corvus

Erik is an extremely noisy little dog and he will bark at other dogs if they are playing. He's a herder. It's what he does. Dance around on the outskirts barking and trying to nip ankles or tails. He gets thoroughly ignored. He stops barking if he gets involved in chasing or wrestling games directly. No one has ever seemed bothered by it and if I ever saw a dog bothered by it I'd put him back on leash. We have met the odd dog that will see ours and just come over alert barking at them. This is pretty confrontational on the neutral ground of a dog park. My boys don't really like it, but they usually stay away. I say usually because Erik is 8 months old and does something new about a dozen times a day. I wouldn't be surprised if he barked back. I don't think alert barking or giving warning barks at dog parks is the behaviour of a well socialised dog, but barking in excitement is not uncommon and while it sometimes bothers dogs if it's very intense, IME it mostly gets ignored.

This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Given the circumstances, I believe it was a possessive/feeling threatened sort of action. I'd been showing the dog's owner some clicker training and then Erik came along wanting to be in on it and the dog got all bothered but didn't really know what to do about it so he cocks his leg. I leapt, but not quite fast enough! I ignored it. Just a confused and slightly agitated little dog that doesn't know any better.

Clyde, Comfortis has been a godsend. Last year every flea treatment was ineffective and even flea bombing the house only knocked them down for a week. Once the doggies went on Comfortis it took about three months for the fleas to disappear. I don't know what we would have done without it. Probably ripped up the carpet by now, anyway. It made Kivi a bit nauseous the first few times, but he doesn't get that anymore.

Can I use a spot-on flea treatment with Comfortis? I thought I couldn't... They are at the end of their month and ready for another tablet, so I could skip the Comfortis and give them a spot-on treatment instead, except that none of them work on our fleas anymore. I've finally managed to get the dogs completely flea-free after last year's resistance nightmare. I'm pretty scared of giving them a chance to make another comeback! I'll give the flea bath etc a go, but if it doesn't get rid of them I'll talk to the vet. I'm confident my workmate can ID the mite as accurately as anyone can. Probably better. He has lots of friends at the museum that love that kind of thing. Thanks for the help, guys. Are you sure you had stickfast fleas, AmandaJ? I thought they laid eggs like normal fleas. These guys are definitely not fleas. They have 8 legs for starters.

Yeah... I might go with what the macroinvert expert says. He's taking my mite home to check under the microscope, but he thinks it's some kind of Tetranychidae. Showed me some pictures and told me the genus he suspects, but he isn't sure. They are pretty distinctive as they have two very long legs at the front that they wave around like antennae. We could just see them with the naked eye. I've seen mites like them in loads of macro samples I've sorted. They turn up in alcohol traps pretty much anywhere at all. AKAIK, some mites do live in bushes. They feed on sap. Or other mites. Or pretty much any dead organic material. It's pretty weird for us to have problems with them living on us (or trying to), but I guess if we walked through a pile of them maybe they are just trying to do what they do and find food. Guess I'll just give the dogs a flea bath and see what happens. Maybe the rubbing alcohol will be a winner even with the fur to deal with.

Erik and Kivi have been acting restless and wired all week, to the point that we had Kivi keep us up half the night on Tuesday night because he couldn't settle. He was so restless I was on the verge of calling the vet (at 1:30am). It was so uncharacteristic of him and I couldn't figure out what his problem was. Meanwhile, Erik has been scratching like mad. I thought he'd picked up a flea or two from my parents' place, but he's on Comfortis and I couldn't find any fleas on him. He's red and itchy as hell, though. He woke us up at 3:30am this morning because he was so itchy he couldn't sleep, poor fella. It was all a mystery until I got some itchy spots as well, and discovered what I assumed was a miniscule tick smaller than a pin head. So tiny I had to put it on white paper under a light to detect legs. Anyway, I conveniently found another one on me just now while I was at work and my colleague is a macroinvertebrate specialist (although he says this critter is just barely "macro"). He tells me it's a mite rather than a tick and the irritation would be from the critters getting under our skin in their search for dead skin cells to munch up. They are so little they can just wriggle their way in there. He says one of the dogs probably just walked through a bush that had a nest of them and now they are getting on everyone. They are pretty fragile and should wash right off, except the ones that are under the skin where they are safe. My workmate said I might have to wash the dogs a couple of times. Has anyone else experienced this? We swabbed Erik's itchy belly with rubbing alcohol this morning, which took care of the one my partner found under his skin earlier. I'm just not entirely sure what to do with Kivi. His fur is so dense I think they are just on his face. He sure was rubbing it on me on Tuesday night. Should I just douse his head with water and see if he settles down? I don't really want to put any chemicals on his face. I put a tick collar on him this morning, but not sure if it would have any effect on any he might have under his skin...

