nctransplant
Member
This is my 4.5 month old Brittany, June. She pointed her first covey of quail last week. I am thinking about taking her some by herself and shooting some birds over her. Only shot a .22 around her so far. Too early?
First Wild Bird Point
- Thread starter nctransplant
- Start date
519vx
Member
Nice picture! She's off to a great start. I'd be real cautious on introducing her to shotgun fire. You don't want to wreck what looks to be a good thing. At her age, there's no downside to gradual introduction.
Although I run flushers, I speak from experience here. My primary pup Sage comes from an extremely strong field/hunt accredited line of dogs. I was very disappointed when, despite a what I thought was slow introduction to gunfire at 6 months of age, she started to show signs of gunshyness.
It took a lot of time and patience and baby steps to get her to overcome that. She has always had a pretty strong hunt desire, so I ended up using that to my advantage to help her overcome it. I would take her a couple of times a week to a local hunt club where they had large pens of adult birds kept for the hunts. They also have an active sporting clays range there. I would take her for a walk far away from the clays range but let her get up along the penned birds. She wanted those birds bad and was very focused on them. Once the guys started on the clays range, she would initially flinch/duck but I would just encourage her on the birds using key-to-her hunting talk...."Get him!!!", or "Find Him" in an excited and happy voice while she was looking at the penned birds. With enough time and those penned birds right there, she got to the point of focused on birds and me and not the gunfire in the background. She just turned 3 and I'm happy to report no issues at all with her in the field.
Take your time, again it looks like your off to a great start!
Although I run flushers, I speak from experience here. My primary pup Sage comes from an extremely strong field/hunt accredited line of dogs. I was very disappointed when, despite a what I thought was slow introduction to gunfire at 6 months of age, she started to show signs of gunshyness.
It took a lot of time and patience and baby steps to get her to overcome that. She has always had a pretty strong hunt desire, so I ended up using that to my advantage to help her overcome it. I would take her a couple of times a week to a local hunt club where they had large pens of adult birds kept for the hunts. They also have an active sporting clays range there. I would take her for a walk far away from the clays range but let her get up along the penned birds. She wanted those birds bad and was very focused on them. Once the guys started on the clays range, she would initially flinch/duck but I would just encourage her on the birds using key-to-her hunting talk...."Get him!!!", or "Find Him" in an excited and happy voice while she was looking at the penned birds. With enough time and those penned birds right there, she got to the point of focused on birds and me and not the gunfire in the background. She just turned 3 and I'm happy to report no issues at all with her in the field.
Take your time, again it looks like your off to a great start!