Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs German Wirehaired Pointer

That is a seriously cool dog!

I have a drahthaar. I was a lab guy for years. My father in law hunts English setter and pointer. I have had a gsp as well. There is no more family friendly dog than a lab, but with the exception of water retrieves a drat will out hunt any lab. They are amazingly tough, driven dogs. I can't express that enough.


I actually have both a pudelpointer and a drahthaar, my drahthaar hunted from birth....here is a pic series at about 3 months old. I am not a dog trainer, just a hunter.....and our grouse are not big....she is just a pup here.






A bit farther into the season she really began to develop. She has never hunted planted birds and has always produced for me.....



This quail fell dead in some bad nasty thicket that my FIL's English pointer and setter would not go into. I walked Cali down wind of it and sent her in.....minutes later, here is the spoils....


I killed a limit of chukar over her only once so far....more due to my fear of dying than her lack of hunt. This hunt was about -15 and the birds were holding pretty tight. Sorry, no field pics as my camera batts were zonked by the cold.



I don't have any field pics of our pudelpointer. She was a rescue and hunting her is rough on me after having a push button dog like Cali.



I just learned that I need to take more field pics. When buck, my black lab, passed I assumed I would never again have such a great dog. Buck was able to telepathically do what I wanted, it was glorious. Cali, my drahthaar, she does not do what I think all the time, and at first, I was dissapointed.....I learned that I need to let her hunt and follow her, for I am right 60% of the time and she I right 99% of the time. She does not have the clingy lovey side my lab did, in fact for the first 4 years of her life, I am not sure she even liked me. She just slept on a bed in a corner and ate....then disappeared into our 5 acres of grass fields all day. Now she has become a bit more of a lap dog. Our pudelpointer is every bit as needy as a lab, but again, she is a rescue.

Fwiw, both are beyond tollerant.

[img]http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z16/gyonemura/440a06432d1b03854ebadf5ad4d4329e.jpg[/img]

I am on second and third GWPs. We hunt doves, quail and ducks in S. Az with them. My first one came in handy for some blood trailing too.
My wife feels secure with them in the house when I am away. They are very protective.

They love fishing too.

Great pics and good info. I was at the CT hunting and fishing show and at the Ruffed Grouse Society Booth was talking to a guy and in conversation has one and loves it. He gave me the name of a trainer in Maine and breeders on the east coast and PA. If I don't purchase this spring, it will be likely sometime in 2014.

They are protective for sure and they need to do something all the time. I have dead birds, mice and sometimes bigger critters on my door step when I wake up.

They're happiest hunting with their humans.

Don't put it off. Nobody has a year to spare.

Boy, your right about that. Time marches on very quickly. I started a bucket list, my wife calls it a f#$*it list!
Gearing up to 6 weeks off per year, one major trip with my wife, one hunting trip - Montana, Idaho, Newfoundland....
I'm 60 and I intend to take more time off to do things that I haven't had the time to do. I call it "being selfish" with my self and my time.

Have one of the smooth coat variety. Intelligent, intense, very good nose, very people and dog friendly, and needs a lot of exercise. Off season and occassionally in- I'll hop on the ATV and do 6-8 mi with him along side at 18-20 mph--they have a motor does doesn't run out of gas quickly. When bored can get quite vocal.

Great bird dog here; can range pretty far and fast but biddable and obedient too. Probably has been my best pheasant dog.

I have a GWP for sale but he's what they call a smooth coat. In other words to the untrained eye he looks like a GSP. He's approaching three y/o and is a very handsome guy. Professionally trained to a year and a half, he's seen a lot of birds since and is a very good pointer with a very good nose. He's a greyhound in a linebackers body and will not quit yet is easily managed with a collar. Probably best of all, his disposition is so nice--hasn't met another dog or person he didn't like.

If he is representative of the breed, and he is the second of two very much alike I've had, I'd say you'd have to try hard to go wrong.

If Photobucket wouldn't be so frustrating, I'd post some pic's.

Okay guys you convinced me, how much do they cost?

Well, mine is just $995 (if I may Rick) for a dog that now, from a trainer, would be pushing 3k. Why..,we've purchased a small second home in an area we like by a lake and he would be problematic there and I won't board him--he deserves better. That, and pheasant opportunities in NW IA have dried up, I'm sorry to say, with ground having gone north of $20k/acre. Fence-to-fence cultivation, tiling streams, coupled with CRP contracts disappearing, leaves very little natural cover for the birds and, ...I hate it.

But I can tell you this: this AKC dog is great. PM me if questions.