Hunting Instinct

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by SchmalzK9 on 23 November 2009 - 15:11

Vikram,

Hunt drive is definitely a desirable trait. GSD's have been used in Law Enforcement for years because of the drives they possess. It is hard to find dogs with even drives and temperament today, but there are a few breeders who still breed GSD's for what they were intended to be: A WORKING DOG.

Pac Drive- social, desire to please the Alpha, good for training in all aspects whether sport or real life

Prey Drive- chase and bite, harnessed to chase and catch fleeing criminals or helpers in sport

Civil Drive- to fight when needed and not run, to stand his/her ground, after catching fleeing criminals the dog will stay and fight the person and not let go of the bite until told to do so. Also good in sports, the dog will not come off the bite when stick hit.

Hunt Drive- looking for prey by using its nose. This drive is harnessed and it's prey becomes a toy or food reward. This is used for detection work in Law enforcement, with toy reward. If the dog has no desire to hunt then the dog will not want to locate and indicate on an odor for his/her reward. Must have hunt drive in order to be a good detection dog. In sport, tracking is pretty much teaching the dog to hunt for articles and indicate.

There are more drives but these are the basics for work.

I do want to know why people always say their dog has lots of ball drive. Ball drive is not a drive. It is putting a dog into prey drive and nothing else. A dogs drive is what compels him/her to do something that comes natural to the dog. If you want to know more about a dogs natural drives and what drives they really have do some research on wolves. Dogs and wolves are not that different from one another when it comes to basic instincts and drives.

by darylehret on 23 November 2009 - 19:11

I think to a large degree, when discussing behaviors, there needs to be a tolerance for someone's perception of them. No model of behavior is going to be "correct" for every context in every given discussion. What we consider the status quo, usually is largely dependent on the background we come from, and our understanding of them can easily differ from the views of others with similar backgrounds.

In scientific behavioral studies, the term "ethogram" is used to describe the various modes of individual behaviors.

"In ethology, an ethogram is a catalogue of the discrete behaviors typically employed by a species. These behaviors are sufficiently stereotyped that an observer may record the number of such acts, or the amount of time engaged in the behaviours in a time budget."

Or, from another description, "An ethogram is a catalog of an animal’s behavioral repetoire, detailing the different forms of behavior that are displayed by an animal. In most cases, it is desirable to create an ethogram in which the categories of behavior are objective, discrete, and do not overlap with each other. Definitions should be clear, detailed and distinguishable from each other.

Ethograms can be as specific or general as the study warrants. A research project dealing strictly with aggressive behavior in chimpanzees can be composed simply of the various forms of aggression displayed by that species. Alternatively, some studies seek to describe all facets of a particular animal's behavior, and the appropriate ethogram will comprehensively categorize any and all behaivors that may occur. "

Here is the dog ethogram, as described in the Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior and Training, with no equivalent to "hunt" drive as we have described it here. Here's an example of a wolf ethogram, with no mention at all of hunting behaviors, just social pack interactions. While here is another ethogram that describes the hunting behaviors, for use in study, it doesn't fully describe or relate to the behavior we're describing here, in this thread. This one on coyotes, describes 'hunt behavior' completely synonomous to the way we generally understand prey drive.

Basically, it's all about context. While some models of behavior are aimed at describing only social pack dynamics, others include hunting behaviors and environmental interaction. Others are specialized for specific timeframes, like during mating season, or during early developments stages of the animal.

We all know, there are some very great trainers of dogs that never make use of the term "drive" at all. Our models for understanding them are rather simplified, compared to the complex interaction and various degrees of the behavioral components we actually experience from them. The map is not the territory!

There are many official fields of study that attempt to classify or model animal behaviors (animal cognition, comparative psychology, ethology, behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive ethology, cognitive psychology, and more). And if none of these educated specialists can agree, why should we?

by Slamdunc on 23 November 2009 - 21:11

Daryl,
Again, I agree with you. Very informative post. If the experts can't agree what chance do we have.

