The Dogs: Bourbon and Whiskey

This is Whiskey. Whiskey was born on April 15th 2014 from Akar lines in Quebec City and made her way to the West coast and our lives shortly afterward. In no time, all our activities revolved around our ginger puppy and her happiness became an extension of our own.

Whiskey is a purebred Vizsla, an aristocratic Hungarian working bird dog known for their affectionate nature, their crazy energy and endurance, and their soft personalities. Typical of the breed, Whiskey loves snuggling under the covers (however sleeps the night in her crate), begging for scraps, bellyrubs, and rolling in poop. She doesn’t have the intense crazy energy that I’ve seen of other Vizslas, but when there is a job to be done, she has intense focus and energy. 

We’ve tried to give her jobs like retrieving (sticks and balls), sniff training (tracking and finding items inside and out), training tricks, and of course modeling for photos. Whiskey understands about 20-30 commands and is a bit of a camera hog (woe is me if I try to take a picture of another dog in her presence). She’s now very into Agility and has strong opinions of my handling skills.

Healthwise, Whiskey has a sensitive stomach and most of our unscheduled vet visits deal with her GI tract. We haven’t yet figured out the cause, but we do live in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, famous for our homeless problems and she does sneak random things off the ground alot. Training-wise, we put in a lot of work and overall Whiskey has a wonderful recall (even off food, birds, and in heat) but we struggle with a barking habit when she gets frustrated. Thankfully Whiskey has no unreasonable fears or anxieties (there is a bit of separation anxiety in certain situations), except for the cat, we’re all scared of the cat!


This is Bourbon. Bourbon was born July 15, 2020 to a litter of 8 puppies from Washington state in the middle of the Covid pandemic. Bourbon was a fat puppy that loved food and doing her own thing. As a dog, she’s a goofy little sister that chews everything and tends to be in her own world. Bourbon loves playing games with herself, pushing rocks down steep surfaces and playing with pinecones in the forest. She’s very bird crazy, coming from a field trial background and also ranges much much further than Whiskey. At home she’s always in a room with humans and loves cuddling with Whiskey.

Bourbon loves Whiskey and running wild in the forests and mountains. She’s not shown any health issues yet, outside of a fracture paw when she was younger. We’ve been working hard on recall and keep an eye out for wild animals- the prey drive is strong with this one! Bourbon’s a bit more timid and has a bit more anxiety than Whiskey does when she feels like she cannot control a situation. Bourbon’s more of a thinker while Whiskey is more fearless.