Drives

I honestly do not know how to teach about “drives” in dogs. I don’t really use that terminology to describe dogs and their behaviors. Some may take this opportunity to try to minimize my ability in working, training or teaching others about dogs. That’s fine, I know what I’ve done, what I am doing and what to do in any future work I may do with dogs.

If people talk to me about dogs and use the different types of “drives” to articulate their thoughts, I can grasp what they’re saying. It’s just hard for me to except all the “drives” as an actual thing, versus a humanized way of trying to explain certain naturally instinctive canine behaviors.

So, you say you know what “prey drive” is, and that actively engaging a decoy during aggression control training is “ fight drive”. To that I say, it sounds way to compartmentalized and I don’t believe that things can be so definitively separated. I’ll ask this, when in those drives are things shifted from one to the other? What is it called if the dog is deployed on a decoy, in let’s call it “fight drive”, what gear are they shifted into when they are recalled?

I believe dogs live instinctually, and we humans only communicate obedience in conjunction with the dogs overwhelming instinct to please us and be with us. This communication and work allow us the opportunity to be a team with our dogs and achieve anything we choose to.

Then you ask if the Terrier breed would even have “defense drive”? You say that they would most likely just go from “prey drive” to “fight drive”. I’ll answer that with some questions, if the prey stops, during the “prey drive” pursuit, turns and goes after the Terrier, does the Terrier not have “defense drive”? Is the Terrier unable, or because you say he only has “prey to fight drive” that he can’t defend himself? What if the Terrier is commanded by its handler to terminate its pursuit of prey, does it continue and kill it anyway, simply because they do not have “stop drive”?

What about “hunt drive”, or “play drive”? I mean we can put anything in words of different drives. It can get crazy, like some dogs may have “ball drive” or more yet, “tennis ball drive” or “Kong ball drive”. I recently watched a video of a dog described to have “vehicle guard drive”. This is where I feel like the whole drive stuff falls off the rails. Again, when people talk to me about some of the stuff, I can understand, kinda,,,, I just don’t choose to think that way.

Some will then question how to get the dogs doing “bite work” or “aggression control” without thorough knowledge of “drive” and how to use them to train the dog to bite? My answer is always this, dogs know how to bite. We (humans) are simply teaching the dogs when to, not how to, through obedience. Obedience is the basis of communicating with the dogs. Every dog is different, instinctively, due to their breed and their uses. Dogs all serve a purpose, but their most important purpose is to serve us. They serve us based on our needs and how clearly, we are able to communicate those needs.