More ?'s about prey drive

Jewlieee

He reminds me of Abbie.

Don't hesitate to send the info (sites and books) you received from the behaviorist either LOL

kpwlee

Chelsea I've never done a flirt pole with him as I don't want to be on the holding end LOL - he is darn serious about these things 

My lunge whip is 6', and the "whip" part is equally as long, so with a toy swinging on the end its pretty far out from where you are standing. If he catches it, just let it go. The lunge whip is pretty strong, but its not a tug toy. If they ever catch it, I just drop it and let them run off with their prize.

My gaming with the flirt pole is controlled.  Its taught Bruder patience, most of all.  He has learned that he must be in a sit; and looking at me.  He waits for my release word, then off we go.  I tire him out by keeping the rag out of his reach for a very short time, then he gets satisfaction by catching the "prey."  I'm still holding the pole while I allow him to shake the rag, then give him the sit command; then drop it command.  Then, we do it all over again.  I suppose its all in personal preference and what your ultimate goal is in playing the game.

I quit flirt pole with Nikon when he was around 5 months.  I actually don't want a lot of control or inhibition when doing that sort of work, but I also need to be able to control the dog's movements (so he isn't crashing into things or jumping so high he'll injure himself) and make sure MY body parts are out of the picture.  So, I have much better luck and a much easier time with a back-tie.  With the bigger dogs I really don't like them constantly leaping into the air trying to get the end of the flirt pole, so with the back tie I can keep it low AND control it so it's out of reach. You could certainly use the flirtpole with backtying.  Often when I do it I have a tug or the dumbbell attached to a rope which is basically the same.  I also do not do any outing/dropping or out training while drive building, I teach that separately and bring it in once it is trained and proofed.  I don't offer a bite or let the dog get the object until I'm satisfied with the behavior and level of drive and arousal he is showing.  Once he gets it, we tug IF the grip is set correctly (probably something you wouldn't have to worry much about, not doing SchH, but there are things that can be "read" by how the dog grips), then to get the toy back I just take it from the mouth (Nikon hates if I press my thumb on the back of his tongue), flank the dog and grab the toy, or lift the dog off the toy.  All of these methods of getting the toy back also increase frustration which will increase the dog's drive to get back into the game and win the toy again.

For me, it's just important to separate this activity from training, so again, I really don't use and don't even encourage a lot of self control or doing commands or outing.

Liesje

to get the toy back I just take it from the mouth (Nikon hates if I press my thumb on the back of his tongue), flank the dog and grab the toy, or lift the dog off the toy.  All of these methods of getting the toy back also increase frustration which will increase the dog's drive to get back into the game and win the toy again.

Jason L

Interestingly the two with high prey drive are less interested in chasing cats, critters, squirrels than my one house dog. I believe it's because I trained those two so much using balls and tugs, day in and day out, that they have come to associate prey drive with me (prey drive = training with dad) ... "Why chase a squirrel when you can play with a ball on a string" ... whereas my house dog, Obie, has no interested in playing ball and of the three dogs is the most likely to bolt after a squirrel or sniff/track during our walks because prey for him means small animals and new scents, not toy or play.

 Well, that's interesting, because I have a similar situation but the training has been the same and I interpreted it as adding weight to the argument that prey drive is not the same as playing predatory games with a toy. My laid back, mellow dog who had plenty of tug as a puppy will switch on the moment he sees a mouse, but it looks different to when he switches on for a game of tug. Chase is somewhere in the middle. To me, he has more prey drive than Erik, who will tug like a maniac pretty much any time. Erik sees a mouse and will chase it until it disappears and then he gives up on it. It's gone and he doesn't care. He wants to invest energy in something that is tangible! Meanwhile, Kivi will spend the next hour poking around where he saw the mouse disappear.

I say have a read of Panksepp, who if I interpreted correctly, believes that prey drive and scenting behaviour come under the one banner of "SEEK mode". Games come under PLAY, a totally different mode. It makes sense to me. I've been thinking clicker training comes under SEEK in a sense. If I were trying to harness B's love for the hunt, I'd be looking at hide and seek games that use his brain. Like Nina Ottoson toys. That's assuming he's not a player, which sounds like he might be. My mum has a super prey-driven dog who rarely wants to play and can rarely be convinced to, but he LOVES to forage. I call it foraging because he's hunting for something interesting to eat or chase or even just smell. Not browsing the way many dogs do, but actively hunting. He very much likes it when people take him for a foraging run. He's independent and is happy to go on his own, but it's better with a friend.

corvus

I call it foraging because he's hunting for something interesting to eat or chase or even just smell. Not browsing the way many dogs do, but actively hunting.

Although he can be a fun and playful dog most of his play is centered around hide and seek or interactive toys.  Any toy you give him to play with on his own will be destroyed.  We have played 'find it' inside and outside with him since he was a pup because that is his favorite thing to do.

Most of the trouble he gets into is when he feels ignored and he will go 'find' a high value item and show it to you LOL 

He loves to play with other dogs but if you allow this in a 'new' environment he will just go into forage mode leaving even a best buddy standing alone - if the playdate is in our yard he will play.

In response to Lies and Jason although at one point I considered doing Schutzhund with B I would not try alone - unlike your dogs he is not from a known breeding with a predictable temperament and I don't have the skills you both have.  He is too intense and too quick a learner to allow me any poor technique.

corvus

I say have a read of Panksepp

kpwlee

corvus

I say have a read of Panksepp

Can you tell me the name?  I had a quick search and didn't come up with anything that sounded like what you referenced

I'll go one better. Check out this pdf: http://www.indin2007.org/enf/downloads/panksepp_affective_consciousness.pdf

Honestly, if you took B and made him small and a bit more lazy you'd have something that sounded remarkably like my mum's dog Pyry. That dog has prey drive like nothing I've ever seen. Think, spent hours ripping the garage wall away to get at a trapped possum. If we had moles over here, he would love that. He likes our big Blue-tongue Lizards. They are slow and he can get them. He doesn't waste time on things he doesn't think he can get. He checks everything out, though. If there's a bird on the ground, he's watching it to see if it's injured.