The way that play versus predatory behaviour is treated in the literature is basically "hardly at all". If it involves live animals, it's considered predatory aggression, but if it doesn't, it's considered play. That's not to say there aren't heaps of crossovers, because it's broadly recognised that the purpose of play is to practice for real life events including social harmony, intraspecific competition (fights), predatory behaviour and predator-avoidance behaviour if you're a prey animal. Even sex, as there can be lots of mounting behaviour incorporated into play. It gets hairy because so many behaviours from other contexts pop up in play. One method of differentiating is to look at the sequence of the behaviours and the context in which they are performed. So if you get a dog that chases, then stalks, you would consider that play as the behaviours are out of sequence. But there are other criteria as well, such as whether the behaviour is performed for a discernable reason, or whether it is accompanied by exaggerated movements, whether it is energetically expensive or awkward, and the likelihood of a final consummatory act. There have been papers written on "object play", which includes tug and chasing balls. There is no question whether it is play or predatory behaviour. It is treated as play for the above reasons. As far as scenting is concerned, I guess it falls under the same banner as herding. Herding is not really predatory behaviour and not play behaviour. It's modified predatory behaviour. I think it should be called just that. Seeking behaviour is, according to Panksepp at least, highly rewarding in its own right, whether connected to predatory behaviour or not. Scenting can exist as part of a predatory behaviour sequence, but can also occur in isolation as an exploratory behaviour. I'm inclined to forget about drive all together and call it scenting. Seeking drive, perhaps, if you must. Unless it's followed by a few other hunting behaviours. Someone once asked me what dog they should get considering they had pet rabbits. They wanted a Beagle. I told them that was not a good idea. They got one anyway and it tried to kill their rabbit. Prey-driven dog. It certainly didn't mess around scenting first.

Hold on, though.... While it would be very very bad for a LG to be killing the livestock, they were pretty much bred to be out there on their own all the time. If my LG history is correct, they were often expected to feed themselves on small game. At least, as I interpreted it some breeds were self-sufficient. Aidan, the thing that really stood out to me with the gundogs was their tails going a million miles an hour. I've never seen a hunting dog wagging their tail. Sometimes when they are seeking back and forth looking for prey, but not when they have it in their sights. Oh, maybe I've seen a rat terrier do a little tail wiggle in a video, but nothing like those happy gundogs. So I've been kind of using the stillness of the tail as an indicator. Has anyone else ever seen a dog going after prey wagging their tail like that? I think Vickie summed up my current thoughts on this topic pretty well. And I wholly agree with Greytmate's descriptions of dogs in prey drive.

Sorry Kavik, this is pretty vital and I totally skipped it because I was thinking about it from a natural point of view rather than a training point of view. I'll try to explain succinctly for once, but I think it's gonna sound like I'm contradicting myself... When I said the prey is the bit that defines prey drive, I didn't mean that prey drive can only be satisfied by prey. It's almost the same as what everyone else on the board thinks. Say we have a dog that is very prey driven in the sense that it sees a bunny and sets about finding a way to get at it with the intent to kill it. Now say you have a toy and the dog goes through the same routine for the toy. That's still prey drive because it's the same behaviour sequence as for the bunny and the perceived reward is to catch and kill. Superficially, it looks the same as the dog with loads of drive for tug or balls that only triggers on a moving bunny, but the body language is different. The tail wags or at least isn't quite as stiff and rigid, the legs might pick up quite stiffly, the general movement might be a little less smooth and committed, although it's not in Erik! Critically, the dog that is playing includes you or another dog in the activities. I'm yet to see prey drive directed onto a toy, but I would love to! I keep looking through YouTube videos, but I'm told Balabanov might have an example. I dunno, maybe it's what Erik does when he takes his toy away and lies down to rip bits off it. Scenting is a seeking behaviour to me. I don't think that's prey drive, but I've not looked very hard at it and I've never had much to do with scent hounds. I think that most sighthounds are prey driven, including during lure coursing. For training, I'm way more interested in anticipation, but I wouldn't dream of ignoring what their ultimate reward is. I think that anticipation is always gonna be higher for things that a dog finds exceptionally rewarding. I don't know enough about gundogs to comment, Aidan. Sorry Cosmolo, that comment about berrating wasn't directed at you. I like your posts. :D You disagree without making it personal.

