his exposure to environmental reinforcers to use them as a training tool and keep him from forming bad habits instead of keeping him from them and punishing him for going after them and then punishing him more for forming bad habits involving those reinforcers? And using high rate of reinforcement in multiple forms that he finds interesting when we train instead of trying to make him do things with very limited food bribes he finds boring and heavy positive punishment? Wack. Not Alpha behavior. Bribing my dog and being soft on him.

But boy, he sure is confident and unusually friendly and outgoing for a GWP. At least that's what GWP people keep telling us.