Help Your K9 Be the Best Hunter it can Be
When it comes to having a hunting dog, the sometimes hardest aspect of being able to train them to be the best is getting them to become comfortable around gun fire. There are many theories as to what an individual should do to make sure that your furry friend never becomes gun shy, but most can actually cause more harm than good. Making sure that your partner is as comfortable with hearing guns as you are with shooting them is an essential part of successful hunting. If you have a dog that puts its tail between it legs the second it hears you cock the gun, then there are going to be some major roadblocks in how well your day goes.
The biggest myth when it comes to making sure hunting dogs aren’t gun shy is that you have to expose them to gun shots at a very young age. This may make sense to some, but take into consideration the age of your dog and the amount of stress the sound of the gun shot causes. The best course of action is to expose them to all different types of noises from a very young age. Keep a radio playing in the background at all times, even if you’re not home. Keep the TV turned up loud, especially on those commercials with annoying noises. Last but not least, don’t be quiet around them. Stomp around, do whatever you can to make noise around them. That way, when you believe 
they’re ready to be taken out for a trial run, they are used to all kinds of sounds and surroundings.
Another large part of why exposing them to a gun at a very young age is bad because of the sight of the gun. If the first loud noise that a puppy hears is a gun, and it sees the object, it will process it as a scary item and will forever remember how frightening it is. This is why exposing puppies to all sorts of noises before gun shots is so essential to the well being of your dog. As long as you take it easy at first, your dog will be the best hunter around.
