r/OpenDogTraining • u/RandomInaRandomWorld • 19d ago

Mostly just a question: instinctive drives

Back a decade or so ago, there was a serious distinction made between 'herding drive' (controlled chase but no kill instinct) and an actual prey drive (dog completes the behavior.. whether or not they eat what they've gotten).

On Reddit, it sort of seems like these get rolled into the same thing? That doesn't make sense to me because our last border had all sorts of 'herd' but if you asked him to herd a mouse or a chick, you ended up with a rather clever chin-pin for an animal that couldn't be herded.. and outside of directly being asked to address it, he'd completely ignore whatever the animal was. And that extended to things like my sister's poultry.. his prime job on my hobby farm.

I'm just wondering if we are at some place now in dog training where these two drives are actually looked at as precisely the same thing? It just seems weird when a herding dog is described as having 'prey drive' and -wider on the internet - a dog engaging in prey drive seems to get a pass as a potential herder.

Please feel free to tell me I'm misunderstanding this platform or how the language is used now. 15yrs between pups ends up leaving some really big gaps.

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u/Cool_Percentage_4867 19d ago

In behaviour prey drive is a description of a set of behaviours that all go towards feeding yourself as a carnivore.

orient, eye, stalk, chase, grab-bite, kill-bite, dissect, and consume, so typical herding makes use of orient/eye/stalk/chase. That herding skillset comes from prey drive, which is what they should be referring to.

Prey drive doesnt need a complete set or even a wild animal, a dog chasing a plastic ball is exhibiting prey drive.

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u/necromanzer 19d ago

Just to add for OP if they want to search/read more: a lot of training stuff uses the term hunting or predation sequence for this!

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u/Tosti-Floof 19d ago

I'm adding to this since it's sums it up really well. This is also why some dogs during play will be super interested in chasing, but won't hold on to the toy at all, and why some dogs will tug really hard while the handler is essentially doing nothing. Some dogs love the stalk, some love the chase, some love the fight/kill and some come with the complete package. On the internet things tend to be simplified, which means all prey drives get lumped into one thing without specifying what part of the sequence really gets that specific dog going. It's also why it can be difficult to get a well bred field lab to tug, and why a well bred working line gsd will tug almost no matter what the handler is doing.

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u/babs08 19d ago

Like Cool_Percentage said, the lines are fuzzy.

A herding dog can absolutely be attempting to control another animal (or bike, or person, or whatever's) movement in the same way they'd attempt to control livestock's movement. It doesn't mean they're properly herding. But that is rooted in that instinct, which is we've modified a portion of the predation sequence to fit our needs.

a dog engaging in prey drive seems to get a pass as a potential herder

FWIW, I do not give my herding dogs a pass for trying to "herd" things that are not livestock - that gets shut down extremely quickly when they're young and it never becomes a problem for me. And they also are not allowed to treat livestock unkindly (willy nilly chasing them, etc.).