Duck dog and hearing loss

[7mmfan]

I'm on year 3 of hunting my lab, mainly for waterfowl. I've never had a gundog before so I have no experience with how their hearing holds up over years of shooting. I know they aren't invincible, but I guess I considered that with the thousands and thousands of gun dogs out there, that this must not be a huge problem.

Yesterday after hunting the morning and several retrieves, we headed home. I noticed at the end of the hunt that she was not listening like normal. When we got home, she was laying in front of the fire and my Dad came over to help with some projects around the house. She normally hears the truck pull into the driveway from a dead sleep, but this time not only did Dad walk in, but I said the infamous words, "Who's hear?" No reaction. She was awake, and absolutely nothing. I began testing her and sure enough, she wasn't completely deaf, but was not hearing anything near her normal self. Fast forward to this morning, her hearing is significantly better, but its hard to tell how well its recovered and if its "normal" or not.

 I'll note that she made multiple retrieves from the boat, so when she leaped out, she would go almost entirely under. I'm assuming she got some water deep in her ear canal.

My question is, after years of hunting under multiple shotguns, will my dog eventually go deaf, or at least lose most of her hearing? Is this a common and expected problem? I see there are Muttmuffs out there for dog hearing protection, but I can almost guarantee she will not deal with them. Plus, where we often hunt, she has to crush major brush to get to birds, and I can see these things disapearing almost immediately. Has anyone considered any other options?

[Happy Gilmore]

"sounds" like you should go visit the vet? 

[AWS]

My AWS went deaf at 11, she was already trained to take hand signals.  I bought an ecollar with a vibration mode and taught her to turn and look for the hand signal at the vibration instead of the whistle.

The uplands were a little differ but she learned to keep me in range by looking back and when ever I saw her if wave an arm to catch her attention.

We had three more good seasons.

[7mmfan]

We have a vet appointment for later in the week for her annual checkup, so this will be brought up. I was just curious if hearing loss in gun dogs is common and should be expected, or if there may be something else going on here.

[vandeman17]

My parents lab who I hunted over a lot had her hearing gradually get worse the older she got. Now I believe she is pretty hard of hearing but sometimes its hard to tell if she is being stubborn or actually can't hear in her old age. If your dog is young then it would be a bit of an alarm but also maybe she was just completely wiped from the hunt. Even my 2 year old pup who has endless energy will ignore me sometimes or act a little different after a lot of exercise and a long day of hunting.

[Happy Gilmore]

depends on where you sit the dog. If you hunt exclusively out of a boat and shoot more than just straight out of the blind and not 360 like most folks you've probably muzzle blasted the pup a few times. I've been muzzleblasted by shot gun numerous times and a 7MM once. It hurts and hearing is shot for a few days. Dog is probably even more sensitive than my deaf azz. 

[7mmfan]

I know that she has been muzzle blasted a few times, so I guess it doesn't really suprise me. I may have to work a little harder at keeping her out of the way from now on and picking my shots a little more carefully.

[ghosthunter]

My first lab sat between my legs in a sled for many years as I shot ducks over her. At 11 years her hearing was gone. She would take hand casting and we hunted that way two more seasons.

My 2 year old sits at the other end of the boat now. But in the fields she sits off my left shoulder. You can save some hearing if you teach her to remote sit away from you. A little behind and off to the side.

I think this problem is more evident with the bigger guns.

[T Pearce]

My first lab sat between my legs in a sled for many years as I shot ducks over her. At 11 years her hearing was gone. She would take hand casting and we hunted that way two more seasons.

My 2 year old sits at the other end of the boat now. But in the fields she sits off my left shoulder. You can save some hearing if you teach her to remote sit away from you. A little behind and off to the side.

I think this problem is more evident with the bigger guns.

my lab has noticable hearing loss. Remote is the way I think.

[7mmfan]

Alright thanks for the input guys. Looks like I'm going to have to put a lot more effort into keeping her out of the way when shooting. Its hard when we hunt from the boat, but if on the bank we should be able to make it work.