Schutzhunds obsession with extreme prey drive. - Page 5

VKGSDs,
Equipment fixation can very well be a training problem.  A high prey drive can still focus on the man and disregard the equipment if trained properly. 

Jim

True but I believe some dogs would never go this way, just not how their minds work and I prefer those dogs.  In general I do not seek "extreme" anything in my dogs, whether that's prey drive or size or rear angulation....  The dog should not have to be out of his mind to do the work correctly with confidence and power.

If you talk dogs as Pure line this and pure line that.. you are missing the point of breeding dogs. Pure line my ass at this point because it os one big gulash.....

All this talk....

I do Schutz and I am not obsessed with "extreme" anything. I like thinking dog, that has a nice off swith (in my experience trained in) and can be lived with. I cant stand hyperactive nutcases and I have hard time working with dogs that obsess over their toys to the point of no brains.

However we all like different things and I am not going to argue that very high prey dog is not good.....for somebody who likes those. So who cares, get what you like and let others get what they like.


Pack

Equipment fixation? That's different. "Out of his mind" or unable to focus in drive (prey OR defense)? Different as well. Potential* byproducts of a behavior should not describe THE behavior. "Extreme" prey drive to me means a dog will expend it's utmost efforts to capture a moving object with efficient haste. Sometimes that means with a lower regard for personal safety, because of a narrower single minded focus (leaps from dangerous height, runs in path of traffic). Conversely, that could be executed with scattered and uncontained excitement, or "out of mind" as you suggested. But those are not the definitions of prey drive. Just adjectives for the verb, they are potential* (and opposing examples) of descriptive qualities for prey drive's expression. Somewhere in the middle of the two might be the ideal, where is the dog his best attuned to the handler's control.

Sorry, my phone won't do paragraphs. Again, hyperactive and toy-obsessive is NOT prey drive.

In real service work both prey & defence drives are useless if dog does not have good "fight drive". The willingness to bring the fight to the adversary & stay in the fight when it gets ugly.

Pack, I totally agree.  Daryl, based on your definitions of "extreme" prey drive, I still do not like it in the extreme form.  I don't want a dog that would jump off a cliff or into molten lava or run into traffic for the prey (or the toy or the helper).  You're right I've mentioned potential byproducts of the extreme behavior but I guess I've yet to see one of these "extreme" prey drive dogs that IMO were not what I consider borderline neurotic and not using their ability to think and discern clearly because of the narrow prey focus.  All the high prey drive dogs I know are also a lower threshold and have less ability to turn off and to settle.  Yes they are two different things but at least in what I've seen they often go hand in hand.  I think part of the problem is people's obsession with this extreme drive and labeling dogs that to me are not so extreme but are really correct.  Is extreme correct?  Not to me.  Besides, like every ad on here supposedly has dogs with extreme drives so it's kind of lost on me...

I didn't say extreme prey drive would mean jumping off a cliff, that's narrow minded focus (in prey). A dog could have narrow minded (or scatterbrained) focus defense as well. "Extreme" is the amount of drive (purposeful effort), rather than the context in which it is expressed. "Extreme" defense (purposeful effort), would then sound a bit like "fight drive", a measure of the dog's resolve to oppose. Unless of course, the dog is running with "extreme" speed to avoid the situation. Ha ha. Just saying that, prey drive alone says nothing about the dog's clear headedness, nerves, or thresholds. Those are a different and equally important matter.

"A dog constantly pushed into defense is going to be a little insecure and expect every fight or challenge to be a "dangerous" situation.  I would think the OP doesn't understand the application of prey and defense in training a dog and what prey brings in an actual confrontation.  A good PPD should see a person charging, running, yelling, screaming, threatening directly at the dog or handler as "prey."  When you understand this concept you begin to understand the need for prey and how to properly train a PPD.  A purely defensive dog is just not going to hold up as well under serious stress and pressure as a well balanced properly trained dog will."

Thank you.  This could and should have been the end of this conversation.

What would stop a dog with extreme prey drive from chasing his prey off a cliff?  What does extreme prey drive without "narrow minded focus" look like?  I'm not trying to be argumentative, as I said I've never paid much attention to extremes so I'm just trying to have a clear picture of what this actually looks like....