behavior
Prey drive
The sequence by breed group
- Herding breeds (Border Collies, Australian Shepherds): heavy on eye + stalk + chase, light on bite.
- Sighthounds (Greyhounds, Salukis): chase + grab-bite, often very high arousal once triggered.
- Terriers: grab-bite + kill-bite + dissect. The shake-and-kill response is intact.
- Retrievers: chase + soft grab. The kill-bite has been selected out.
- Livestock guardians: most of the sequence has been suppressed, they watch and bark, not chase.
Living with high prey drive
- Off-leash freedom only in confirmed-safe places. Even a perfect recall fails when a deer crosses 10 ft away.
- Long-line + biothane for nature walks gives freedom without risk.
- Channel the drive into legal outlets: flirt poles, lure coursing, scent work, structured fetch with rules.
- For cat-and-dog households, do the introduction work seriously. A few breeds (some terriers, sighthounds) should not be combined with cats at all.
Why it matters
Prey drive is not a behavior problem; it is the original job description. Trying to extinguish it produces frustration that leaks out as reactivity. Channeling it produces a calmer dog with no diminished outdoor freedom, you just choose the freedom locations carefully.
Frequently asked questions
- Can prey drive be trained out?
- No. It can be managed, redirected to legal outlets, and overridden with strong recall in some contexts, but the underlying drive remains. Adults who claim to have "cured" prey drive usually haven't tested it at full trigger intensity.
- Is high prey drive dangerous?
- To small animals nearby, yes. To people, no, prey drive is not aggression toward humans. Confusing the two leads to the wrong training plan.