Go Slow When Introducing a Dog to
Gunfire
By Rhett Kermicle
Sometimes hunters are so eager to develop their new
pup into a hunting dog that they rush things. With some training
exercises, if you make a mistake and try to teach something too
fast, you can fix the resulting problems by going back and
starting over. In others cases, such as with introduction to
gunfire, you don’t get a second chance.
It’s easy to take this step for granted. After all,
if you’re training a hunting dog, guns are going to be a natural
part of his life, right? Well, not exactly. It might seem that way
to you, but to a dog, gunfire certainly isn’t a natural sound.
Many dogs accept the sound of gunfire without incident. But others
can become gunshy for life if they aren’t introduced to guns
properly. It’s best to play it safe with your pup and introduce
him slowly. This is better than risking developing a dog that will
never be comfortable around guns.
At our kennel, we make sure a dog’s first
experience with gunfire is something pleasant. To ensure this, we
introduce our pups to gunfire during a “bump and chase” session.
This is when we let the young dogs point, flush and chase quail.
(It doesn’t matter whether you are training a pointing dog or
retriever. The process of introducing gunfire is still the same.)
While our pups are out running in the field, we
follow along and occasionally fire a .22 crimp shell. Often the
dogs are so caught up in chasing birds that they act like they
didn’t even hear it. If a dog hesitates or cowers at the sound, I
suggest waiting another week before trying this exercise again. In
the meantime, keep up his enthusiasm with lots of live bird
contacts so there’s no question in the dog’s mind that anything
related to birds is a positive experience.
Once you’re past the .22 crimp stage, graduate to a
louder .22 blank. Many trainers like the blank pistols that fire
No. 209 shotgun shell primers because they are affordable,
convenient and plenty loud for training.
If everything is progressing fine, graduate next to
firing a .410 gauge shotgun. By now your pup should have made the
solid association between birds and gunfire. The next step is to
shoot a pigeon or quail over your dog’s point or flush. Do your
best to hit the bird so the dog has something to retrieve. This is
his bonus or reward for finding the bird. Again, you’ve created a
positive association between birds and gunfire.
A few days later, repeat the exercise with a 20
gauge. Still keep watching to make sure your dog isn’t hesitating
when you fire. If you would ever see any sign that he’s
uncomfortable with gunfire, back off to a quieter gun and work on
rebuilding his confidence. Remember, going slow in the early
stages could save you hours of retroactive training later.
Soon you’ll be shooting a 12 gauge with hunting
loads around your dog. Your dog will expect good things to happen
when he hears gunfire. And you can get on with the rest of the
training exercise without worrying about having a gunshy dog.
There are many different aspects to hunting dog
training. We’ve been archiving a variety of topics to take you
through the training process at the sportDog Web site,
www.sportdog.net.
Refer to this site if you need to catch up on earlier information
in our dog training series.
Rhett Kermicle has 20 years’ experience training
hunting dogs. He is a co-owner, guide and dog handler at Wild Wing
Kennel in Sturgis, Kentucky. For more information, go to
www.wildwingkennel.com.
