Gun shy dogs…. Inherited trait? or How a dog is introduced to guns?

[Rockymtnx]

So over Christmas I got involved in a discussion with a couple of people about gun shy dogs. The situation came up with someone getting a year old dog who was gun shy. They original owner of the dog was getting rid of her because of this. One of the stipulations of giving her away was that the original owner didn’t want her bred as he didn’t want this trait passed on to other dogs ruining the breed.


My question is…. Are dogs gun shy because of:

Their genetic traits being passed on from their bloodlines
or
The way a dog is introduced to guns.

[Blanka]

I'm no dog expert, but I had my Lab out with me shooting ever since he was a puppy and he has never even flinched at the the sound of a gun. But I also know guys who have pure bred labs and their dogs are petrified of guns? So it can't be genetic? I am sure some breeds are predisposed to hunting but you could still end up with a dog scared of gun shots.

AS far as curing them of their gun phobia, I don't have any answers for that because I haven't had to deal with it. I am sure there are some dog expert on here that have a lot more info than I do.

Cheers

[huntin]

I think it can be a trait but also learnt we used to have a hinze57 no hunting breed in her at all but she would sit under a tree for hours if there was a tree gopther in it. Untill some one came shot it for her. she loved hunting them and house cats. pretty much if it climbed a tree she figured it should die one time she treed a pine martin. If you had a gun in your hand she was a happy dog.

[wwbirds]

I have seen some dogs where the whole line was sensitive to loud noises and sometimes this is attributable to intelligence for only a fool would continue uninhibited if loud unexplanable noises were present.

In some other cases it is a gamble by the owner/trainer trying a close by gunshot to see if the dog/puppy will react well or badly. this in my view is a 50/50 gamble. I tell owners if you are willing to gamble 50-50 with the future of your puppy go ahead and shoot a shotgun over their head to see what happens but there are better ways to proceed if you don't want 50-50 odds.

Teach train and then test, so if you test without conditioning you may spend a long time undoing the harm you have caused by not teaching and training first.
Rob

[ACKLEY ABE]

Could be either...or both.

Introduction is very important...but because of inherited traits, my girl has no fear...it seems, of anything. In the field she is a thing of beauty and a sight to behold. My previous girl had a timid nature, common to that particular breeding, and it was a long a slow process to break her to the gun..and even then she was never fond of gunfire...

Her timidness and submissiveness made her one of the easiest dogs to train I've ever seen. Her willingness to please was increadible and she was a star in the obedience ring and as a companion we unequaled. I stll miss her every day although the brat that we have now is hard not to love....but she is a brat. Her mind is always working and she is always trying to test her people.

Temperament testing done by good breeders is a very good indication of where the puppy's should be placed.

[rottie]

My own opinion is that how they are introduced to firearms/loud noises will affect how they react.
Soome of the handlers on here will be chiming in shortly I would think. They will be the guys to listen to,nothing beats experience

[HunterDave]

I figure that it's the way that they were introduced to guns that's why they need to be conditioned to them. I've never heard of a gun dog having a problem with them when they were introduced to them gradually. Do things wrong and you can certainly mess up a dog in a hurry.

Cap gun, 22lr, 410 and then 12 gauge starting at a longer distance and as the dog gets more comfortable with the sound he'll move in closer on his own. Add in a positive experience that the dog can relate the sound of the gun to and there shouldn't be any problem.

I suppose that it could be possible for a dog to just not take to the sound of a gun though. I bet though that the Dog Whisperer could fix it. :)

[petew]

It is something that is brought on by poor training by the owner/handler trying to rush the process.
A slow aproach is all that it takes to be succesfull.
A timid, Kenel shy dog is more likely to react unfavourably to an agressive introduction to guns and loud noises.
Depending on how bad the dog reacts it may be impossible to reverse gun shyness.
Pete

[Pixel Shooter]

Good question, be a fun debate over a beer or two :sHa_sarcasticlol:

Maybe it could be both but not likely?, my arguement would probably stem more from having a sensitive dog which is inherant and trained conditioning vs blaming a line or trait. I personally dont know many lines in field trials or hunt tests that I would find this trait in. Having said that you do find puppies in these litters that are more sensitive than other litter mates and while they wont make good field trial dogs,they would make good HT or gundog . Yet in all these cases they are around gunfire all day long and have a desire to retrieve.

