I took Remi with my husband and I to do some breaking in/siting in (hubby just bought a new varmint rifle) and he did GREAT! He turned and looked at the first shot, but I kept him fairly occupied and after the first few shots didn't even notice them going off. Yay!

I am wondering how everyone else exposes their dog to gunfire, and at what age. I saw a few posts about it that 12 weeks was too young, Remi is 10 months old now and reacted just fine to it. I just don't want to stress him out if it's too early to be bringing him all the time. (We go target/varmint shooting quite a bit)

I'm also curious if people think it's too early to go with an ECollar for him. When we do go out it's in the back country and I'd like to be able to not have him dragging me on a leash, but still have control. At this point I've never let him off leash so he's never had the opportunity to think he can get "away". Am I jumping the gun, should I perfect my recall without the ECollar first? Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The purpose for exposing a dog to gun fire is to test his nerves. This can be done at 8 weeks. The dog either igirnes it or reacts to it.

If a dog does not have issues with it you then ignore it. To do more than that creates problems. The old video I did back in the late 1980's on tactical training with police service dogs demonstrates how handlers created problems with gun fire - a good 50% of the Police K9 handlers got bit by their own dogs because they had created problems through training.

Get my E-collar DVD and learn how to train with a remote trainer. http://leerburg.com/318.htm This will solve your second problems. I never take my dog out without a collar on. I may only use it 1 time in 30 or 40 walks but its there if I need it.