The Gun Shy Dog
When learning to train a hunting dog your’e bound to make a few mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes can be easily fixed while others are costly and have a ripple effect. Jake was one of my first hunting dogs and we brought him home at 7 1/2 weeks old. He was very well socialized and had good bird and gun introduction early on. Jake had a great nose and was pointing birds solid at 6 months. When he was just about a year old I shot my first pheasant over him and things were going extremely well. I was proud of Jake and invited a few friends to come see his pointing dog skills.
Looking back it is easy for me to see that I made a mistake, but at the time I was baffled. It is a risky proposition to take a young dog hunting with 3-4 hunters and shoot 20 or so pheasants. I’m pretty sure he was not shot or peppered but I think there were just too many guns going off each time a bird was flushed. He looked great and held his points well for the first bird or two and then he started bumping birds. By the end of the hunt he was blinking birds and cowering at every gunshot. At the time I thought he just had a bad day and was making young dog mistakes. But, it was a lot worse than that.
The next time I took him out alone and planted a couple of birds, he took one look at the shotgun and headed back to the ATV before a shot was even fired. He was still interested in birds and I tried a hundred ways to coax him through it, but he was just plain done hunting. We struggled with it for a while because he was our best behaved dog and the kids liked him a lot. But, I didn’t see the point in keeping him around knowing that he would be left in the kennel every time we went out hunting with the other dogs. Jake deserved better.
Now I know there are some real pros out there that could have pulled Jake through it. But, over a year or so of trying I had no success and I was ready to move on. I ended up contacting a shorthair rescue in Arizona that was able to find Jake a happy home with an active family. We were sad to see him go but we knew he would be better of as a beloved pet than the lone dog left in the kennel. I learned some important lessons while raising and training Jake those three years. Most importantly that you can’t get in hurry with dog training. If your dog is struggling or showing signs of noise sensitivity – slow down, back up a step or even start again from the beginning. It’s never good to take a young dog hunting with a big crowd. I think one gun is plenty for the first year or so of real hunting. I’d be curious to hear of others experiences with gun shy dogs.
John,
As you know Cheryl and I are breeders, and trainers of GSP’s, and we have had a number of experiences, both ours and others, with gun shy dogs.
In ’04 we had been working hard with a couple of pups, and they progressed extremely well. Do to medical issues, I had not been able to train or hunt our older dogs for the previous 2 years. We, along with a couple of friends planted some birds and headed out with the pups, as well with our older dogs. The younger dogs had gradually been introduced to multipule guns, and were doing well. As we hunted, most of harvesting happened with one or two shots. Then the inevitable happened. A bird got up, and we shot a number of times. (More than I’d like to admitt to.) Shortly after we noticed our oldest female was missing. We found her hiding under a Cedar Tree. Thinking back on it, she had not seen the other dogs on the ridge point the bird, and was surprised, but she never would hunt again if there were guns involved. Loves to run, and is still very birdy, but she will not get out of the truck if there are guns to be seen.
As breeders, we hear horror stories all the time. Many people have just purchased their first gundog, and being surprised and enthusiastic about their dogs progression, they push the pup with little, or no preperation. We suggest that dogs are prepared for hunting by being acclimated to loud noises in possitive envionments. While we still have the pups here, we begin banging on pans when they are 3 weeks old, and contine, generally at feeding time, till they leave and head to their new homes. This can be continued, and added to as the pup grows. We eventually start shooting cap, and blank guns. First at a little distance, and moving gradually closer and closer. At around 3 months we take them to our local gun club, parking at least 100 yards from the shooting line to begin with, and gradually move closer. We try to include some activity that the pups enjoy, like playing fetch etc. We’ve heard horor stories from people who pushed this process too fast, or have not introduced the pup to any loud noises at all before training that included a gun, and end up with a gun shy dog. We have found that after a dog is frightened of gun fire, that it is very difficult to undo.
Dear John and Mark,
Greetings from distant India! And thanks for the educative post and comments.
I’m now 61, and my experience with gundogs in the field is limited to the 60′s and 70′s when things were different in India, including the countryside.
Could either or both of you kindly share your opinions on which of the commoner breeds of pointing dog is the least likely to become gunshy? The only relatively common pointing breed here is the Pointer, ie, English.
Thanks and regards,
Gautam Das