There's a number of folks on here that have trained our dogs to hunt. But the vast majority of us have bred hunting dogs. (Labs/shorthair pointers/brittneys/etc). Training usually starts as a pup and it's a life long process of either training or maintaining the skills for each season.
I have no idea how training your shepherd for hunting will go, you may well have your work cut out for you. But if the dog has the desire to please and work with you it might be possible to some degree. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.
As for your question about the loud shot...that's an introductory process,
Probably would require more time than I have right now to type out, but basically, you start at a distance and slowly move closer to the dog, as long as the dog doesn't mind the noise you can progress until you are next to the dog while at the same time you need to be associating the noise with something positive . There is a great potential to create a gun shy dog by just going out and firing shots around your dog.
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