The pups were resting in their dog house when I loaded the 10/22 50 yards away. By the time I finished shooting the first clip, one had woke up and had come out to see what was going on. It took two more clips and some whistling to rouse the others. They stood at attention as I shot a couple more clips. Then I moved closer within 40 yards and shot some more. While shooting, I am watching to make sure they weren’t exhibiting any negative responses to the shots. These are some of the things I watch for: flinching, cowering, running away or hiding. The were fine with the shot and just sat watching with perked ears. By the time I was done, I had fired 80 rounds. At some point in all those shots, each of the pups had come to me despite the extra noise.
Now don’t think I am done yet and they are conditioned to gun fire. This is just the first step of a variety of different excercises. If working with your own dog or pup, be careful about selecting the round and gun that should be used. For example a 22lr sounds sound very different from my 10/22 than it does from my 5″ Buckmark. Some round/gun combinations produce a very loud, sharp crack that are more likly to startle a pup or worse, hurt their ears.
Instead of firing the gun yourself, there is another excellen option. Take the pup to a trap range on a day when people are out shooting. This allows you to slowly approach while the pup gets accustomed to the increasing volume of noise. The shotgun noise is obvisouly what they will eventually experience during a hunt.
So why does conditioning a pup to gun fire matter to someone who hunts birds with a bow?
If you hunt very long with a bow, I guarantee you will eventually share a field or blind with someone that is using a shotgun and your dog needs to be prepared.