Hi Steve, I was reading your article on gun shy dogs. I thought it was pretty much right on. I have trained for many years myself, both pointing dogs and retrievers, field trial dogs and gundogs. I am a nut when it comes to genetics and I do have one question for you. In your article you said that some dogs are more prone to being gun shy but it is not a genetic flaw. How can they be more prone without it being a genetic flaw? In my experience with years of training and breeding that almost everything to do with any animal or person for that matter is genetic. If I am missing the boat on this please explain about being prone and not genetic. I appreciate it.
PR
PR,
Thanks for contacting Gun Dog Supply. I appreciate you taking the time to email me.
I might need to add to the gun shy article a little. My experience where a dog might be “prone to being gun shy”, but not genetic, is one that has not been properly socialized and exposed to the many sights, sounds and experiences of the world. This would be a lack of a proper environment and proper “raising” and the fault of the handler not the dog or the genes.
I call these dogs “spooky” but I would not call it a genetic flaw. A personal example is one of my pointers. Ruby came out of a litter that we raised and I kept one of the pups. She was very bold and had an enormous amount of time spent with her and loads of experience as a pup. Around the time that she turned one, I got a call from a man that had purchased two litter mates to Ruby – Patch and Dot. He was not happy with them from a Field Trial standpoint and just wanted to let me know that he was selling them. I was so happy with Ruby that I bought her two sisters back from him.
It was pretty obvious that neither one of them had been handled much. Both were “hand shy” and very “standoffish.” I expect that they spent most of their first year in a kennel run with little or no human contact. I do not know if they had any kind of gun introduction so I started at square one with both. Both worked out fine but I had to go really slow because of their lack of “worldly experience” that I require and put in a young dog.
Had I gone about shooting over them too close or too fast or without the correct association (birds), I expect that they both could have been “gun shy.”
So here are three dogs from the same litter but from different environments. I don’t see where “genes” play a role in “gun shy” dogs.
Now, I do agree that some litters might be “spookier” than others and that could be genes but if they are raised correctly and introduced to the world and guns correctly, they should not have a problem.
Another major thing to keep in mind here is that a good breeder will do a bunch of these things with his dogs. I am real picky about who I get my dogs from because you can do a bunch with them in the first 8 to 10 weeks. Some guys are just breeding pups and don’t spend any time with them.
I don’t raise dogs right now, (too many kids and too much work at the office) but when we did we introduced our pups to birds, water, cover, guns, trucks, duck calls, and anything else we could come up with. It takes time but it pays off.
Now if I had to guess, you are one of the guys that DOES all of the correct things with a pup and it is second nature to you. Since you are raising them in the best possible environment, getting the best genes is the way to have the best dogs. The raising isn’t an issue.
I find an amazingly large number of folks that have no idea HOW to raise a pup and they miss a lot of things. Then at some point they take pup out to “see if he’s gunshy.” They fire off 4 or 5 – 12 guage rounds when pup is close by. It scares him to death and he heads for the hills. “That pup must be gunshy…”
It really comes down to a slow and proper introduction with the correct association. I want my dogs to LOVE guns. It makes everything easier.
Please let me know if you have any questions. We do appreciate your business.
Thanks,
Steve Snell
Gun Dog Supply – http://www.gundogsupply.com
400 Industrial Park Road, Suite G
Starkville, MS 39759
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