Well, it's not a global definition. There are plenty of trainers who say play drive where others say prey drive. I think it would be nice if the terms weren't used interchangably. We've been through the whole herding dogs thing before. Can't be bothered going there again. I think you're missing a vital point, here. If I have interpreted Sapolsky correctly, what is important in drive rewards is not the reward but the anticipation of it. The appetitive state, as they say. The appetitive state is the same process no matter what the reward, although there would be variations in the details. The consumptive state is the bit in which the reward is given, and that is the bit where I think the differences lie. Intensity is just more of the same thing. I'm looking at different things. But we've been there before. I'll saunter off and talk about it with some other people that don't berrate me when they disagree with me.

The problem with using body language in training scenarios to define anything is, IMO, that you've introduced a whole new factor that is quite powerful, that being giving your dog the anticipation that they will be able to earn a reward. The conditioning involved in that is really strong. I'm sure we've all seen our dogs get excited when we pick up a clicker or a ball or get some treats out of the freezer. To me, that's just anticipation for imminent rewards in general. Most dogs I have seen "training in drive" are in a general anticipatory state and the differences are in the reward delivery stage. There's not much chance to see this with food as it's gone in an instant. I couldn't say with play versus prey drive as I'm yet to see anyone working their dog in prey drive. I know someone who does (using the term the same way I do) and they keep promising to show me videos, but haven't yet. I can't wait to see it. Everyone tells me the dog is unlike any they have ever seen before. My basic definition is exactly as the term states. Drive for prey. Not chasing, not pouncing, not stalking, not tugging, but for actual prey animals. Live prey animals. How they might go for the prey is variable, but not the soaring arousal levels at the very sight or smell of a prey animal. Dogs that instinctively know a prey animal when they see one. A dead animal is not prey; it's carrion. Food all the same, but completely different response.

"Water the grass". I also use "quick quick" for crossing roads.

Yeah but I wonder if there can also be an element of prey drive too. Isn't play in animals (including ourselves) a sort of practice for the real world be it learning how to hunt successfully or learning about social hierarchies? If I were thinking about it theoretically (given that I only have one dog and so have very very limited experience) I could see it as a softer form with both prey and pack elements, but I guess everyone's view is going to differ slightly on that. My opinion tends to fire up personal differences and I'm loathe to disrupt the discussion when it's going so well, but here it is anyway... I think there are a lot of grey areas and odd little transitions. There's a point in tug and chase games with Erik where the reward switches from biting and tugging the toy to taking it away and ripping bits off it. It's subtle, but marked. I think I've got a video of it somewhere. The social aspect drops right out of it at this point. It's been suggested I pace my training to use it as a jackpot or an end behaviour reward, but I'm a bit wary about using anti-social rewards. I am dubious that it's smart at all and don't think I have the skill for it if it is usable. When it comes to drawing a line, I think it's a case of averages. My dogs go especially nuts for tug toys that have sheepskin or furry bits on them. It pushes their buttons, but I don't think that means they are in prey drive. They know a woolly toy is still a toy, not an animal, but woolly toys are more exciting to play with than non-woolly toys. I think of it as an influence rather than a defining factor.

I think that it's worthwhile separating pack drive from social play. I also think it's worthwhile to separate social play from predatory rehearsal, and I think it's worthwhile to separate predatory rehearsal from true prey drive. The reason why I think it's worthwhile is because I think details are worthwhile. I'm a minimalist at heart and I love to smooth all the details out to get to the core of the matter, but you don't leave them out. Success is always in the details. The finer the detail, the better your understanding. From a training perspective it makes sense to define the drive by the reward for the sake of simplicity and clarity, whether its accurate or not. Never thought I'd say that! I don't know how other people define drives, but I always fall back on body language. If there are common patterns in the body language, I'd define it as a separate drive, which is why I think chasing toys is play drive rather than prey drive. And why I think social play and predatory rehearsal are both still play drive, even if the rewards are different.

