How to Prevent Your Dog from Being Gun Shy

You cannot just take your dog into the field and start shooting as it will startle your dog and cause him to be afraid of the gun. Your hunting dog needs to learn how to handle the sound of the gun and what to expect when it goes off.

Dogs have an acute sense of hearing, which makes sounds that are loud to us even louder for your dog. You have to take this into consideration when you are training your dog not to be gun shy. The first thing that you want to do is to get your dog to associate the loud noise with something pleasant, like eating.

Just before you feed your dog, you should bang to pans together. Not too loud at first, but each time you are about to feed him, bang the pans a little bit harder. This will get him used to the sound of the loud clash that he will associate with something very pleasant, his dinner.

Before you take your dog into the field to get him used to the sound of the gun, you should first be sure that he is trained to retrieve. Your dog should be ready for the hunt before you introduce him to the sound of the gun. He should know how to quarter and also how to retrieve a bird or any other game you are hunting. You can practice these skills by teaching your dog at home or in a training center. Once he is able to retrieve and understands how to behave during the hunt, you can start getting him used to the gun.

As he has been used to hearing loud noises and has created an association between them and a pleasant sensation, he will be less likely to be gun shy. Still, the sound of a shotgun is far louder than the sound of pans clanging together. Before you actually shoot the gun, you should bring him to the hunt where there are other hunters, shooting guns in the distance. At the sound of gunfire, you should toss a bird or dog training bumper out so that he can go get it. He will start to associate the sound of the distant gunfire with retrieving.

After this practice, you are ready to take your dog out and introduce him to the gun fully. You should start out slow by making him stand far away from you. Move ahead of him and then fire the gun into the air, at the same time, dropping a bird away from you. As he already associates the distant gunfire with retrieving, and is adept at retrieving, he should rush to retrieve the bird. You can then gradually move him closer to you when you fire the gun until he is completely confident around the sound of gunfire and knows what to do when that gun goes off.

The trick to training your dog not to be gun shy is to take it slowly with him. You should also start training your dog as a puppy so he will become quite used to the sound of the gun by the time he is a full grown dog.

Geoffrey A. English is the Founder of GundogsOnline.com, the internet's premiere online magazine dedicated to bird dogs. Visit their site for more information on training bird dogs and hunting dog supplies including a wide variety of dog leads, shooting glasses, and Garmin 220 dog tracking collar.