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How good is a gundog's hearing?

It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to discover that dogs can hear shot striking a bird overhead.

By Gundog training

Friday, 29 January 2010

Gundog training: Yesterday I fired at a wigeon which appeared to carry on as normal over the marsh. As night fell and I started to pack up, my gundog suddenly disappeared in the direction of the duck. Imagine my surprise when, 15 minutes later, she came back with a wing-tipped cock wigeon. How on earth did she know?

Gundog training
PETER BLATCH
A gundog’s hearing powers and sense of smell are a lot keener than ours and despite what some people might say, their eyesight is better than we think.

Because of this it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to discover that dogs can hear shot striking a bird overhead, maybe even pick up an air scent of blood from a pricked bird if the atmospheric conditions are suitable.

I do a lot of picking up with a team of dogs behind the line of Guns and often one of them will take a keen look at a bird that has been shot at, then watch as it towers several hundred yards farther on.

I can only surmise that it’s the way the bird has been struck because when you are several hundred yards behind the gun line there’s no way a dog can possibly hear the shot strike.

One of the best judges of pricked birds I ever owned was actually partially deaf at a young age so I would say a dog’s ability to tell the difference between a hit or a miss involves far more than us mere mortals will ever know.

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Comments

colm dooley

Mon, 22nd Feb 2010 22:01:08

a friend who has emergraited.Has asked me if i would be interested in keeping his cocker bitch she is 12 months. I took her instead of her going to the dog pound. She has never been trained as a gundog just fetching balls and sticks playing about in the garden.Until last week. I took her out for a walk with my 2 year old lab. A rabbit bolted i shot the rabbit the cocker took off lifted the rabbit and run off with it. since then we have been out for mags and grays and she passes no remarks to the gun at all and is always hunting away would it be worth while spending time with her for shooting as she did not come from a hunting strain and is very head strong.