Try shooting off a shot or two at feeding time from a distance so not to further spook dog, I had a setter here who would hit the deck at the sound of a gun, was also afraid of birds after I told the owner that this dog would never make a good bird dog he told me to keep trying so I got the dog birdy as it would ever get and I would go out in the field with a bag full of birds and have some one with a starter pistol as far away as it would take as not to spook the dog and every time I would realese a bird he would shoot and move forward till the dog had a even a tiny bit of negative reaction, then stay there till the dog was able to handle it was not but a couple weeks and the dog was associting gunfire and birds as good things I thought this dog wouldn't amount to jack but good progress was made you just have to be inventive sometimes, I also would have someone fire the pistol at feeding time and I did not seem to be making any progress with that method.It took over 200 blanks but we got it done, the most important thing about this is was we did not indruduce birds and gunfire at the sametime but rather used that dogs new found love of birds to our advantage in this case there was nothing more to lose.