Overview of Prey Drive Program

Many dogs have a very strong prey drive to the point where it becomes a significant issue. I personally had a dog that would scream like we were kicking her if she saw a bunny, or clump of leaves that resembled a bunny and wasn't allow to chase it.

Chasing/killing prey is one of those behaviors where if your dog was in another environment, might actually be incredibly beneficial, and might be what your dog was specifically bred to do!

That doesn't make the current behavior any more appropriate, but it means we need to tackle the behavior a bit differently than other behaviors that might not be as deeply ingrained.

As with all my training programs, we start with the Intro Lesson where we'll focus on making sure your dog's base needs are met. This likely will include a lot of things where your dog can do multiple things in the predatory sequence that are actually appropriate in our environments. So this might be things like playing fetch, learning to stalk, searching games, etc.

For more information about the Intro Lesson in general, you can visit the Intro Lesson Page here.

In the supported training portion, we'll actually work on rewarding your dog for engaging in certain portions of the predatory sequence. Good hunters, for dogs where that is appropriate, actually learn a lot of self control in order to be good hunters. We can build on that when designing the program. Essentially, we'll be emphasizing the part of the sequences that are appropriate in your environment, and then finishing that sequence by having a substitute for the final "chase-bite-kill" portion.

We'll also work on impulse control, both in and out of environments with prey.

Prey Drive Difficulty

Timing/Scheduling for Program

Prey drive is tricky to estimate timeframes for. A lot depends on your dog, their history (do they have a strong history of actually catching/killing prey?), the prey they're most interested in, and what environments you can practice in. For example, if you're really only having problems when your dog sees deer, but you don't live anywhere you can reliably practice with deer, the training will take much longer.

For the Coaching option, that is generally something that I suggest every-other-week meetings, as weekly meetings don't seem to really make as much of a difference as with other behaviors.

Still, after 6 weeks, you're typically on a good path towards this, but I've found that the continued training is really important. Prey drive management is one of those things where you're never fully done training, but the maintenance training is typically something that can be done during your everyday outings.

Coaching or Pro Daytrain Track?

I find that prey drive training works well with both Coaching and Pro Daytrain, although I do not recommend the 3 week option for Pro Daytrain as that typically isn't enough time to see much progress.