Taking advantage of prey drive

[welsh]

On the other hand, maybe we shouldn't talk about "prey drive":

http://www.gundogmag.com/2010/09/23/tra ... prey_0510/

[Allyson]

Oh dear, what a peculiar, rambling, illogical article riddled with innacuracies and irrelevant asides to crates and socialisation etc

[leeky]

That was a difficult read for me as i satiated my wine drive last night - oh, wait a minute, i was just thirsty apparently What a t*****!He's entitled to his opinion but why belittle everyone else's opinion to get it across? Just reads like an egotistical rant to me! Must remember "exposure" not "socialisation", "a shot of enthusiasm" not "prey drive" Surely throwing around "incorrect jargon" is a sign of people at least trying to learn about what makes their dog tick

[Wendy M]

On the other hand, maybe we shouldn't talk about "prey drive":

http://www.gundogmag.com/2010/09/23/tra ... prey_0510/

So basically all he's saying is that it should be called Predation Drive (the drive to predate) rather than Prey Drive. Fair enough I suppose, but what a long-winded article to say that!!

I get the bit about socialisation, but again he's getting all het up about the words people use, How strange to let wording get your 'hackles up'!!

Wendy

[Judy]

Brilliant! All he is saying is if you want to use the terminology get it right.

[trekmoor]

I can understand "wording" getting peoples hackles up ,I get mine up when folk warble on about Operant Conditioning as if it is something new under the sun and they often use every fancy word or phrase they have ever read or heard of when describing it.They seem to take pleasure in trotting out a complexity of those words and phrases. Is this done to make them sound more knowledgeable ? The writer of that article was just as bad in his own way however. He warbled on too. For myself I prefer to warble about dog training .

Wullie

[leeky]

So, err for the purposes of this post should i still use the term "prey drive"?

[welsh]

You may accuse me of stirring the pot.

The author of that piece was head of the animal behaviour dept at U of Guelph, so of course he well knows the correct use of those terms in ethology. Normally, I'd just shrug that one off and say he's picking nits because he needs a topic for his column this month. But when I learn people are basing training philosophies on the idea of redirecting the prey drive, I have to concede his point. I'm not sure that's not just a new wrapper on the old adage that a tired pup is a good pup.

If you ask me, all explanations of training systems are suspect. This is what got us in trouble with dominance theory: it was essentially an attractive explanation (with appeal to human psychology) for something that seemed to work well with dogs. The behaviours termed "dominant" might better have been called, at most, "obnoxious." They tended to indicate an overindulgent owner who did not spend time in training. Train the dog, and suddenly its behaviour improves. Who woulda thunk it? Cesar Millan's ideas about "energy" are another example. The actions work, but the explanations are bogus; then, the explanations take over and give us bad ideas about dogs.

Better to focus on actions than explanations.

[trekmoor]

So, err for the purposes of this post should i still use the term "prey drive"?

You use whatever terms and words you like, it is your dog you have to persuade to understand them , not me.

Wullie

[leeky]

So, err for the purposes of this post should i still use the term "prey drive"?

You use whatever terms and words you like, it is your dog you have to persuade to understand them , not me.

Wullie