Jump Starting the Prey Drive

I’ve been wanting to supply a simple trick or two to getting dogs with “no prey drive” jazzed up and starting to act drivey, for those dog owners who need that kind of help, and I dug into the archives and found this. .

(Originally posted, in slightly different form, on Amazon, August 20, 2006):

Jump Starting the Prey Drive

I met with Trevor and his owner yesterday and was trying to get Trevor to push against me to get his food (he likes vegetables so I was using broccoli and cauliflower florets). It was around one in the afternoon, and he hadn’t eaten breakfast, so he was hungry, which should have made it easy when I tried to demonstrate the technique so his owner could do it between now and Monday.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s an exercise I use to build a dog’s drive. It’s pretty simple. You take the dog outside when he’s hungry. Tease him with his kibble, or something even a little more tantalizing, holding it in your left hand. Then you put your right hand against the dog’s chest (but you don’t push him, just hold your hand steady), you put the treats or kibble in front of the dog’s nose, using your left hand, then tease him with the food, encourage him to take it, but you don’t let him. You hold your right hand steady against his chest. All he has to do to get fed is push against you. Once he does that, he gets to eat. You gradually (over a period of a few days or weeks), increase the pressure you put against his chest so he has to keep pushing harder and harder against you. The harder he pushes the more you’ll build his drive.

I was sitting on a couch, with Trevor, who weighs about 20 lbs. on the floor. But he kept getting a little spooked and pulling back or trying to come at the food in my hand from a different angle. Then I got an idea, I invited him up on the couch so he’d be on my level. He jumped up eagerly and I could see some of that drive energy I was trying to get him to express come out in him. Still, though, as soon as I started the game, he backed off and got nervous.

So here’s where I did something that might be helpful for some of you to learn: I put a floret in my right hand (effectively removing it as a source of emotional discomfort for Trevor, since that was the hand that I’d been using to block his access to the food), then I teased him with it. He got interested, but decided, “Wouldn’t it be easier to get the food that’s now in your left hand?” So I put those in a little bowl and got them out of the way. Then I went back to teasing Trevor with the one in my right hand. Once he was excited about the game, I tossed the floret toward the kitchen, saying “Go get it,” in a happy, excited tone.

He jumped off the couch and raced after it! (I know it sounds dumb, but for Trevor this was a first step to being able to play with me!) While he raced after it I grabbed another one from the bowl, invited him up on the couch, and when he jumped up, I teased him with the second one then threw it for him chase. I repeated this one more time, and with the 4th floret, I held it in my left hand and placed my right hand against his chest, just as I’d tried to do before, and he pushed against me to get it. His drive was really coming up now.

Sometimes it’s a little improvisation, a simple change of plan that can bring a dog’s drive to the surface. So if your dog is hesitant about playing with balls or toys, but he loves his cookies, use them as a prey object. Some people might worry that you’re setting a pattern that’ll interfere with the dog bringing the toy back. Don’t worry about that, the first goal is to get the dog to love chasing something. Remember, that’s already hardwired into his DNA. Once he has fun repeatedly chasing a biscuit or piece of chicken (or a floret), you’ve opened up a channel to it, you’ve re-awakened his DNA. Then you can slowly introduce him to the idea of chasing a ball. For instance, you could switch the game around a little from what I did with Trevor (inside a crowded apartment), and instead of just tossing the food object, you could tease him with it and run away, get him to chase you around the back yard, then toss it a few feet. Then one day, when you think he’s ready, substitute a tennis ball as the focal point of the chase me game, and when you can see that he’s crazy to catch you and nip at you in play, you get him to focus his urge to bite onto the ball, then toss it a few feet. It doesn’t even have to be a ball, either; it can be his favorite toy. The idea is to increase his desire for something he already has a smidgen of desire for, then get him to chase it.

This brings up one last point, if a dog has little or no interest in chasing a toy or a ball, you need to start him off with very short throws. (This is especially true of puppies and tracking breeds, like bloodhounds.)

LCK

The point about this little exercise I did with Trevor (it was initially done indoors, but once I started working with him on a daily basis, I did it outside most of the time), is a simple fact of nature. Once you get a dog chasing something, anything, a change takes place internally. You’ve reconnected him to his predatory nature, if only fleetingly. Anything that stimulates the urge to chase can be utilized to increase, amplify, and jump start a dog’s prey drive in training.