With a byline of "More Than Three Decades of Rebel Rouser Vizslas," portions of this article were taken from the DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER, October 1978 and from the AKC POINTING BREED FIELD TRIAL NEWS, December 1995. Through persistence and top quality breeding, the REBEL ROUSER bloodline is the top producing bloodline and can be found throughout the Vizsla breed, in field, conformation, and obedience, and has produced numerous Dual Champions. Thank you Hank, for without your love of the Vizsla, many of us would not be proud Vizsla owners today. Your support of the National Vizsla Association has played a great part in its growth since it was organized. This article was written by Sonny and Verla Mortensen and appeared in the Spring 1997 NVA newsletter.

Some folks have all the luck. Take Hank Rozanek of Adel. In 1963 when he lived in Schuyler, Neb., he began searching for a purebred hunting dog. Just by dumb luck, Rozanek would end up choosing a dog so outstanding it would lead him into a successful career as a professional dog trainer.

"One day I stopped in a park and watched this guy swimming his dog. I kinda liked the looks of his dog - a Vizsla - so he sent me to Graff's Weedy Creek Kennel near Seward, Nebraska." Rozanek picked out a dog at Weedy Creek-named her Dutchess.

"So a couple of months later I ran into this guy (Joe Dolezal) who had sent me to Seward. I hadn't been doing anything with Dutchess. I really wanted to hunt her, but I didn't realize I'd have to train her." Dolezal thought Rozanek should do more than just hunt Dutchess. Take her to a field trial, he suggested.

Talk about "dumb", Rozanek didn't even know what a field trial was. Dolezal explained to him that at field trials, dogs and their handlers are judged by the dogs' desire to run, its ability to find upland game birds, and finally to point and retrieve the birds.

So Rozanek trained Dutchess for a month, finishing just in time to enter her in the 1964 Vizsla Club of America’s national field trials at Muscatine. The 400 miles from Skylar, Neb. to Muscatine was a long way to go since Rozanck was unsure what he was getting into. But he went.

When he finally pulled into the field trial parking lot, it was crawling with fancy dog trucks and horse trailers. He swallowed hard.

"No one seemed too friendly; I was an unknown," he said. "When time came to run my dog, I just watched the next guy to see what he did."

He entered the 10-month-old Dutchess in both the puppy stake and the derby stake for dogs under two years of age.

"After I entered the derby stake, I went to the club house to see if I'd got anything." They announced both stakes at the same time.

"I won the puppy stake, the first licensed trial I'd seen in my life, and I won the derby stake. I was floating on a cloud. Everyone wanted to know how I trained the dog. I really didn't do nothin', but everyone said I did a good training job. So I went home and tried to think what I'd done. Man, I was green as heck."

And, hooked on dogs.

Dutchess went on to win the National Derby stake three times, a record that has not been duplicated. She was to become one of the first female Vizsla field champions and the backbone of Rozanek's breeding line. Dog training as a full-time profession crept up on Rozanek. He was still working full-time as a telegraphic clerk for the Union Pacific in Schuyler but using his free time and vacations to train and compete with his dog. For nearly three years he had just the one dog, Dutchess, all he could afford to train.

But later, when Dutchess became a field champion and one of her pups, Rebel Rouser Duke, began performing well, trial competitors began asking Rozanek to train their dogs.

His first challenge was a dog he trained for free for a new friend, Harold Wingerter of Muscatine. The dog, Weedy Creek Lobo, was from the same litter as Rozanck's Dutchess. Even though Wingerter was an experienced trainer, Lobo wouldn't work for him. Lobo did work for Rozanek. He trained the dog for six weeks, then Wingerter took Lobo to the national trails held in Ohio. He was entered in three stakes for dogs fully-trained and steady to birds and gunshot. Lobo won all three of those "broke dog" stakes and became an instant field champion.

Fame had come to Rozanek -although he still didn't think he knew what he was doing.

But why fight success?

Eventually, Rozanek's life truly went to the dogs. His wife, Betty, began showing dogs in 1966. In 1975, she won the National Speciality with a dog she owned, and in 1976, won the Best of Opposite Sex to Best of Breed at the National Speciality. Their daughter, Sally also shows dogs.

At last count, Rozanek had won 23 first-place ribbons in national trials.

Two years ago, Hank and Betty decided to give hunting dogs their full attention. They went into a partnership with Dr. Stan Haag to establish Doc's Dog Kennel and Rozanek's Kennel near Adel. In developing the Rebel Rouser blood line, Rozanek used inbreeding and line breeding to bring out the Vizsla characteristics he most wanted. Inbreeding is breeding litter mates to each other or one of their parents. Line breeding is breeding with the same ancestors, thus, developing a blood line.

"Only one dog," he said, "is going to be as good as its parents - five won't be as good. There's a chance of producing a litter that's no good. You either have to destroy the dogs or sell them without papers," he said.

"Vizslas are one of the oldest hunting breeds known to man - it's over 1,000 years old. How are you going to improve on them genetically? By holding on to something that's good."

Fortunately for the breed, their solid rust-gold color and short hair prohibit breeders with low scruples from introducing new characteristics by breeding a bigger running dog into the blood line. Such a variance would show immediately.

"Hank has used good judgment in breeding," said trial competitor Jim Cline of Des Moines. "He knows when to be hard on a dog, when to hold back. Vizslas are very gentle and loving dogs, and they can be ruined with a swat."

Once I saw a dog break in the field on Hank. That throws the dog out of competition. But Hank didn't hit him. He just picked him up and took him back to the field."

"Hank's pretty sharp, too," Cline said at a recent trial. "See all those guys working their dogs with horses? All of the horses are brown, except Hank's horse. His dog knows when Hank's white horse is coming."

Rozanek finds one thing hard to understand: he is boarding some dogs that owners haven't seen for two years. "Some people have money and interest," he said, "but they're so damn busy making money they don't have time to work their dogs."

"We have people who are millionaires and guys on welfare (who come to the trials). But at a field trial, they're all out there in just their beat-around clothes. Everyone's kinda equal. Some people spend $4,000 just to bring their horses to the trial. Others come in their Volkswagen with the dog in the back seat. But they all like dogs."

"I'm interested in the field. My wife is interested in the shows, so that's where the Dual Champions come in. I like to see it, but my first preference is for the field. I have three dogs that are in the Vizsla Club of America Hall of Fame, from three different generations. I have one now that's 13 that should make the Hall of Fame because they have these top producer programs, and all of these dogs were in the top five as far as producing Field Champions, Dual Champions, show Champions and obedience dogs. My dogs are pretty much all-arounders, but I do try to breed to the standard. The Vizsla Club of America has a stipulation of qualifying on the line for their dogs that I feel is way out of line. I think the dogs will take care of themselves, but the problem is with the people. Let the dogs win and they'll speak for themselves. As you know, in all breeds the dogs that will win it, will win period, and that's the better dog. But they kind of need a boost now and then. I served on the board of directors for 10 or 15 years and my wife is on it now, and we really support the Vizslas. I've finished shorthairs as Dual Champions and as Field Champions, and I've worked a fair amount with the other pointing breeds. My first dog was an All-Age Vizsla. It's like your first love or something. The dogs were competitive with any breed of dog. I bred a litter of pups every winter and we've been lucky with them. I guess I was forced into it through success. I've had Pointers and shorthairs, but all my real success was with Vizslas."