I think a better arguement would be a line that exhibits sensitivity to pressure, then finding a line that is sensitive to noise?, two totally different characteristics. So having said that, I would put more opt in arguing this result you speak of is more in the way a dog is conditioned to noise and as Rob said, teach, train and test. Some of the advice I have heard on the internet in how to acclimatize a dog to gun fire is at best a little scary. If you have a dog that luvs to retrieve, training is the easy part, more sensitive dogs take time to have it done right and its all about building confidence, this is what they lack more of then anything and it is pivatol to ensure you can link the gunfire to the actual task at hand, that meaning retrieving. So they learn everytime that gun goes off, it means something good! Its not about subjecting them to noise to condition. Now if your dog doesnt enjoy retrieving, then you have a real delema now dont you..... Is that inheritant in lines, absolutely that is, I call that desire? So having said that, these traits are surely not the lines one would look at if they want a gun dog nor would those lines exist if you are looking at reputable breeders. there could be an underline message here



So over Christmas I got involved in a discussion with a couple of people about gun shy dogs. The situation came up with someone getting a year old dog who was gun shy. They original owner of the dog was getting rid of her because of this. One of the stipulations of giving her away was that the original owner didn’t want her bred as he didn’t want this trait passed on to other dogs ruining the breed.


My question is…. Are dogs gun shy because of:

Their genetic traits being passed on from their bloodlines
or
The way a dog is introduced to guns.

[FCLightning]

Gun shy is not an inherited trait, but temperament is and the underlying temperament which makes a dog susceptible to becoming gunshy if not handled properly during introduction is the root of all gun shy dogs. There are dogs you cannot make gun shy no matter what you do to them - including pellets in the rear. But you cannot tell if your young pup is that dog or the one that will be cowering under the truck wheels because you let one shot loose with the shotgun until it is too late. Once the damage is done, it is done for that particular dog. Which is why there is a protocol for introducing dogs to the gun that is universal to all dogs. Since most folks follow the protocol it becomes impossible to determine in adult dogs which ones were immune to gunfire and which ones were "sensitive" from a inherited temperament standpoint.

So, if you see an adult dog that is gun shy you know two things - It was born with a temperament that pre-disposed it to a fear of loud, sharp noises. And someone made it gunshy through improper introduction to guns.

[Alltornup]

My opinion is it all about the introduction to the dog. I started my pup at around two months old with a cap gun. Then proceeded to the .22 and finally the 12 Ga.
He loves the guns now at a year old. I'm no professional on this but this is what worked for me

[270WIN]

Some excellent advice on this thread. I've trained 4 labs over the last 35 years or so with no problems with gun shyness. But then I've always been very careful to introduce them to loud noises, and eventually gunfire, gradually and always in a way that they associate it with something pleasant.
There's no way to know for sure whether a particular dog is predisposed to gun shyness. But it's so easy to desensitize them using the kind of techniques suggested on here, and thereby avoid the problem in the first place, that I can't think of a single reason not to do it with every dog before exposing them to the sound of a gun shot.
I have seen a situation where a dog became gun shy when he was introduced to gunfire without first being desensitized. The owner tried everything he could think of to cure it and even obtained help from a professional trainer but the dog never did get over it.
If you can get a copy of "Training Your Retriever" by James Lamb Free, it has a good section on avoiding gun shyness.

[Redfrog]

Interesting ideas here.

In my experience with dogs, I've never had a gunshy dog.

