44 BREAKING A BIRD DOG 
the statement that it is almost criminal when 
a good dog becomes gun-shy. There is little 
or no excuse for it. If a dog has first been 
given reason to have confidence in his trainer 
(and until a dog has confidence in his trainer 
no gun should ever be fired near him) ; and if 
the first firearm used does not carry too 
heavy a load; if the dog is accustomed 
gradually to increasingly loud reports; and, 
chiefly, if the dog is “on game” at the time 
the first shot is fired, and thus has his atten¬ 
tion centered upon the game—and, better 
still, if that first shot actually brings down 
the game in his presence—then there is al¬ 
most no reason at all why any dog should be 
gun-shy. It is probably safe to say that one 
or the other, or all, of these fundamental 
laws are broken in the case of every dog that 
is gun-shy. 
If you send a fairly timid dog to a careless 
trainer and the first crack out of the box he 
fires a io- or 12-gauge shotgun over the dog 
—and stands too close to the dog at the time 
—and if there is no game in sight—and the 
dog’s confidence has not yet been won—then 
the chances are nine out of ten that any dog 