Staranais, I'm just chasing detail. I don't consider Erik a prey driven dog, despite the fact he's given me some nice bruises from time to time as well. I don't consider him a prey driven dog because he's not very interested in prey animals. It's very easy to divert his interest in chasing a living animal to chasing a toy. Much easier than it is for Kivi, in fact, and Kivi is the mellow teddy bear. I think that it's very hard to generalise, so anything I say will be disputed with different cases and scenarios and I will inevitably be wrong on some accounts. Erik I consider to be a high drive dog because he throws himself into things without much concern for what might happen to him. He'll leap at tug toys with no considerations beyond just getting his teeth into them. I consider this play drive rather than prey drive, because he doesn't want to do similar things to my rabbits and any stalking or chasing he does just doesn't match the stalking and chasing I have seen in hunting dogs. His body language is different. More playful. And he seeks to include company, so more social. Triggering on movement doesn't define the type of drive to me. The ease of triggering a dog on movement to me says a lot about how drivey a dog they are, but not much about what their ultimate reward is. It might be the chase alone, it might be the catch, it might be a combination, or it might even be the kill if they are that kind of dog. Maybe it's the whole thing. I've known dogs that trigger on movement and find the chase more rewarding than the catch, but still instinctively kill if they do catch. That's a prey driven dog to me. On the other hand, I've known dogs that are all about the chase and get so excited that if they ever do catch it they seriously harm or kill the animal they were chasing, but then the behaviour that follows makes me wonder if they meant to or not. Sometimes they just seem a bit lost that the chase game appears to be over. There are loads of variations, as we all know. Maybe I should be talking about chase driven dogs if we're going to define the drive by the reward. Anyway, I don't mind if you or anyone else disagrees. I talk about this stuff with a lot of different people and we can still be friends whether they agree with me or not. I just like sharing ideas.

Kavik, I'm not sure if you meant to agree with me, but I think we are pretty much on the same page, and your example makes sense to me. Thanks.

I'm not talking about introducing punishers, though. That's a whole different matter. I never mentioned punishers or avoidance behaviour in my original example that you said was reward over nerves. So I asked you to expand. So I'm still not sure what you were getting at. I can certainly see how nerves can impact drive, but how is a dog that likes to tug but ignores a caged rabbit a case of reward over nerves? If we follow your reasoning, wouldn't it be a case of reward history alone? By my reasoning the dog isn't prey driven. Thanks for your answers. In asnwer to the OP, I don't think there are any technical terms for levels of drive, because it's more like a continuum and like K9 said, it's quite dynamic. Incidentally, the "chemical reward" that comes into play as drive builds is dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for how anticipation of a reward can feel so good - even better than the reward itself sometimes.

That's my point, though. How is it that some dogs know instinctively that a rabbit is a prey animal without ever having seen one, whereas others are only triggered when a rabbit runs? It seems to me that in the latter example, you could argue that it's the movement that triggers them rather than the rabbit itself. The few dogs I've met that go into drive at the sight of a stationary rabbit without ever having chased a rabbit before have been seriously prey driven dogs. I said before that this is what I think of as a prey driven dog. Seeing as they have an instinctive drive for prey, not chasing prey specifically.

Oo, I like Japanese Spitzes. Those I've met have been bold, spunky, busy little things. Smart as a whip, but a bit of a handful at times. A bit like Erik. :D Although Erik at least lies down eventually. I like Shibas as well. But then, I like anything with pointy ears and a curly tail. ;)

K9: Because it cannot be done with any degree of accuracy, drive peak is a dynamic action, drive itself is a number of sequences rolled into one, dynamics are not captured in still shots, it is like trying to take a still shot of sound. Ah, I didn't think we were talking about a still shot. Ness gave a more detailed example. I said I'd want to know more about the body language, you said you can't tell even from body language, and now you say that's because it's too dynamic for a still shot. I agree, but I was assuming you would witness the body language of the dog while they were chasing things or whatever other typically drivey activities they are or are not doing. Wouldn't you be able to tell if you saw it? K9: Are you asking me or telling me... You seem to know, stick with that. Asking. I'm trying to understand exactly what you're talking about when you speak of a dog's level of drive. Its level of drive in relation to what? Natural level? Artificial level? The level during one or another specific activity? Are we talking a general level of drive or are we talking the level of drive a dog has for particular activities at particular times? What, are you five? If you don't want to share basic information, then what are you doing on a discussion forum? I'll be charitable and assume we are once again perhaps talking about different things. Schutzhund trainers like to talk about "nerve" as something that describes how much pressure a dog will work through. It's usually used in conjunction with "drive" as a measure of a dog's overall working ability, as a dog with plenty of drive might have its drive evaporate the moment a little pressure is introduced. Are we on the same page? My question was, how does "nerve" by the above meaning have anything to do with whether a dog sees a stationary, caged rabbit and wants to kill it, or whether it sees a stationary, caged rabbit and is merely moderately interested? Where's the pressure in this situation? The drive might change depending on what the rabbit is doing, but any pressure is constant, so changes in drive must be a result of the stimulus rather than a dog's nerve. My original example was dogs that have loads of drive for playing chase games not responding to a rabbit unless it runs. As opposed to dogs that go into drive the instant they become aware of a rabbit in the vicinity, whether it's moving or not. The pressure is still constant, so the controlling factor must be the stimulus (bunny). My point was a dog that doesn't know what to do with a bunny on sight/smell is not a very prey driven dog in my books. If you don't want to talk about it no one's gonna make you. I'll just go ask some people that have done your course. And some of the Schutzhund trainers I know. Are we sparring? In all honesty, I thought we were having an adult discussion. You'll know when I'm sparring. ;) Thanks for the tip. I think I mentioned before that I'm starting a PhD on dog behaviour at the end of the month, so yeah, I'm doing just that. Did you know most of what we know about neurobiology, biochemistry and learning theory comes from studies of rats? They added primates and dogs once they got going on something. Eventually, they added humans where they could without being cruel (it's okay to be cruel to animals, apparently). Most of it is pretty comparable in mammals, and behaviour follows much the same rules in any species that has a brain. The differences are in the details. So when I'm talking differences I compare species or individuals depending on what differences I'm discussing, and when I'm talking general concepts I treat all species as much the same. It seems to aggravate dog people, but this is how I was taught. It's a nested approach that more or less follows taxonomy. Individual-species-genus-family-order. It doesn't get much broader than order, though.

