I’m always excited to get updates from the folks at Steady with Style. I’ve learned a lot about dogs and dog training from Martha Greenlee’s posts, and I read every one as soon as I hear about it. This one is essential for anyone who uses a blank pistol.
Using a Blank Gun, by Martha Greenlee
“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…”
Be sure you’re doing it right. Read the rest of this piece now.
