Gun training

Dog trainer and Griffon breeder Kyle Adamson describes his method of gun training a dog. You take him out with a bag full of pigeons is what I do. I want the dog associating that fun chase of a pigeon and that prey drive with the gunshot. If things have gone right, people have introduced noise when they're feeding their dog. If I can get a dog really chasing a pigeon, I can start firing a shot around. And then you carry a kill bird with you and you reward that dog with feathers in the mouth. Pretty soon the dog is associating all the good things of hunting with that shot. It just excites the dog, keeps it fired up, gets rid of almost any chance you have of gun shyness. It's just a good way to go about it. I did it with Frank. He taught me to read the dog for that kind of thing. And that's a big thing when you do introduce a dog to gun and feather the whole excitement of the hunt. That's the one time in your life you want to spend the money on a trainer, Find somebody, especially with Griffon, find somebody that has done it, knows what they're doing, really can read it and go ahead and pay for it that time. It'll save you so much grief later. Speaker1: So what you do is you associate a gunshot with a good time. Speaker2: With a great time, my four and five year old dogs right now, if I get a shell vest out and a shotgun, they fire up, lay at your feet, lay around the house, look like a big mush head. You drop a shotgun in my house or a shell vest on the ground and you have three dogs sitting there waiting to go, almost shaking all the tails going. It's a great thing. Speaker1: A Pavlovian response.