The only time you fire a gun around a dog is when the dog is preoccupied with a bird. If the dog is gunshy then it should done at a distance with a starter pistol or 22 and work your way up.( Like Slo-Pitch said) But only fire when the dog is totally focused on the bird when its flushed.
Jimmy S. I guess I read to much into it. My bad. Didn't meen to ruffle any feathers.
Here is another web page from a guy who I know. Him and His wife own a game preserve, Train and breed german shorthairs. This guy trains a many dogs and knows what he is doing.
This subject just bothers me to no end and I have to speak out from our experiences, as well. So many people are ignorant on this subject - that it bears repeating ... 100 times! Please share this info with others to help prevent the gun shy dogs out there ... it is so uncalled for.
We train almost everyday in the fields with dogs, their owners and the birds. Training hundreds of bird dogs each year (all breeds), we can speak from experience, as well, when we say the following:
We believe that you should NEVER shoot any kind of gun, (blank, low loads, etc) around your dogs unless they are ON BIRDS! The most common mistake that we see with timid or gun shy dogs is that the owners have tried to introduce the NOISE and GUNS before the LIVE BIRDS. You cannot make a successful bird dog without birds ... it is like learning to play football without a football. It takes many times longer to fix a dog - once you have introduced guns too early or without birds. Mistakenly, people think that GUN BREAKING a dog means just introducing SOUND. That is only half of the formula ... we also believe that does not mean to a very young dog (under 6 months) and NEVER without birds!!
We believe that you need to introduce birds and guns in the following order:
Birds ONLY until 6 months of age while building on skills in short and fun daily lessons
Once BIRDY (very excited about the birds) at 6 months - start gun breaking while on birds ONLY
BLANKS - while on the live birds and if no negative reactions
LOW LOADS from a distance ... then closer while on the live birds
20 gauge from a distance ... then closer while on the live birds
Gradually building on skills with successful ONE-GUN hunts to increase field experiences
Multiple bird hunts with larger gauge guns are not until the confidence and experience are there
We don't use ROOSTERS until later - a bad experience with a feisty rooster spur can ruin a dog
The sure fire way to make a gun shy dog is to introduce LOUD NOISES before they are BIRDY and FOCUSED on the birds. We see this all the time! We get dozens of emails every day from dog owners and you would not believe how many people tell us they took their dogs to the GUN RANGE to break their dogs or fired a 12 gauge (YIKES!!) We have heard so many terrible stories and seen firsthand the results of improperly gun broke dogs. If you used some of these methods and your dog is okay .. you are very lucky - but I would not recommend trying it again - it is NOT worth the risk of ruining your dog. People think wrongly that it is the SOUND to break the dog - it is the BIRDS that make them so excited and focused that they do not hear the sounds!
SLOWER IS BETTER: Over the years, we have seen people bring a young dog out on our Gamebird Preserve and do a multiple 4 Gun Hunt - saying that their young dog is READY - (in their opinion gun broke - enough). Unfortunately, more than once, we have witnessed THAT ONE HUNT ruin an otherwise good dog because they had multiple 12 gauges and the young dog did not have the necessary confidence and experience in the field for that type of hunt. It is a very sad thing to watch, but sometimes no matter what you say, people have to learn from their own mistakes because they do not like to take the advice of others - they are offended that you questioned them or tried to offer some friendly and expereinced pointers. It is very sad to watch, but we have seen inexperienced young dogs come shaking, cowering and wanting to get back in the car after that terrifying first hunt with TOO MANY GUNS - not even wanting to go back in the field for the second half of the hunt. Those dogs will most likely never be good dogs because their owner does not have the patience to make a good bird dog. SLOWER is ALWAYS BETTER. You will have many years to enjoy your dog - take the time to do it right.
Whether hunting or training, anytime we see dogs that have negative reactions to the gun, it is usually from owners who have tried TOO MUCH - TOO SOON. All it takes is one time too much to ruin a good dog. You need to go slow and build with all positive experiences. We firmly believe that it does NO GOOD TO INTRODUCE THE GUN BEFORE 6 MONTHS OF AGE - you have many other things to be working on with them beforehand anyway ... breaking them in to the gun will go quickly and smoothly at 6 months if you have spent the time on your preliminary work beforehand. Dogs trained properly with the above methods are typically hunting by 7 months of age and are not gun shy. We still recommend limiting the number of guns and gauges of guns - increasing slowly with each field experience. Each positive experience builds on the others and the confidence will come naturally, with a little time, patience and of course, birds ...
Happy Hunting!
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Blessings,
Vicki Murdock
ColonialFarms, LLC
Gamebird Preserve
German Shorthaired Pointers
Field Dog Training