I have "my" definitions of drives and traits. We define about 16 drives or behaviors that are useful for police dogs. They are more than I would need for a discussion of drives in a SchH dog. Some terms would be identical and the behaviors are obviously similar. I'm sure as you have pointed out these drives could be broken down even further, but that is for smarter people than me. I have enough trouble with the ones I use on a regular basis...;)

Jim

by snajper69 on 23 November 2009 - 21:11

If hunt drive is desire to locate, find, than my dog got way too much of it. Last week like a dumb ass I throw a ball into a woods first the rope got suspended on the branches but my dog still continue on looking for it, after a 20 minutes she was still at it. Finally the ball came down but she was already searching a different area, well my trainer laugh at me and said that she will never find it and like always I beg to differ as this would be not the first time that she did it, so once a ball came down after like 10 minutes off looking in the different area she came back to the original are where the ball was suspended in the air, it took her 10 more minutes and yeah she found it. Keep in mind she is 16 months old and I didn't even start tracking with her but only because since a young age she proved to have a good nose, and because I hate to track lol.

When she was younger at about 1 year old I took her into the woods a lot, and every time she caught a scent of animal on the trail, off she went (forget recall she didn't care was to into tracking the animal) being an ass that I am I just continue on my walk and was walking towards the car, 45 minutes went by and she was back with me with scratches all over her face I don't know what she was hunting but she got her ass kicked ;) lol. She continues to do the same thing, is just now when I see her locking in I put her on a leash because I hate waiting for her lol ;). She has the best nose I ever seen on a dog.

Finally once she track down a skunk lol and this time I fallowed her as I wanted to see how good her nose really is, well by the time we got to him I was the first one running away and she still tried to pick a fight with him, luckily her recall was better at the time and it ended without the stung ;) lol.

Hunting instinct is not for me lol.

by DDRshep on 24 November 2009 - 00:11

I once had a GSD that was hiking with me in the forest. He picked up a scent on the ground and took off with his nose close to the ground.
He came back - after 4 days.
He didn't look hungry at all.
Might have been hunt drive at work.

by 4pack on 24 November 2009 - 01:11

I make my dogs search all the time, as a mental stimulation and excersize. Once you have a dog that is ball/toy crazy, it's easy and fun to do. Start out by holding your dog back when you throw, so he has to use his nose some to find it in the grass. After they keep interested enough to find that every time, cover their eyes so they don't see the area it fell in. Then I start downing them at a distance, walking to where I want to hide the ball, I start out with it on the ground not covered, then I cover with wood chips, grass, dirt. After that I start moving the object up off the ground. The key is to be sure your dog is to the point he does not give up EVER before you move to a harder step. Sometimes I step in and "help" a dog but I never let him just give up.

Today I used the jungle gym at the park to hide the ball. It was fun watching my dog switch from nose to ground to lifting his head and smelling up higher, jumping up on the equipment and so on. He was looking under the slides, inside them and really using his brain and poking his nose everywhere. It's also the way I get them doing send outs and boundries. When I say "no" they learn to turn around and go back the way they came. Soon I will start saying "no" and adding left or right to teach specific direction. I point and say "go get it" but you can say "search", "find" or whatever and then apply a down, as they are moving out. There is your send out. Soon I am going to have to find a new place to work searches and then start them on a different object. I want to eventually have them finding people who are hidden, easier for the dog I think, since he will have a trail to follow to the person.

Oh by the way, any of you who want to try this with the object placement, if your dog can see you, they are not stupid, you will have to walk all around, acting like you are hiding a bunch of objects in different places in your "area" or the dog will just go right to the one place you went and BINGO.

Trust me, you can build this in a dog. The guy I have now was super lazy when he was younger and would give up pretty quick if he lost his ball. Now, we don't go home without it. I accidentally threw the ball into my moms burn pile the other day, playing fetch. It took my dog 20 minutes or so and me throwing pieces of particle board accross the pile, so I could walk up on it and look down for the ball. I never did see the stupid ball and thought it was a lost cause. The pile was 20 feet around and 7 feet high. Damned if my dog didn't sniff it out, as he was walking on the boards I laid accross. He stuck his face through the web of branched and pulled the ball out to my amazement.

by Two Moons on 24 November 2009 - 01:11

Its hard for me to keep up with some of these terms that are tossed around for interpretation.
Hunting Instinct for one.

Hi 4pack... hope your feeling better.

I can touch a rock or stick and throw it among other rocks or sticks, without seeing this my dogs can find that particular object every time.

Just thought I'd throw that in.

Moons.

by Krazy Bout K9s on 24 November 2009 - 02:11

Again,
I hunt pheasants with my female GSD, Brooke, she has an awesome nose for the birds, and I love to see her tail start flagging when she picks up the trail of a bird or a runner.
Steph
So is this the type of hunting Vikram was talking about??? LOL...

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