Gun training puppy

[agraham20]

Exactly, you train them to be indifferent to other noises from the start.. ie background shots at trap range. Those should mean nothing to them.

No you train them for basic obedience, sit, heel, for duck hunting scenarios release by name. A steady, quiet, behaved gun dog does not come from training it to not care about shots.
I want a dog that gets excited and looks for its mark at the sound of a gun, but also is obedient enough to know when it’s allowed to retrieve it.
Desensitizing it to gun fire does not create a calm and steady well behaved dog.

 

[Gatzby]

Exactly, you train them to be indifferent to other noises from the start.. ie background shots at trap range. Those should mean nothing to them.

I disagree, I want my dog to be looking for a falling bird every time he hears a shot. I do not care if the shot is a 20 yards or 400 yards. If the dog has any level of obedience he will not break on a 400 yard shot, 20 yards takes a bit higher level of training . Ill say it again I want my dogs to associate gunfire with the greatest thing in the world....a falling bird. Indifference is totally unacceptable.

 

[Carguy2Banker]

My wife's golden retriever came to us in early June 2012. We (mistakenly) had a 4th of July party at our house ~1 month later. This was a huge mistake and I never could get him over it. He would get excited when he saw guns and wanted to go hunting with us but only got out of the back of the pickup at the end of the field when he knew no shots would be fired. As soon as you start back into the field, he would get back in the pickup and refused to get out until he knew it was "safe".
Right or wrong, I would feed my dogs 1 pheasant foot each at the end of the day, including this dog. Soon, this dog would eat just the feet off of each bird in the pickup he was in while we hunted. Just the exposed foot/leg. Nothing with feathers. Took me a while to figure out what was happening and I wrongly accused my kids of cutting the feet off. He passed away last month and I do miss his personality, but I won't miss this.

 

[carptom1]

I disagree, I want my dog to be looking for a falling bird every time he hears a shot. I do not care if the shot is a 20 yards or 400 yards. If the dog has any level of obedience he will not break on a 400 yard shot, 20 yards takes a bit higher level of training . Ill say it again I want my dogs to associate gunfire with the greatest thing in the world....a falling bird. Indifference is totally unacceptable.

Absolutely. Living in the country gunshots are a way of life. If we are in the yard my dogs have always associated gunfire with birds. Even my young one hears it and immediately looks for something falling. She doesn’t run off looking for it but definitely has associated the sound with her work.

 

[Goosemaster]

I put the pup in the bed of my old 1970 F250, show the pup the shotgun , explain to him how I want him to hunt pheasant and then give the pup a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon in his dog house. It's worked perfectly every time.

Lol. Actually I have a slide in camper, and my f250 has been upgraded. I will start doing a little wing tied to a retrieving thing soon.I will fire the gun at it when I throw it. That works with labs.

 

[agraham20]

Lol. Actually I have a slide in camper, and my f250 has been upgraded. I will start doing a little wing tied to a retrieving thing soon.I will fire the gun at it when I throw it. That works with labs.

That somewhat sounds like some training, I thought good labs don’t need training….

 

[Goosemaster]

That somewhat sounds like some training, I thought good labs don’t need mine is 12 weeks old.Will retrieve ball. I think they will hunt and retrieve without training, but I will do a little wing training.