"But you cannot tell if your young pup is that dog or the one that will be cowering under the truck wheels because you let one shot loose with the shotgun until it is too late. Once the damage is done, it is done for that particular dog."

I disagree with the first statement here and pretty much agree with the second. It is always easier to avoid a problem than it is to correct it.Some trainers train "By the Book" and some don't. Since there are so many books it can be confusing. Sometimes I have a dog who hasn't read the boook but can still skip over a few lessons quickly.:)

While gun shyness specifically may not be easily identified, I think a perceptive trainer would be aware of the possibility. I have a dog now that is super high energy. Left to his own devices he does not stop moving. He investigates everything. He is the last dog anyone would expect to be gunshy

But he is so sensitive and 'soft' that if I ignored those traits and pressed on with the 'book larnin' we could be having problems today with gunshyness.

I don't start my dogs with a capgun or any other form of gunfire. If that method works for you have at it. I want a retriever to retrieve. I spend all his training time towards that goal. When I say fetch, he fetches like his life depends on it. Not because it does, but because it has been his focus since before he arrived here. I've done nothing except reinforce it several times a day in small ways.

If I had started at his food dish with a cap gun and he was a softie like this one is,I could waste a week or more convincing him that every time I feed him I'm gonna try to scare the snot out of him. When the cap gun no longer scares him I'll move on to bigger guns. So I'll train him to be comfy around guns by randomly firing them when you are near. Reminds me of the old Pink Panther movies when the house boy used to spring out and randomly attack Clouseau. There is no training problem that can't be fixed by the judicious application of more firepower.:)

OR. We can skip that chapter and every time it's dinner he'll fetch the dummy and we'll have fun. He won't hear the gunshot at mealtime and because of his focus in the field he won't hear it there either. By the time he is exposed to gunfire in the field he will be 6 plus months old and been through the force fetch and retrieved several hundred times and been told 'good boy' each time. He'll be more mature dog than the one getting fired on at the food dish at 8 weeks.

If you have a sensitive dog be aware and train accordingly. I prefer to not scare him and then try to calm him down. Others take a different approach.

The sensitivity can be genetic, so I guess the gunshyness indirectly could be genetic.


BTw I have tried to correct gunshyness in client dogs. It is one of the toughest things to fix IMHO. Nearly as tough as curing a horse of cribbing/windsucking.

[TrollGRG]

I've trained my dogs as soon as they come out of the egg with gradually increasing the noise of gunshots and it has worked well indeed.

Having said that I found that one of my dogs would cringe at the sound of a gun at the range but worked great in the field. Either upland birds or waterfoul, he never flinched or shied away but hated the range. I guess it is a bit like humans - if the environment and activity are pleasurable they don't notice the noise.

[chriscosta]

My dog is a wolf and has always been scared you point a gun his way and boy does he power and yet he's never seen it do damage so idk what to say pure instincts must be the issue

[2 Tollers]

So over Christmas I got involved in a discussion with a couple of people about gun shy dogs. The situation came up with someone getting a year old dog who was gun shy. They original owner of the dog was getting rid of her because of this. One of the stipulations of giving her away was that the original owner didn’t want her bred as he didn’t want this trait passed on to other dogs ruining the breed.


My question is…. Are dogs gun shy because of:

Their genetic traits being passed on from their bloodlines
or
The way a dog is introduced to guns.

Is this dog's temperment one of being soft, reserved, watching and not bold with new experiences? If so this could relate to a genetic trait however a soft reserved intellegent dog if a person takes the right approach and takes the time to do work with the dog can make a wonderful gun dog. Just needs a different approach.

On the introduction to guns -- the poor introduction to guns and kids misbehaving thinking it is funny to scare a pup are probably the two areas that have ruined many retrievers.

I like the approach of getting dogs retrieving first and enjoying it and indroducing noise at a distance with a retrieve and gradually bringing the noise closer.

