twenty month old vizsla has a ninety five percent recall everywhere except around deer and rabbits, twelve weeks of long line proofing has plateaued, and i need help choosing between more of the same, a properly conditioned e collar, or accepting this is a management situation

Rudi is our 20 month old male vizsla, 52lb, intact (breeder contract, neuter decision at 2), from a hunting line breeder in michigan, and hes been in recall training since the week he came home at 10 weeks. we did the whole program, whistle conditioning from week one, party recalls, paid recalls with real chicken, recall away from play, recall past food bowls, the works. and to be fair to him, it worked. in the neighborhood, at the beach, in fenced fields, around other dogs, around kids on bikes, his recall is genuinely 95%+ and fast, he turns on the first whistle and comes in at a dead sprint. our trainer has used him as a demo dog for recall foundations twice. i am not writing this as someone who skipped the foundation work.

the problem is prey. specifically deer and rabbits. we have had three real incidents. the first was a rabbit flush at 14 months, he was gone for about 90 seconds and came back panting and delighted with himself. the second was a deer at 16 months, 12 minutes gone, out of sight the entire time, in terrain where i had no ability to follow, and i aged a decade. the third was the one that ended off leash privileges, 17 months, he winded something i never saw, crossed a field at a full run, and stopped about 30 feet short of a two lane road because the deer happened to turn. since that day he has not been off a 30ft biothane long line in any unfenced area, no exceptions, and thats been 12 weeks.

what the 12 weeks have looked like. weekly sessions with our trainer ($95/session, 8 sessions so far) working engage disengage patterns at a field where rabbits are reliably visible at distance. premack attempts where calm behavior around visible prey earns a controlled release to sniff the area after the rabbit is gone. thousands of reps of whistle recall on the line in progressively harder prey environments. and the honest scorecard is this, he has made real progress at distance, he can now watch a rabbit at 40 yards and disengage on cue about 80% of the time, which he flatly could not do in march. but close range fresh scent is a different animal, when a rabbit breaks cover inside about 20 yards or he hits fresh deer scent, he is gone to the end of the line every single time, and the whistle produces nothing until the line stops him. we are not closing that gap, we are just getting better at the part he was already trainable on. that is what i mean by plateau.

my questions for people who have actually finished this road with a high prey drive pointing breed. one, is this plateau a known signal that long line work alone does not finish prey proofing in a dog like this, or do people push through it with another 6-12 months of the same and come out the other side. two, the e collar question, the vizsla groups say a properly conditioned low level e collar with a real gundog trainer is simply how this gets done, the positive training groups say it will damage him and our relationship, and both sides talk right past each other. people who have actually done the conditioning route on a soft, handler sensitive breed like a vizsla, what is the truth here. three, if we go that direction, how do i vet a trainer who does the conditioning properly versus someone who is going to strap it on and start correcting in week one. four, is permanent management actually a sane endpoint, meaning he is simply never off leash in unfenced deer country for the rest of his life, and for those of you who chose that, do you regret it. he is a wonderful dog in every other respect and i want to make this call with my eyes open rather than out of fear from incident three