How you use a blank gun can
help or hurt you in training. Recently, I was training with some amateurs that
were fairly new to pointing dogs. They had done a great job introducing gunfire
to their dogs, but now their dogs were older. Most were between one and two
years old and every time their dogs chased quail, they fired their blank guns.
It wasn’t my place to say anything, but I was glad I wouldn’t be teaching these
dogs to be steady-to-shot. Their dogs had already made an association with
chasing and the blank gun, and once formal training began, they would most
likely launch themselves like rockets anytime they heard the sound of the shot.
A blank gun is different than a shotgun. Dogs
understand the shotgun. They see it, hear it and watch the bird fall to the
ground. The blank gun isn’t as simple for your dog to grasp. The shot can mean
a number of different things depending on what associations he makes with the
sound. Here are a few examples of how to think about the blank gun.
***
If you compete in juvenile stakes in field trials or tests, you may be
required to fire over your dog when birds are flushed. While you need to
condition your dog to gunfire, in training it’s not necessary to fire every
time your dog has bird contact. In fact, once gunfire has been introduced, the
less you fire over him as he is chasing, the easier he will be to train.
***
Once formal training begins, you may be unsure as to when to fire the
blank gun. If your dog is steady-to-wing and you are teaching him to be
steady-to-shot, think of the blank gun as representing the end of a piece of bird work. In other words, the sound of the shot
means it’s over and your dog did well. When your dog handles the situation,
fire your gun. However, if your dog takes a couple of steps when the bird flies
and you plan on going back to correct him, you don’t fire because there is still
more training to do.
***
You don’t need to fire the blank gun for every bird that flushes. I
watched a fellow fire five times as a covey of five birds lifted in front of
his dog. One shot would have been sufficient to let the dog know the situation
was over and he handled it well. The same is true in the bird field when you
are training on pigeons or quail. You might have a set-up with two launchers.
Your dog points and you walk in and flush the first bird. Your dog remains
steady, so you hold your fire because there is another bird on the ground. You
flush the second bird, and if your dog continues to remain steady, you fire
over the second bird.
***
If you fired a lot over your dog when he was young and he associates
chasing with the shot, he may need extra work as you teach him to be
steady-to-shot. Once you are able to flush and fire over him, he may still want
to break at the sound of the shot even though he remains standing. If he
remains standing but still looks like he’s ready to launch, try firing a second
or third time. Your dog isn’t expecting additional shots so he’s more likely to
break, which gives you an opportunity to correct him. This type of work really
helps proof the training.
***
If you do a good job introducing gunfire and fire only as often as
necessary when your dog is young, he won’t learn to associate the blank gun
with chasing. Then, during formal
training you show him that gunfire means the end of a particular piece of bird
work, not the beginning of a chase. The blank gun takes on a new meaning for
your dog and the training goes a lot easier for you.
