Clarify prey drive levels Behaviour

In my experience any dog will hunt and kill, given the chance - and why not? It`s totally normal and indeed a positive survival trait. The `high prey drive` thing comes in according to how enthusiastic the dog is about it, does it not? I know behaviourists use this description so maybe one of those could enlighten us as to what criteria they judge the levels?

This is a really interesting thread, so keep it going please!

In very simple terms, I would say that a dog has low prey drive when (without training) it is uninterested in chasing live prey and in chasing/playing with a toy (or is easily distracted from doing so.

I would say that a medium prey drive animal (in its untrained form) would chase prey animals (probably not all prey animals) and play with toys, but that its prey drive can through training be controlled and can be channelled into playing with toys, i.e. ball orientated dogs which can be recalled from a chase.

On the other hand, I think that a high prey drive animal, cannot help itself - it just has to chase that prey. I think that it would be very hard to recall such an animal from chasing real prey, because real prey would hold more value for it than a toy etc. I think that such an dog would also have a low threshold at which its prey drive is ignited, i.e. most if not all prey animals would stimulate it, and would stimulate it even if they are not running away, e.g just grazing.

Of course dogs are living creatures with different personalities, so it is difficult to fit them all into neat categories. I knew a dog once which was not motivated very much by a ball or tuggy, but it lived to chase real prey, and scanned the horizon for it. No amount of training helped this. I would class this as high (v high) I think that a lot of huskies, malamutes, and sight hounds fall into this catetory too, although there are exceptions of course.

Just my two cents worth . . .

Sadly mine don'teven when they have the chance handed to them on a plate!
I have often wanted them to dispatch Rabbits we have found with Myxi (I think a quick death is preferable to what they endure with Myxi - but I can't do it). They will chase...but as soon as the animal stops running its no fun...and they wait for the chase to retart.

The one exception to this (and I wasn;t witness) was Tassle killing a Mole....she tracked it underground with her nose...went up and did a nose dive into a major dig and came straight up with it in her mouth and did a kill toss. (The campsite owner wanted to hire her!)

I don't think prey drive is a bad thing....these are predators that we have domesticated, in some breeds we have actively encouraged a higher prey drive. Its what makes a dog a dog - (or a cat a cat for that matter!)

I think high prey drive (well any 'drive') is a difficult thing...we might class a lazy husky as having a low prey drive becasue it does 1/2 hearted chases or can be stopped....is this training or low prey drive....

However, if a breed we may not see as a chasing breed takes off after every rabbit it sees we might classify that as High because we do not expect it.
Does that make sense

I think a lot of how we classify drives depends on our own sucsess/failures or experience of dogs.

That sounds right to me - although it would vary with the character , experience and training of individual dogs as well as being affected by breed. I`ve got a GSP who would (in his youth) hunt and despatch efficiently but will also respond to his training, a GSD who is obsessively fixated to a Ballie while being occasionally unpredictable, and a Hound who will hunt game when the duck appears but the rest of the time isn`t that bothered. Of these, I`d say the GSD has the high prey drive in spite of the fact she has never hunted anything in her life (thank gawd) because of the level of arousal.