Hunting buddy has a 3 year old Gordon setter that is a great dog to be around. He got her second hand from an older couple that had health issue and could not keep her anymore. She has a great nose and points solid but when you shoot she returns to you ,then will not start hunting again for up to 20+ minutes? He has shot .22 lr around her a lot at home while trying to keep her mind on something else (dog treats ) also have her with other dogs . But soon as you shoot she will come back to battery (not run off). What should we start doing to try and solve this problem? Also does not really want to find downed birds let alone retrieve. Is there a trainer out there that could fix these issues?
Comes back after shot
- Thread starter Mule man
- Start date
Doublecluck
Well-known member
Not sure what state you are in but there’s a guy in Missoula Montana- Firewind training
I would bet money he had the solution
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I would bet money he had the solution
Outlaw
Member
She needs to put it together that birds + shot = good things. Get her excited about training pigeons, get help to shoot from afar while birds are in front of her, then start shooting them for her. Prior to shooting birds for her use a bumper with a wing tied to it for retrieving and make this fun. If she is not coming back to hand keep a check cord on her. All work needs rewarded with lots of praise.
Dougfirtree
Well-known member
This isn't apples to apples, but for what it's worth, I got help from a pro trainer because my pup was very shy about gun shots. He had done ok at first, but then started to get increasingly scared. The trainer had me start from the very beginning and work up slowly. The first step was just clapping. I would clap at random times when we'd be out walking. Often, I would try to surprise him with the clap. We did that for about a month. Then he had me get a cap gun (like the kids version). I started carrying it around on all of our walks and I would just fire a cap randomly. I did that for at least a month, until there was simply no reaction. Then I went up to 209 primers (I had my brother load me up a bunch of empty shotgun shells with just a primer since I don't have a blank gun). At that point, we actually started hunting a bit and I would fire a 209 if we flushed a bird. Eventually, we went up to light 20 gauge loads, but I would only fire them when the dog was not right next to me and I would point it away from him. All of these transitions were a bit diffuse too, so I would clap sometimes when we moved on to caps, etc. And any sign of being startled, or afraid and we would dial back a bit. Eventually, we just transitioned right into regular hunting, but it was months and months of doing this stuff all the time and it was worth it. It's an absolute non-issue now. He just associates gun shots with bird hunting and bird hunting is his favorite thing in the world.
