In was concerned that my Springer may be gun-shy when he was much younger. He would literally run to the other end of the house if I banged the table. He hated loud noises. A very good friend was my mentor. He said my dog, like most dogs and most people are startled by a sudden loud noise and not to be concerned. He said the biggest thing (as previously mentioned here) was to get the dog excited in what he was doing.

I got a few pheasant wings and set them out for him to find. Up to this point he never, ever smelled any birds before. While he was doing his Springer thing, I got back a good distance and slowly tapped a couple 2X4's and made a soft noise. He was aware of that sound but was more interested in finding those wings. Over the course of the next few weeks, I repeated the process while making the sound louder. He got to the point where any loud noise was merely a distraction while he was quartering left and right trying to pick up the scent of the wings. When he did find one, I made it a big deal and praised him for doing a good job. I then began to use a 12 ga and was well over a few 100 yds away. Again, he realized that sound was nearby but his main focus was on birds.

He is now, after 5 yrs, a wonderful bird dog who lives to be in the field. He is absolutely relentless because he knows exactly what he's doing. The sound of a shotgun now means a bird should be down. When I fire, he looks the bird down and waits for my command to fetch. If I miss (which I do more than I will admit), he looks up at me like I had two heads. Once he reterieves the bird, I always make him feel special and get him excited. As soon as he realizes he has done good hunting for me, he's ready to go again.

I apologize for this long-winded reply but I thought it necessary to explain what was done. Again, the key and most imnportant thing is not to rush him into accepting the loud sound of gunfire and making certain that he is thorougly focused and excited in working with birds. Even today, my Springer will not flinch when I fire a 12 ga over him yet he stills runs out of sight if I bang the table.

Good Luck to you!