Hello all,
I am not so sure that "gunshyness is a man-made" problem. Just some food for thought here: So much of a what a dog does is heredity and environment. With that said, you may a have dog that, genetically, is gunshy. Now, before anyone flips at such a radical thought, here me through. You may have a dog that is genetically more nervous than others, just as a treedog owners may have a dog that naturally hunts deeper if given the chance, and just like some other treedog owners may have dogs that are more aggressive on game, birddog breeders could potentially breed a strain that is more cold-nosed, etc and etc. In the same way, you could have a dog that is just a nervous dog by nature. Now comes the environment part of the equation. If a treedog owner has a deep hunting coondog, he can harness that by only hunting small sections of woods, and therefore condition the dog to stay a little closer for when heading to big tracts of woods. Another example: it doesn't matter how good your dogs genes are, if you never give it a chance to develop it's abilities, it won't do what you want. However, if you have the breeding, and you have the woods/field time, you better your chances. Still, I would rather have a well bred, unstarted one year old than a poorly bred, started 7 month old. Make sense. With that said, if you have a dog that is genetically predisposed to nervousness, then you have to get past that through the environment part of the equation. 3 suggestions: 1)Try going to this training session they've invited you to. 2)sell your shotgun and get a break action that doesn't make that noise 3) If you get past this stage and have a good dog, you might avoid breeding her to a nervous male. Good luck