Gun conditioning?

I’ve been doing a fair bit of training with my 7 month old GSP plus lots of time hiking trails off leash etc. She loves finding birds and is retrieving well but I want to start gun conditioning.

Having two two kids and a noisy house she is quite used to loud noises. I’ve also done the banging pots and pans and she seems pretty ok with everything so far.

My my question is this: how do I start gun conditioning when I live in the burbs? I can’t really use a starter pistol or cap gun at the local parks. What does everyone else do???

I have almost no experience with this, my dog can be really sketchy with loud noises as we dont have kids and live a "quiet" life. but i have just pulled over on a logging rd and popped a shot of with a 22 dog didnt care, stepped up to a shotgun, also didnt flinch. Fired a shot with 30-06 she just slowly looked at me. Clap my hands real loud she will loose it. Lol. But she has been fine with gun shots so far no training needed

Your starter pistol should work in conjunction with retrieves following the shot. Let the dog know "bang" is a fun thing. I started the only lab I ever trained with 22 fire and he was comfortable with shotgun fire before he knew what "stay" meant.

Gun shot/loud noise conditioning should start almost from day one when you get a bird dog. I live in the city, as well, but I did fire off a few shots with a starters pistol in my garage while watching what my pup would do. I always did noise conditioning while she was chowing down on her food.

If you worried about the loud noise affecting your neighbours you could either let them know or get out to a large enough field on the out skirts of town. I also used gun noises off the computer turned up as loudly as I could. They were always used in conjunction with food or while at play.

Blown up large balloons and the LARGE plastic bubble wrap bubbles that Amazon and other companies use to pack merchandise also work well. When you can finally get to the great outdoors start off with a 22 or a 20 ga. fired at a distance and gradually move in closer while your pup is searching and exploring. Then you can add in the noise when sent on retrieves. I wouldn't recommend taking your dog to the gun range unless you're parked a block or more away and you're sitting with her/him. My pup was totally conditioned by the time she was 12 weeks old.

I think I have a bunch of those bubble wrap bubbles if you want them.

Smack two pieces of 2x4 together.

After noticing the age of your pup, one other thing that hasn't been brought up is that all pups go through a couple of "fear" periods. The second one occurs when the pup is anywhere from 5-10 months old. Depending on how secure the pup is, as well as its general personality, makes a difference on how they may react so when you introduce them to something that is totally knew to them has a risk and may set them off.

The thing is you never know what it may be. I remember when my pup and I were hiking up this deactivated FSR when she was about 6 months old. We came around this one corner and there was a long chunk of culvert pipe laying there that had been dug up. It was something she'd never seen before so she let out a yip and skittered off a few yards in the other direction. I didn't say a thing because you're not supposed to comfort them and tell them they're being silly. You let them work it out on their own,,,,hopefully.

After a few seconds she slowly made her way up to it, sniffed it a few times, and then we left. When we saw the next one she cautiously went up to it and so on. By the time our hike was over she was pretty much used to them. She did the same thing with her first snow man.

The point I'm trying to make is that you just never know what can set a dog off during this time period and if it's not dealt with properly they can maintain that fear for a good long time,,,, if not forever. Your dog falls within that age range so you'll want to be really careful as to how you introduce them to the gun shot. More than likely your pup will be just fine since it's been brought up around noise. Good luck.

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Originally Posted by digger dogger

Smack two pieces of 2x4 together.

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what if you only have 2x6's?

Lorne

I have small hands Lorne, they look like Celo Greens hands!
So personally, I need to use the 2x4's
I'm sure 2x6's would work for a large handed dog handler, such as yourself:-)

I used the "2x4" method, threw her fav toy to chase. Then did the same with blowing up paper lunch bags and popping them. Worked well.