NTTF,
At Pine Creek Grouse Dog Trainers we introduce the gun in a similar manner, starting with the blank pistol when the pup is about 25 weeks old. The pup is let into our training woods where it gets educated as to his natural hunting habitat. As he is playing and is looking for our wild Grouse, the trainer makes sure he is 35 or more yards away as the pup romps freely the light blank is fired. This goes on at different times for a few days, next comes the larger blanks and we move up to the 28 Guage as the pup gets older, with very light shells. When the pup is a might older we have him find and point a planted Chukar, the bird is flushed and shot down from approx the same yardage as the blank gun was fired. In this manner the pup always concentrates on the bird, and killing the bird on the 1st 28 guage shot insures the positive imprint of gun fire, meaning dead bird. As the dog gets older we introduce the 20, 16 and 12 guage guns while actually hunting. We use this method on all our pointing dogs, we have no gun shy dogs using this training technique.
RGD