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I was at my gun club on Saturday for some trap practice and a young guy and (I presume) his girlfriend arrived. I asked the guy about the dog (border collie) and whether he thought it was a great idea to have his dog chained to the gun rest behind the 27 yard line while they shot. He just said, "Oh he's OK ... he loves it."
The guy was coaching his girlfriend and my wife and I were watching him from behind the 27 yard line, near the dog. The dog started whining after about 10 shots and my wife asked me to take off my ear muffs. I took them off for 2 or 3 shots and thought that while the noise wasn't really really loud it was certainly a sharp sound and that I wouldn't be comfortable standing there with no ear protection for more than a few shots.
Now a dog's hearing is way more sensitive than mine, so I'm guessing that dog was whining because he was uncomfortable with the noise level (of course he may have been whining because his owner was standing 11 yards away ignoring him). My wife ended up asking the guy if she could take the dog for a walk just to get him away from the noise.
My wife and I talked about it afterwards and she was really steamed that this jerk was subjecting the dog to this sort of noise without any thought for the dogs health or well-being.
I got to thinking about gun dogs and how they handle gun shots. A working gun dog is generally somewhere in front of the gun when it goes off .... the noise out there has got to be worse than from way behind a gun. So do gun dogs lose their hearing thru noise induced damage?
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The guy was coaching his girlfriend and my wife and I were watching him from behind the 27 yard line, near the dog. The dog started whining after about 10 shots and my wife asked me to take off my ear muffs. I took them off for 2 or 3 shots and thought that while the noise wasn't really really loud it was certainly a sharp sound and that I wouldn't be comfortable standing there with no ear protection for more than a few shots.
Now a dog's hearing is way more sensitive than mine, so I'm guessing that dog was whining because he was uncomfortable with the noise level (of course he may have been whining because his owner was standing 11 yards away ignoring him). My wife ended up asking the guy if she could take the dog for a walk just to get him away from the noise.
My wife and I talked about it afterwards and she was really steamed that this jerk was subjecting the dog to this sort of noise without any thought for the dogs health or well-being.
I got to thinking about gun dogs and how they handle gun shots. A working gun dog is generally somewhere in front of the gun when it goes off .... the noise out there has got to be worse than from way behind a gun. So do gun dogs lose their hearing thru noise induced damage?
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