Thread: Gunshy dog

Hi
I''ve managed to make my pup (8months old) gun shy whilst shooting rabbits. I thought he was all good as I had done it properly and slowly introduced him to the 22 a while back but only shooting it into the ground. I had even shot the 308 about 10 metres away from him and he didn't give a shit. But for some reason the other night shooting bunnies (admittedly he hadn't heard the gun in a while) he packed a sad and has been off it ever since. His temperament has actually changed a bit in the last couple of months I think, he's calmed down quite a bit so maybe that has something to do with

Now I've gone back to the beginning and am doing work with him with wooden clappers which he is all good with. Now I'm ready to start introducing the gun again. He is pretty suspicious of the gun and even the actioning of the bolt.
So I'm just slowly gettin him used to me walking around with the gun actioning the bolt and giving him food etc.. next I'll action the bolt and then do the wooden clappers and then finally make my way up to 22 fire getting closer and closer.

So I'm going to do it all properly this time, that was the intention initially but seeming as he didn't seem bothered by any of it I skipped a few steps and fucked him.

Main things I wanted to know were:

Has anybody had a gun shy dog that they've fixed? Or am I pushing shit up hill?
Should I give him a couple of weeks before I start trying to desensitize him again?

Cheers
Any advice would be appreciated. I don't want to have a dog I can't go hunting with

Sounds like you have a good handle on what to do already. One other tip I found useful is if the noise relates to something exciting, my old dog goes nuts when the rifle comes out as he knows we are off looking for possums can't calm the little bugger down in the slightest

So I'm going to do it all properly this time, that was the intention initially but seeming as he didn't seem bothered by any of it I skipped a few steps and fucked him.

you aren't the first or the last but hopefuly he,s ypung enough to be recoverable.
I think I finally get the old trainers points make haste slowly and don't skip anything.

What breed is he?

wirehaired pointer x heading dog (but the heading dog is more of a handy head hunt type). he will be good just have to get him over guns, he's real calm and stays right by me etc

Yep. You are not alone.

I had problems with my dog after not having it introduced to gunfire properly, now he goes ballistic looking for birds when the gun goes off.

You are not pushing shit up hill if you don't hurry it. Its a matter of slow re-introduction and conditioning to make him realize there is nothing else but a positive outcome when the gun goes off.

My approach was
1) Take him away from gun fire for some time. I left him be a city dog for few months and did nothing with guns. Being a pointing dog I still ran him on birds separately without any gunfire involved in his exercise.
2) After those few months, on our walks I would take small birthday party balloons, blow them up and pop them when he was some distance away, at the same time I'd throw a retreiving dummy. again I didn't carry about his steadiness, as long as he is happy around the bang, I did not care if he barked, shat, pissed, jumped or humped. You are solving one problem at a time.
3) as he got use to the bang at a distance, I'd begin bursting the balloon when he was closer to me. it didn't take long.
4) I bought a cap gun.
5) I then did point 2 and 3 again with the cap gun as it gives a louder bang.
6) Then I did the same again with a dead frozen pigeon and live pigeons, I kept mixing things up with the birds. The point being that I wanted to increase the reward when the bang went off.
7) As things improved I introduced the gun fire when he was running on pheasants. Again, I didn't care about the steadiness around game. In fact I'd let him chase the game and fire off the cap gun when he was in full chase. At full chase after a pheasant's ars he couldn't give a shit about a loud bang.
8) By the time I introduced the shotgun, he was use to hearing a bang everytime a pheasant flushed that the shotgun didn't mean much to him apart from "where is the bird".

I was advised to stay away from the .22 as their noise is unlike the shotgun. They make more of a high pitched slapping noise. I don't think it would matter to my dog if I fired a 22 now, tho I haven't tried it.

Just remember, what I've said above is my experience for a bird dog, you can improvise accordingly with your dog as obviously you are targeting different type of game.
Whatever you do, don't rush it an take your time, if you see that your dog doesn't like one approach then change it immediately don't persist in the hope that he'll get use to it.
And most importantly keep things positive.

Hope this helps.

great thanks for that, it's good to hear somebody else has had success!
I'm trying to make him a deer dog but he loves birds so much that that might be a good way of geting him hyped up.
Cheers for the input it is appreciated.

If it is any consolation, my little rescue dog (read...unknown background) , the first time in my presence she was exposed to gunfire, albeit a slug gun, the dog ran under the house and stayed there for 3 hours. At that point I thought she would be resigned to being a companion only.
Whenever I was firing on my range, I would leave the dog in the car, a little distance from shooting bench, but within view.
Then one day, I shot a nice little goat for the pot. Dog promptly ran to find it, and got a feed as reward. Ever since then, she gets excited whenever a gun gets the bolt slid in.

She now finds and trees Possums like a pro, and wont leave the tree till I shoot the bugger.
Good luck

Originally Posted by Pengy

She now finds and trees Possums like a pro, and wont leave the tree till I shoot the bugger.
Good luck

All well and good till you don't take the rifle and they don't want to go home cos they have done their job and expect you to shoot the damn thing!!

Originally Posted by 223nut

All well and good till you don't take the rifle and they don't want to go home cos they have done their job and expect you to shoot the damn thing!!

Usually no more than 500 yards from the house, so not a problem

Originally Posted by huglife

wirehaired pointer x heading dog (but the heading dog is more of a handy head hunt type). he will be good just have to get him over guns, he's real calm and stays right by me etc

It will be the heading dog in him, just slow and steady get his confidence up as has been described, ;-)

cheers for the advice all

Bonecrusher is right, heading dogs are little bitches with stuff like this.

I'd say don't use the .22, the sound is to sharp for them. Shotgun works well with my lot, the young ones stay in the dogbox for several trips and just listen. Even take him to the carpark at the local gun club, don't take him in just sit out there talking to him in the car for half an hour. If he's comfortable after that leave him in the car and go for a wander around...

Originally Posted by Wirehunt

Bonecrusher is right, heading dogs are little bitches with stuff like this.

I'd say don't use the .22, the sound is to sharp for them. Shotgun works well with my lot, the young ones stay in the dogbox for several trips and just listen. Even take him to the carpark at the local gun club, don't take him in just sit out there talking to him in the car for half an hour. If he's comfortable after that leave him in the car and go for a wander around...

Can't take mine to the range... Last time the bastard went nuts in the truck trying to find me and the possums (must have thought there was an Invasion) and locked the doors on me!!

Hahahahahaha, the ute has a flash as modification. Dog was in sick bay, never thought about it and went killing. Come back to a new roof lining, seems he wasn't that crook! (The fucker got his eye shot out the day before, no, not by me) In fact that's it's own story, he managed to get two dogs with one shot, the other dog got shot AGAIN by someone else within a month, one pellet getting her in the same fucking spot. She still has pellets in her and is also a hunting machine. Moral of story, she is gun broken :