[Tatonka]

If a gundog is from solid field lines, I'm guessing that in the vast majority of cases it's improper introduction to gunfire that creates a gunshy dog.... It's almost always a man made problem. Look at it this way.... gundogs from a long line of top field performers have been bred for generations to hunt to the gun. I just can't imagine anyone using a dog that was gunshy for breeding purposes. That's where the various hunt tests, field trials, etc. become important when selecting a pup..... There is no way a dog could/should ever be awarded a title of any sort if it was gunshy.

[Donny Bear]

I am no expert but I know that the Breeder I deal with introduces the pups to the noise of a bang and a thump from day one thats drop the waterdish talk loud and whatever comes to mind I have yet to see oone of his dogs shy from noise of any kind so its conditioning more than anything.

[FCLightning]

One of the stipulations of giving her away was that the original owner didn’t want her bred as he didn’t want this trait passed on to other dogs ruining the breed.

If the Original Owner was the breeder and we have a breeder who is attempting to breed a line of gundogs that cannot be made gunshy regardless of how careless the buyers are of introduction to the gun then I would congratulate them for taking the stand and wish them success. I am sure it can be done.

But as has been shown in this thread, even with severe cases of temperament flaws through a quirk of genetics the problem of gun shy can be averted and the temperament issue masked. Most breeders have bigger fish to fry than worrying about something so easily covered up.

[crawfy]

i had a springer spaniel, border collie cross that was once real gun shy, but boy did he every like to play fetch. One day i took him to the skeet range and we played a little fetch while the shooting was going on a ways in the back ground and i just keep going down and moving in a little closer each time to the shooting. i think it was about 4-5 times that we did that before that rid him of his issues with the loud gun sound.

[greylynx]

:party0052:

Please keep those posts coming.

One of the best threads of 2011

I know nothing about raising dogs, but I used to play Zepplin, The Who, Steppenwolf, Mettalica, Rush Limbaugh and Micheal Savage to my pheasant chicks to reduce them from getting spooked.

[Skinnydipper]

I am inclined to agree with several here that have noted that it tends to be more dependant on the general temperment of the dog. Sensitive or nervous dogs tend to appear to indicate characteristics of wariness to anything that is new and they are unsure of.
As Redfrog mentioned it is the sensitivity of the handler to read the individual that will gauge the readiness and degree of exposure that the dog will be ready for at a given age or stage.
My new dog is teaching me many things about this concept. One day he's not getting it and the next he's ready to grasp the idea. Very challenging to be patient and creative in dealing with the many aspects in the communication/teaching process.

[oldgutpile]

My personal experience has been that "gun-shy" is a developed fault, at least when dealing with hunting breeds. Young dogs pushed into the booming too fast or too soon, will shy away. Sometimes the harder a rookie trainer/owner pushes to overcome these issues, the harder the dog tries to avoid the noise.
Contrary to belief by many, this condition can quite often be corrected with the right stimulus and a lot of patience. A good freind of mine deals with "hopeless" dogs like this that many other trainers send home. Patience, and a lot of dedicated one-on-one training, and it can be fixed in 90% of cases.

[wwbirds]

[QUOTE]I know nothing about raising dogs, but I used to play Zepplin, The Who, Steppenwolf, Mettalica, Rush Limbaugh and Micheal Savage to my pheasant chicks to reduce them from getting spooked. [/QUOTE

I can understand Zep, Who and even Steppenwolf but those other 3 should be considered cruelty to animals!

[densa44]

The dogs I've trained (Labs and pudelpointers) were from field trail lines and love guns.

On the other hand we have a "spaniel" from a back yard breeder and our dog is terrified of the sight of a gun. Since I don't hunt over him although if there is no gun he loves it. My daughter has a littermate of our dog and she doesn't hunt or own a gun, yet her dog is just as terrified of the sight of the gun as is our guy.

So I take it from this some of this must be genetic. Although I do believe that you can cause through training mistakes although I've never seen it.