Did I make a gunshy dog?

JasonM · Post by **JasonM** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:14 am

Last evening I was doing some home improvement in the house, installing some closet doors, I got out the little air compressor for the brad nailer, hammers etc.....I really didnt think about it b/c my wife always runs the vaccums etc....but when the compressor kicked on Rocco turned into a dishrag dog. he kind of cowered away from the air compressor and stayed in a spot where he could keep his eye on it....after I put it away he seemed to be back to his oldself again....do you think I caused a problem for the future in my gun dog?

thanks.

Jason

Post by **ezzy333** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 7:55 am

Sounds like you have a lot of work to do if you want him to help around the house with repairs. Other tthan that I'll bet he is just find.

Ezzy

Bird Dog 67 · Post by **Bird Dog 67** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 8:45 am

I agree with Ezzy, nail gun shy perhaps, but I'll bet he'll be fine in the field. My Weim = terrified of the vacuum to the point that he once threw up! In the field, the sound of the gun means birds!

AHGSP · Post by **AHGSP** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 8:45 am

Actually, IMHO, there is no better way to condition a dog for later being shot over, than making all sorts of loud noise around them leading up to proper gunfire intro. Just ignore him if he cowers and act like everything is perfectly fine and nothing is wrong with the loud noise. He should gradually de-sensitize to loud noises before gun intro with a blank pistol.

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:17 pm

My setter was terrified of the vacumm. I just sat down and petted her while my mom vacumed eventually she got over it.

I dont think u made a gunshy dog.

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 4:45 pm

dogs have much better hearing than we do. hence the "silent" dog whistle that they can hear and we cannot. no telling what very high frequency whine that machine gives off that dog can hear and you cannot. does not make a gunshy dog. have had trial/hunting dogs with thousands of birds killed over them hide under the bed when fireworks start going off, especially the one's that whistle. no relation to shotgun.

do accustom that dog to gunfire properly though. first a cap pistol. then birds with no gun at all. when it is in love with finding and chasing planted birds, fire a cap pistol while it is in full chase. might stop the first time, just do it again. then progress to louder blank pistol and finally to shotgun.

llewgor · Post by **llewgor** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:06 pm

Wagonmaster wrote:do accustom that dog to gunfire properly though. first a cap pistol. then birds with no gun at all. when it is in love with finding and chasing planted birds, fire a cap pistol while it is in full chase. might stop the first time, just do it again. then progress to louder blank pistol and finally to shotgun.

I'd go with the bird drive first before the cap pistol. Sounds like the dog might be noise sensitive. Get the dog bird crazy first then add the cap pistol later at a great distance.

Wagonmaster · Post by **Wagonmaster** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 10:37 pm

that is basically what i meant. what we do, is to start with a cap pistol, fired all the way on the far side of the house, when pup is given its evening meal, and is fully involved in eating. and by cap pistol, i mean a child's toy cap pistol. move slowly across the house each night a little bit at a time. they learn to ignore the cap pistol pretty quickly. then on to chasing birds. then to birds with a cap pistol, etc.

some people think of the .22 crimp blanks as cap pistol, but not that.

thanks for straightening things out, llewgor

llewgor · Post by **llewgor** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:32 pm

Wagonmaster
A noise sensitive dog may react in a bad way to the cap pistol or blank pistol, while eating as my llew did.
So if I could do it all over again I would get the dog bird crazy first and intro the cap during the chase.

birddog · Post by **birddog** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 10:40 am

Very good advice llewgor.

Janet

Jon · Post by **Jon** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:05 pm

I'm new to the gun dog training but have tried diff. methods to see what worked best, based on MY dogs reactions.

Took puppy to trials training area to watch the adult dogs training at about 12 wks. and he never showed ANY fear of cap guns or multi-shots because he wanted to play with the other dogs since they were having fun and showed no fears. He keyed off of thier response the entire time. Did this many times and never seen a negative reaction. Even shotguns 40 yards away didn't show any concern at all.

Later at 5 mo. after he had been chasing birds for a couple months we started the cap pistol intro while chasing birds ( alone in a field ) he didn't pay any attention to the shot while chasing but if you shot when he was almost stopping from the chase he would stop and turn to look at you as if looking for instruction the same as blowing a whistle once to whoa. 75% of the time he wasn't showing any signs of concern but would if the shot echoed off building or trees etc. from time to time. Then he went right back to looking for birds or what ever I told him to do. So no major prob. with this method but not as positive as working with other gun conditioned dogs during the intro.

Intro while eating: he was in the kitchen eating in the same manor he always does and I fired a cap pistol outside with the windows closed and he stopped eating and showed concern. This may only have been him looking to see what the noise was but was in my opinion a neg. reaction compared to the others. I tried this again a few days later with the same reaction. Then again a few days later. After doing this about 3-5 times and not seeing what I considered a positive reaction, I stopped.

