Sound Sensitive Dog

Lol my dog (never intended to be a hunter, simply a house dog) is deathly afraid of any loud noise. Drop something to hard in the sink, freak the frick out. Fireworks, don't even ask. A gunshot, you'd think the amarageden was imminent.

He's 5 and I'm not sure there is a way to get over it. They either are or are not scared of noises.

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Anyone ever helped their dog overcome this?

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Yeah, but it'll get down voted like a mofo here...

Not my dog, but a guy on my lease. He had a new dog and it was gun shy. First day of season it literally ran off.

We caught it and had the "That's tough luck conversation".

He says, "screw that."

He brings the dog the next morning and ties it to the blind. We bust off on some teal and the dog damn near tears down the blind, but doesn't get away. After it calmed down, he unleashed it and it went for a retrieve. Next group comes in and that dog goes wild again. Literally choking itself out trying to pull away from the collar.

Anyway, that goes on for a few more weeks. People started avoiding the situation and refuse to go to the blind with him. Like it was bad. A lot of yelping and brush rattling.

The guy stays after it and the dog gets a lot better. By the end of the year he was fine.

The dog is now 6 or 7 years old and a decent retriever.

Only one I've ever seen have their feet held to the fire, but he sure enough over came it. I know of quite a few others that just became back yard pets because the owners just gave it up day 1.

Dogs are not born gunshy. They learn to be gunshy. That being said the unteaching of this behavior is very time consuming. I have done this with a couple dogs with varied success. As said earlier you can introduce noise while eating(this is the best way to teach a dog to accept gun fire) or if the dog is not a big eater find something to distract the dogs attention and introduce noise from afar. If the dog has not been brought in the field too much he may not associate place with noise and you have a better chance. If your dog has talent it can be done. The want to retrieve needs to be there

My lab was gun shy at first and is still scared of loud sounds. But we trained her to get over the gun and now she's a hunting machine. Some trainers don't have the patience and don't want to put in the extra work to get it done. I would recommend finding a different trainer if it was my dog because there are a lot of good ones out there that can fix he problem.

My only experience with this was with a hell of a rabbit dog. I had 3 of the best dogs anyone could hope for in my early 20s. Problem was one was totally gunshy.
Unfortunately, I didn't find this out until opening day that year. I had worked with that pup and my two older dogs all spring and summer. No problem. No guns either.
Opening weekend, I hunted alone just so I could have just my dogs running instead of having them part of a larger pack. Right off the bat a rabbit was jumped and I killed it after a good run. Then I spent the rest of the morning trying to find the youngster. Finally caught him and talked to my uncle about it. He suggested everything mentioned in the thread and nothing worked. Finally, that Thanksgiving weekend, on a hunt with my dogs and my cousins, he was leading the pack when the rabbit was shot. Long story shortened:
I never saw him again. SOB ran off. Went back several times left food. Hopefully someone found him and mad a pet out of him.

My Lab was given to me because the owner felt she would never be a champion type dog and one of the first times in a blind with several folks when they all shot she hauled arse back to the camp. I was looking more for a pet but continued working with her on retrieving then introduced noise during feeding and when it came time for shooting, a buddy of mine and I went to the field and I would throw bumper and he would shoot from about 30 yds away - then I would send her. This went on for a few sessions and he moved closer and now no worries. agree with most of what has been said here as far as taking the time to work with a dog that appears to be gun shy. Not sure who the trainer is but I am sure he/she is more than familiar with all the acclimation techniques, just some dogs require more patience and time. Good Luck and let us know how it turns out.

PS - Effie is definitely not a champion but she will go get ducks....most of the time...as long as she sees where they fall