Would you consider your dog to have a low, medium or high prey drive?

Hahaha, I stole this topic from another forum. Prey drive and temperament are to topics I find really interesting, I'm not expert on this topic and still in the learning process when it comes to these two. So thought I would post this question here and get everyone's views on their dog(s).

Would you consider your dog to have a low, medium or high prey drive and your reason why?

Which one.. LMFAO


The pyrs have no PREY DRIVE. I could do a whole topic on TRUE LGD PYRS. They do not need Trainning to do their jobs like some working dogs. However, to give them a good start in what is expecting of them . They need to be raised with the herd as soon as they come out. They can not be in the house. They must bond with their herd. Their guarding instincts are just like you as a mom or dad. They protect what they have bonded with. They do not have a prey drive

DRAKE- I would say has a high prey drive He is a shepard mix. He will kill gophers ect. But he does know what is his herd and what isn't his herd

Keeshound. NO PREY DRIVE

Bosco I will let you know. He is very protective but I don't know if you would say he has a prey drive. It is hard to tell as he is still is in his puppy stages

Pugs. LMFAO.. I think they try to have a prey drive..

My pugs don't have a prey drive at all....... they won't chase anything even if I want them too.

Violet I thought had a very high prey drive when she was younger but now that she is maturing a little more I am going to go with medium. She does get excited about chasing birds, rodents, balls, toys, moving things but at the same time its difficult to keep her attention for a long period of time and if she is not in the mood she is not in the mood....... My JRT who had a prey drive to kill for would chase anything for hours until she was removed or just not physically able to....... even if she was tired she would chase a ball for hours and hours and she would chase and catch rodents, I don't see violet with this kind of drive especially as she gets older, she is just to big and bulky.

Tank has a high prey drive for things that interest him.. but if I want him to chase it.. none LOL

I would think that my dog has a high prey drive, but it would be nice to have her drive evaluated from a non-biased person. lol

She can be laying calmly, relaxed, just chilling. lol But if she sees a fly in the house or a butterfly outside, it's immediately "I have to jump up from my nice rest and the chase is on". I think she would make a good herding dog but there are no herding classes within a 2 hour driving range in my area. Would have to have her herding tested first to see if should make the cut. She used to be really bad when she was younger with bikes riding by, cars driving by, kids on roller blades and skate boards, squirrels, toys thrown across the yard in a game of fetch. Basically any fast moving object. With lots of training, I'm able to limit her chases to just flies, butterflies, and bumble bees, these three things we are working on.

BigBrownEyes29 wrote:

I would think that my dog has a high prey drive, but it would be nice to have her drive evaluated from a non-biased person. lol

She can be laying calmly, relaxed, just chilling. lol But if she sees a fly in the house or a butterfly outside, it's immediately "I have to jump up from my nice rest and the chase is on". I think she would make a good herding dog but there are no herding classes within a 2 hour driving range in my area. Would have to have her herding tested first to see if should make the cut. She used to be really bad when she was younger with bikes riding by, cars driving by, kids on roller blades and skate boards, squirrels, toys thrown across the yard in a game of fetch. Basically any fast moving object. With lots of training, I'm able to limit her chases to just flies, butterflies, and bumble bees, these three things we are working on.

Mine Cailleach "Princess" gets a low on the scale, she's always been such a "girl" from day one. She chases nothing other than the cats and that's really just playing and they chase her back. She frets about a hair out of place or her toys being dirty...she baths them after playing with them. When Julio the rough house boy first arrived she would challenge him to get her toys back and spend hours giving them a tongue bath. Still to this day she has her own original toys and the others get the growl if they go near them. Lol...if her topknot gets messy she comes to me to get it fixed, she loves wearing dog clothes and prances around when she gets something new. If she gets muck on her face after meals she uses hubbys pant leg as a napkin. She has zero interest in normal dog stuff, poop she won't smell or think about rolling on, she will eat only good quality food and if she's offered a slice of weiner she turns her nose up at it and gives the Cailleach "look", which translates to..."You're joking, right, wheres the steak". If she gets a poopy stuck on her bum she hides under the table til I clean her up and then she does a happy dance afterwards. Never met a dog like her before in my life, she's the smallest dog the house and the boss of them...our personal demi goddess diva dog.

The Havs have a medium to high prey drive. Everything you mentioned they chase, especially Arriba and dam birds. I don't mind when they are off leash and supposed to be having some "dog time" but when am training them and they lose focus it's a pain. Instant recall on a farm is extremely important because we have predators, vehicle hazards with large and small machinery and the odd potentially harmful wild animals, large and small like the porcupines we had visit a while back. It can get frustrating to set a balance between letting them be dogs having a romp and being controlling and setting rules that have to be minded. 90 % of the time they are very obedient but the 10 % when they aren't concerns me a lot.

My yorkie has the prey drive of a kitchen rug,unless it is a squirrel,she will chase and bark at it until it is in the tree,
then she guards the tree

The squirrl weighs as much as her,so not sure what she would
do with it if she caught it

Sasha has never shown much, if any, prey drive. Now herding is a totally different story. Either she'll round it up or run it off. Our budgies use to have free flight in their room, if she happened to sneak in behind me she'd try to corral them towards their cages. When I have Quinn out she'll walk from me (holding him) to his cage and back, finally settling by the cage as if to say OK, time for you to put him where he belongs. Several years ago I had a rescue pup here for about three months. Sweet thing was not in good shape at first so not too mobile.....but once she was up and on the go Sasha decided the kitchen table and chairs was the pen. Pup could wander around under them all she wanted, but if she tried to stray outside the legs, sash would swing alongside and shoulder her back under. The wild rabbits can graze in the yard all they want, coming all the way up to the patio......she won't budge off the steps. But as soon as they start heading back towards the woods, she's off in a flash in a wide arc trying to head them back to grazing space.

Wouldn't chase so much as a ball if her life depended on it....she had never learned to play before coming to us. But she sure as hell wanted at coyotes the times they stalked us on our evening walks (which we long ago stopped taking)

Pooper, Cailleach sounds like a sweetie. The Havs sound like a couple of hams. LOL I don't think there is a such thing as a dog that is 100% obedient. They are dogs, but I have seen a lot that are 90 to 95% obedient.

Rottnmom, you're the second person with a Rottweiler that has mentioned while out on a walk with their dog, they have been stalked by coyotes.

Our 'subdivision' is in the woods so most of the walk down our road we're surrounded by trees on either side. The first time it happened we were coming along a long stretch of woods and Sasha was to the outside of me. All of a sudden she darted to the inside, between me and the trees and started to growl, which is totally unlike her. Snug against my leg, almost pushing, she continued to snarl then bark. I started looking expecting to see a cat or coon, but the eyes that shone back out at me were too damn far off the ground for either. When she made a lunge for the woods I hauled her back and got moving. It trailed along the edge of the trees until we hit a driveway. Have no idea where it headed then but that was close enough. The second time Sasha just make a snarling leap towards the trees and we were gone. Only a few more walks and we were done with the after daylight ones.

They pass through out yard on occasion, I've met one in my driveway, turned and headed for the house when it thought it was trapped between my car and the house so turned and snarled at me. Four years ago all the cats (and there were a lot) in the subdivision went missing ...... and one small dog. We have a lot of young families with small children who are constantly visiting each other. Parents are much more cautious now with when and where their kids go.

I have no doubt that even with her low prey drive, Sasha wouldn't hesitate if off leash to go straight at one......but that's not something I ever want to have to deal with.