At 6 mo.I then took him hunting with 4 other dogs but he stayed in the dog box with another dog while we shot birds in the distance. We later that day worked him on birds with a cap pistol and he didn't show any fear of the shot only looked at me when a shot was fired while standing still and then went back to searching again when I gave the command to search for birds. Some dogs are trained to stop at the shot but if thier tail is still high and not showing any fears that doesn't mean they are gun sensitive just because they stopped and looked at you.

In my opinion if I had it to do all over again, I would put my pup out on a chain gang with gun conditioned adult dogs and work birds within sight of the chain gang so the puppy keyed off the adult dogs as a positive experience rather than having to make the decision about the gun shot being good or bad himself. He would take his key from the other dogs that it is a good thing and never have a problem provided you didn't chain him with gun shy dogs. It can't get any easier than that to gun condition your dog in my opinion.

Unfortunately not everybody has the ability to do this and has to train their dog alone, which is why I tried so many diff. methods.

When my pup can work with a trained adult dog he advances much faster and builds more confidence in 1 hr. than he learns on his own in 10 hrs. of training when it comes to things like gun conditioning or water retrieving etc. where an adult dog gives the puppy confidence by keying off them the same as we learned most everything from somebody in our training. Don't take this as me saying you should train everything with an adult dog. I'm just saying these few things we have worked on with other adult dogs around made it so much easier and he didn't go back and second guess himself a week later. Take it for what it's worth.

I've had many other working breeds but this is my first gun dog so I'm doing a little testing to see what works best in that dept.

Another thing I'm learning is Authors who have written books on gun dog training are not always right. Some say to gun condition the dog around 5-6 mo. while feeding. Not only is this a 2nd period when a puppy developes fears but could cause other phobias. Makes me wonder how many dogs are screwed up because new gun dog trainers read a book and trained using these methods that did more harm than good. Then authors or trainers using this method claim it was in the breeding if the dog turns out to be gun shy.

I used nail guns and saws around my pup when building a bird loft in the back yard and haven't noticed any fears. He showed interest in the new noises and watched me like a hawk for feedback which I just acted like it was a everyday thing and didn't say anything to him. I later let him run around on the lumber and smell the saws etc. so he would see they aren't going to attack him and he was fine.

Good Luck

Post by **kninebirddog** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:20 pm

I would do the intro to birds and then guns there are different suggestions for this that all work good
As for air compressors and vaccuum and being sensitive to those household items...it really would not concern me at this point ...if you have a dog that is birdy the noise from a shotgun is quick and blunt no high pitch whistles or rumbling or sharp like items your concerned about...
I would see what happens with birds you probably have nothing to worry about

Post by **ezzy333** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:35 pm

Jon,

Think you are approaching the gunshyness from the wrong direction. It isn't much challenge to let a pup hear gun shots and not be gun shy. It is the other way around. You have to do something really stupid to make a pup gunshy more often than not. If a pup is conditioned to noise and you only shoot from a short distance when he is busy doing something such as searching or chasing birds, it would be difficult to even think the pup would be gunshy. Take the pup out the first time you see it and chase some pigeons out of the barn and shoot while the pup is half scared and under your feet and yes you can produce it. In the examples you gave I didnt recognize any sign at all the pup was scared. If he stopped eating when he heard the shot, he did just what I would expect a dog to do and it is exactly what I would do. I and the pup both stoped and thought what was that and what is he shooting at. Then if the door was open we both would have come out to join you and see if you were shooting birds or something fun to play with.

I have never had a pup that was gunshy. Have had a couple returned that the buyer said they were and sure enough they were when they came back. In one case it was a dog that was shipped and the scenario I painted above was what took place. Took a while to get her over it but she did return to normal.

Pups are not born gunshy but are made that way. And somewhere around the 6 month age is a good time to start shooting over a pup as is any other time if you use some common sense. You have to work to make them gun shy normally. And it could be possible that some very soft type dogs from that type of breeding would show the tendency more than most. The old time trainers weren't very often wrong even though today we have some better methods possibly. At least we think we do but------------

Ezzy

Jon · Post by **Jon** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 10:11 pm

The puppy will always look to you the pack leader for a reaction when working alone. (one on one) But when around other adult dogs the puppy looks to them for feedback as well and if they don't show signs that tell the puppy he should be worried about the noise, he won't have any reason to think it's going to hurt him.

That will save you a lot of time and you shouldn't have to worry about the pup second guessing himself. He is now confident this noise is nothing to worry about and means good times according to what the other dogs showed him.

Seems much easier and faster plus a lot less confusing for the pup .