Gun shy dogs are generally the result of a young dog being exposed to noise trauma early in their development or training. The most common trauma situations we see owners expose their dogs to are fireworks and shooting ranges.

Many dogs come to us completely gun shy after the owner took his dog to a skeet, trap or rifle range thinking this was the way to get them used to gunfire. This would be the equivalent of you taking your young child to a shooting range in there stroller.  The report of the gun hurts their ears, can cause deafness and scares the heck out of the kid or as well as the dog. Sometimes you get away with this mistake, but more often than not, the dog is gun shy and will never be a bird dog.  Bluntly, the dog is ruined forever.

The next major trauma is exposure to fireworks.  A normal human jumps out their skin when there is an explosion or gunshot in their vicinity when they were not aware that this was going to take place.  Think about how a young puppy feels when this happens to them.   The way dogs reconcile fear and trauma is much different than the way humans do.  Dogs exposed to firework trauma will likely never rationally be able to deal with noise stress again and are also ruined for hunting.

Get your young dog off to the right start by first letting the professional trainers at Hunters Creek Club, Inc. introduce your young puppy to birds. If the pup is bred for hunting this will wake up its prey drive and instincts that years of breeding has enhanced. Once the dog is bird crazy and chasing we will introduce a muffled cap pistol shot. Over the next few sessions, we will continue to evaluate their response to this noise and incrementally increase exposure. After 2 weeks of this carefully managed exposure, the dog is usually very excited to hear gunfire as they associate this with their favorite activity, finding birds.
 
Dogs brought to us gun shy generally never work their way out of the trauma. When in the rarest of cases, we are able to rehabilitate them, it takes months of training and hundreds of dollars’ worth of birds. The most logical step is to start your puppy off correctly and avoid gun shyness all together.

When you buy your next puppy, let us help you right from day one.  One of our trainers are glad to answer any questions you may have.  Just give the club a call at (810)664-4307
 
The programs last from 6-16 weeks depending on whether you want a casual companion, a finely tuned hunting machine or something in between.