I shot a .22 a few times around the house standing next to my pup without an issue in the world. I assumed he wasn't gun shy. Took him on his first duck hunt and the violence of lots of 12 gauge was too much. Not terrible but it did give him the shakes. is there a noise in between or should I just work 12 gauges further away then moving closer.

Hate to have a duck dog that has to wait in the truck, especially when he has greatly surpassed retrieving expectations with zero water training.

I took my first pup to the skeet range and just parked way down at the end. Then we both walked up slow when everyone was shooting. Each time someone shot I would say good boy and pet him. When we got close I would praise much more and pet/encourage him more. He was setting under my feet as I shot skeet later that day and just marking those things like crazy as they were launched.

I suggest y'all find a gun dog training group in the area. It will help you bring out the best in your dog.
There is a big difference in a 22 and multiple gun shots in a duck blind. Please don't take your pups to the skeet fields to introduce gun fire. Some people are lucky but others make their dogs gun shy by doing this.

I started with .22 blanks at about 100 yards and moved in 25 yards every 2-3 shots until I was standing next to my pup shooting the rounds. After that, I used a .410 with the same routine and had no problems. I then moved to a 20 gauge and 12 using the same approach of starting at a distance with each caliber. With each shot (my son in law shot the gun) I sent him to retreive a bird I had thrown.

Again I'm no expert, but the approach worked very well for my dog.

get the pup all amped up on something they love... birds work best, but you can use bumpers (retrieving), food, whatever it is you can get the dog all fired up about, then when you cut the dog loose on it... fire a small caliber gun at distance until you can shoot around the dog while they are engrossed in whatever it is that they are excited about. Gradually work up to larger calibers, same process... get the dog excited over something, shots at distance, close the gap.

Dogs learn by association and the idea is to "associate" gunfire with something they LOVE to do. Once trained properly... a hunting dog will literally come running TO gunfire.

It is also one area of training that you want to be VERY careful with and let the dog dictate the speed at which they come along... if you screw this up, you can ruin your dog.

If I were you, i would start completely over with gun training now that your dog has shown sensitivity to it. Get some live pigeons and train with those.

The skeet range is such a bad idea... I wish guys wouldn't get on here and suggest that, but some guys get lucky and think that's the way it should be done.

Ok ... Ill bite. Just how is the skeet range so bad? If you start hundreds of yards away and walk your dog up slow? Obviously you have to read your dog, and stay back if they are not interrested or showing signs of being apprehensive. It's the exact thing you guys are saying only instead of bringing the gun to the dog, you slowly bring the dog to the guns.

I will tell you my first dog wanted to see what it was all about as we got closer. He was very courious what they were doing over there and what was making those little pops. I kept it real slow and gave tons of praise as we got closer and things got louder. I prob played with him for 30 min or so as we worked our way closer to the action. I didn't push him... and sure as heck didn't force him any closer. I'm telling you that I had ZERO issues and bet I could get the same results with any dog as long as you went slow enough and gave enough praise.

If you are familiar with the Winchester Gun Club (elm fork now) they have a long road to drive in on. I parked down by the lake... Prob 800 yards away where the guns sounded like popcorn.

I seriously want to know why you guys think this is a bad way to introduce a dog to gunfire.

As First_Chance says, what you want is for the dog to associate good (birds) with guns. What you've done is allow the dog to become familiar with a new scenario which happens to include noise. That doesn't mean the dog is trained for hunting situations. If you assume the dog is broke to the gun, and you take her out on a hunt, she smells a bird, the bird flushes and a bunch of guns go off and the dog is now confused and probably startled at a minimum and possibly freaked out because the good (bird) brought about a lot of noise and confusion. See the difference? Dogs are associative creatures and you want the dog to associate the bird with guns in a positive way. Meaning, the dog expects a gun to go off when she smells, hears and/or sees a bird. Just like some people bang pots and make all kinds of noise when the dog is eating - all that does is make the dog associate food with noise from clanging pots, much like if you were whistling to get her to eat. Has nothing to do with associating a bird with gunfire which is your ultimate goal. My dogs hear a gun shot and immediately start looking for birds.
(on edit) what you've done is not a bad thing, it's good to expose the pup to all kinds of scenarios. What you haven't done is prepare the dog for a hunting situation that includes gun fire.

There you go... Thx. Much better explanation than just ...never do it.

Associate the gunfire with birds or bumpers so the dog ties the two together. I can dig it.

I think most experienced gun dog people prefer to err on the side of caution with gunfire. I was given/rescued a dog once. I planted a bird and took her downwind, as soon as she smelled the bird, she freaked and hauled arse back to the truck. The only thing I could think that could cause this was one of two things, (1) gun shy or (2) collar shy. Collar shy means someone lit her up when she smelled the bird and from then on she associated the scent of a bird with getting hit hard with the collar - she wanted no part of that bird.

DoubleB20 hit it on the head. Despite what people believe about their dogs being able to “reason”… they don’t, they associate.

One of my buddies brought a guy on a hunt with us once that was asking advice about a dog that wouldn’t pick up birds after he killed them. The dog would go over to them, but wouldn’t get within about 3 feet of them. He said; ”he was picking them up just fine when he was young and then he stopped and won’t go near them now”. I started asking him questions and what kind of problems he was having with the dog prior to that and he said that he would get the birds, but that he wanted to keep them and try and eat them. I asked him how he tried to get him to stop that and he said, well, I tried everything, I even used a shock collar on him. Mystery Solved! I explained to the guy that when his dog wouldn't give up the bird, the worst thing he could have done was shock the dog because the dog has no way of knowing the difference between getting punished for having a bird in his mouth or not giving a bird to his owner… what he had basically done was “bird proof” his dog. The dog associated the shock with picking the bird up, not what his owner was reasoning he should associate it with.

We were eventually able to fix the dog using live birds with pulled flight feathers so the dog could catch them and got comfortable holding them so they couldn’t get away… but it took a whole summer. In fact, I’m pretty sure that dog still brings them back tenderized, but his owner will never try to break him on that with a collar again!!

Just wanted to give you an option if all you have is a 22 and a 12 gauge.

You can lighten the noise of a 12 gauge by:

1. Pull the shot and powder, which leaves primer only. I think this is about as loud as a 22. You can do this in your current gun.

2. Use LIGHT loads first.

3. Point the gun away from the dog. Huge difference.

4. Shoot ONCE and quit. Multiple blasts are much worse than a single blast.

I gun broke my dog with a 12 gauge only by using primer only shells, then light loads, then multiple shots. All OVER LIVE BIRDS! That was the key.

I wanted to add that this was over two months time, about once a week. I didn't throw that at the dog all at once.