RE: Gun shy dog
Here’s my experience with gun shy dogs. My first hunting dog was cocker-setter mix, a mutt that wandered onto the job site. I can still remember my boss telling me, “You take that pup home, you’re gunna have a dog.” I took the pup home and my girlfriend (now wife) fell in love with the mutt. At about a year old I took the dog out with a .22 and shot some cans. The dog did not like the report and hung back, she didn’t run off but she went back by the truck.
Hmmmm… after talking with a few people I got a cap gun and every time I fed the dog I fired off the cap gun. Started out in the next room and over a period of weeks got closer to the bowl, eventually I was popping off caps right over her head as she ate and she never so much as blinked. So the next step was taking her out for her first hunt with a .410. I was hoping to bump a pheasant and just fire the .410 in the air. Well we got into a covey of quail and she dove in, I fired and she didn’t pay me no mind. We spent the next hour hunting up the singles and do you think I could hit just one of them quail? I eventually ran out of shells. I took her out with .410 a few more times and then it was the 12 gauge from then on.
She was a good flusher and you couldn’t lose that dog, she never went far and always came back. She had a heck of nose. One day walking back down a gravel road, after a long day of rooster chasing, she just stopped, raised her head sniffing and took a sharp right into the timber. I was tired and wanted to get to the truck, but she was determined, I followed and not 50 yards into the timber there was a Cedar tree. She starts sniffing around the tree and out flies 2 turkeys, I about dumped my drawers right there.
Bugs.