Maybe you could try one of those egg baby toys, or the toys that have bits that come off and attach back on with velcro. I just got Erik a Leo Genius plush toy that has 4 different toys stuffed inside it. He loves that thing. He's not a very prey driven dog, though. 

corvus

Maybe you could try one of those egg baby toys, or the toys that have bits that come off and attach back on with velcro. I just got Erik a Leo Genius plush toy that has 4 different toys stuffed inside it. He loves that thing. He's not a very prey driven dog, though. 

He has quite a few of these and does them in seconds.  they need to be closely monitored or he will destroy them - his first try with a gingerbread house

I thought we were going to get a bit more challenge out of this one - he tries to kill this one before I show him the treat

Thanks for the link 

What type of dog is he?

I had a German Shorthair Pointer mix who was crazy prey/hunting drive like that. He lived to the ripe old age of 15, and never changed with that, until the day my mom put him down (he had tongue cancer in the end). The day he woke up not caring about "hunting" was the day he needed to go (and he was already emaciated and dehydrated from the cancer before then. But he still was waking up enthusiastic every morning wanting to hunt something in the back yard, even tho he couldn't even drink water).

But yeah, ALL of his leash reactivity was rooted in his off-the-charts prey/hunting drive. Anything could be at least "pretend prey". He was far from "viscious", but when he escaped, he would " hunt" people, and just scare them, but not actually attack. It was like that "I'll be the predator, you be the prey, and I'll pretend to attack you" game dogs sometimes play with each other. Except the humans didn't know it was a game.

But yeah, I think there's a HUGE relationship with some dogs between prey/hunting drive and leash reactivity.

Jupiter

What type of dog is he?

Jupiter

But yeah, I think there's a HUGE relationship with some dogs between prey/hunting drive and leash reactivity.

corvus

Jason L

Interestingly the two with high prey drive are less interested in chasing cats, critters, squirrels than my one house dog. I believe it's because I trained those two so much using balls and tugs, day in and day out, that they have come to associate prey drive with me (prey drive = training with dad) ... "Why chase a squirrel when you can play with a ball on a string" ... whereas my house dog, Obie, has no interested in playing ball and of the three dogs is the most likely to bolt after a squirrel or sniff/track during our walks because prey for him means small animals and new scents, not toy or play.

 

 Well, that's interesting, because I have a similar situation but the training has been the same and I interpreted it as adding weight to the argument that prey drive is not the same as playing predatory games with a toy. My laid back, mellow dog who had plenty of tug as a puppy will switch on the moment he sees a mouse, but it looks different to when he switches on for a game of tug. Chase is somewhere in the middle. To me, he has more prey drive than Erik, who will tug like a maniac pretty much any time. Erik sees a mouse and will chase it until it disappears and then he gives up on it. It's gone and he doesn't care. He wants to invest energy in something that is tangible! Meanwhile, Kivi will spend the next hour poking around where he saw the mouse disappear.

Speaking of seeking/tracking, Ike is a very intense, natural tracker in training but all of the three dogs he is the one that shows the least interest in sniffing and scenting when we are just out walking. Obie is the one that will have his nose on the ground through out the walk and can sniff for miles on end if you let him. But you take him to a tracking session and he will quit on you before you reach thirty steps. Again, I think this is the case of Ike having a proper outlet to work his drive so after awhile he begins to associate that drive with a particular environment/setting. I'm not sure if Liesje have encountered the same thing too - but at our club we get plenty of people who bring their dogs out to try tracking (or even protection) because of what they see in their dogs at home (sniffing on the walk, chasing small animals) but - more often than not - that simply does not translate to a working field and the stress/pressure that come with the territory. At home dogs do these stuff because it's fun and they "want to" do it but on the field there is always a sense of "have to" so the dog's drive need to be strong enough to overcome the stress/pressure of work.

I agree, Jason.  I often wonder when people say "my dog has high X-drive" how they qualify that.  Some might say Coke has high prey drive.  He obsesses over rabbits that were outside the fence a WEEK ago.  He will furiously dig and rip at the fence to get out to where that rabbit was sitting last week.  But, I describe Coke as a "low drive" dog because under pressure, he shows very little persistence.  To me, drive is not defined by how a dog acts when left to his own devices but to what extent he will work through pressure and maintain that level of arousal.  As far as I'm concerned, if not interrupted or trained otherwise, ANY dog will fixate on prey objects, chase, and kill them or happily keep their noses to the ground.  Those are natural dog behaviors, not on their own indicative of "drive".

Liesje

To me, drive is not defined by how a dog acts when left to his own devices but to what extent he will work through pressure and maintain that level of arousal.

This is one of those things we see a lot. People bring their pups out for evaluation and are puzzled why all of a sudden the pups act shy or uninterested when they play/chase/tug like crazy at home. Of course what's happening is there are a whole bunch of stressors present at the evaluation that are not present when the dogs are playing at home - things like being at a new place, playing with a new object (rag), playing with a stranger instead of with mom and dad, being asked to play when they may not feel like playing, etc. Most dogs will chase after something that moves but not every dog will do the same when pressured/stressed. It's like what Lies said, it's the "working through" part, the persisting of drive in the face of pressure that really tell you about the strength of the drive.