So I have an 8 yr old male GSP with great bloodlines. When he was young, I apparently shot a 22 around him too early. He's been gunshy and quite the wuss ever since. He still puts his nose to the ground and chases any small animal that comes in the yard but has never been hunted. Through some convincing of a couple new friends, I'm going to try and break him of being gunshy and take my chances at trying train him enough to do some quail hunting. I'm a realist so I'm not expecting him to ever be a great upland bird dog at this point but if I could get him to hunt at all and retrieve birds, I'd be thrilled at this point. These two guys are gonna help me some but I thought I'd post on here to see if anyone else has ever been in this kinda situation and how their efforts worked. Thanks in advance.
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Dr. Vette
Well-Known Member
Per recommendations of our trainer, the goal was to attempt to associate the noise of a gun with food.
We used our training pistol with blanks, and after the dogs were fed would walk around to the opposite side of the garage and fire a round (they live in outdoor kennels). At first the dog would always stop eating and cower, but as time went on she stopped doing that. Eventually I used louder blanks and got closer to the kennel, too.
Just one way to do it.
And yes, I wore ear plugs every time.
We used our training pistol with blanks, and after the dogs were fed would walk around to the opposite side of the garage and fire a round (they live in outdoor kennels). At first the dog would always stop eating and cower, but as time went on she stopped doing that. Eventually I used louder blanks and got closer to the kennel, too.
Just one way to do it.
And yes, I wore ear plugs every time.
markopolo50
Well-Known Member
That is about the best advise for a gunshy dog. And you are probably right about the 22 making him gunshy, alot of people think that a lowly 22 won't bother dog. Another recommendation is to breed your dog, if he hasn't been fixed and get a pup and start over with a pup. Good luck, I sure miss my GSP
WildRose
Well-Known Member
If he has the drive and you have the patience and birds you can probably work him through it but it's certainly not a sure thing.
Shooting at a dog doesn't bother them, they don't make the kind of connection to the incident that we do as their brains work differently so before diving off too deep into this I'd say you need to talk to whomever was involved and find out exactly what was done to screw him up. If you want some help, you can get my number off of my website and give me a call, I'll be happy to try and walk you through it.
WildRose
Well-Known Member
Doc thee even better way to do it is to as you are driving up to the kennel to feed, work dogs etc hang a .22 out the window or a blank gun and start firing a few shots as you slowly approach.
The older dogs will of course very quickly make the connection that your doing so means dinner is just about to be served and in short order will get the salivating just like Pavlov's dogs at the sound of the first shot.
Dogs however are very people, place, and circumstance oriented so you really need to know the exact circumstances and who was involved when one got screwed up to know the best way to approach the "Fix".
Inevitibly though if you have a dog with lots of bird drive and start off very early making it a positive association between the shot and getting a bird in the mouth with very little care at all you can get them over one bad incident that you think has made them shy.
Unfortunately most people can't really read a dog well enough to see the problems in their infancy and by the time I figure out that they've created a problem a great deal of damage has already been done.
