I’m no dog trainer but had a young Golden Retriever that I tried firing a .22 when he was feeding. But when it got bigger and louder he began to withdraw.
I finally took him to weekly trap shoots one summer, not to shoot, but to sit with him behind the line, and feed him treats whenever he seemed nervous.
In part, because of that I don’t know, but he turned into a gung-ho retrieving beast in the field. I still think of him fondly and somewhat sadly as I had to sell him in his prime when I went back to school.