Looks like I will probably be there as well. Probably just Saturday and Sunday, but depends on what's happening at work. It'd be nice to go on Monday too if I'm not going to be fretting about what I'm not doing at work all day.

Then what's this talk of inexperience and avoidance in the object of the chase about? We all know dogs chase because it's instinctual. I'm just trying to understand why you think the level of drive can not be determined by body language. You said earlier that it may be masked by fear or whatever, but it may also be built and encouraged artificially, so at what point can you determine drive level? At what point do you say you are seeing a true representation of a dog's natural drive level? That was my point. The way that prey drive is expressed isn't set in stone or the same for every dog. The drive reward "goes out of it" from our perspective only. The dog is genetically geared to get drive satisfaction from going for live animals only. When the dog discovers the lure is not a live animal, then lure coursing is no longer a rewarding activity on any level and they can't be convinced to participate in it. K9: Are you seriously asking this? Oh yes, even if you're going to be rude about it. Are you going to answer it? K9: I think you like to create theories in your head and then go about believing them. There are some sections here that you close and others your miles off. Funny, I have said the same thing about some professional dog trainers. At least I read a few books and papers and looked at some dogs through fresh eyes first. I'm pretty confident on the above as it came right out of a text book. Not even my ideas.

That's an interesting interpretation with shades of Behan. I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Do you mean the dog is chasing senselessly because it hasn't learnt there's anything more to chasing? Are you saying drive is static? K9: Reward history over genetics. Butbutbut, it's not like he's never played games or doesn't like them. He's had the same upbringing that the toy nut has. He loves tug, but only once in a blue moon, and it's absolutely a social reward rather than a predatory reward. He's like the Salukis I know that won't chase lures ever since some helpful soul showed them what a lure was. It's not that they weren't rewarded for chasing lures before, but they don't see the sense in chasing something that isn't alive, exactly as the vallhund doesn't chase animals he doesn't think he can catch. The drive reward has gone out of it. I strongly believe that this actually is genetics. Some sighthounds won't chase a lure because it's not alive, but many obviously do. The person I know with the two Salukis who won't has a third that doesn't care that the lure is not a live animal. The two that don't chase lures come from a hunting line and the one that does comes from a show line. Interesting, no? K9: reward history over nerves. Care to expand? What do nerves have to do with whether a dog sees a rabbit and wants to kill it or barely notices it until it runs and then locks on for a chase? The way I see it, the reason why drive rewards are so rewarding is because it makes good evolutionary sense that activities that are closely tied to survival are inherently highly rewarding. Predatory behaviours often result in food and play behaviours have a social aspect and a rehearsal aspect, both of which are pretty important for a social predator. I think we have to consider whether a dog actually finds classic drive rewards to be drive rewards, and exactly what drive is being satisfied. Maybe some dogs like the predatory rehearsal aspect of play, whereas others might find the social aspect to be particularly rewarding. Ideally, you want them nice and intertwined to have a dog that doubly enjoys play like tug, which is so widely useful in training. When I watch my low drive dog, he is all about the social side of play and has very little interest in the rehearsal side. He likes to run with other dogs and shoulder them and mouth them and wrestle with them. I swear his favourite bit is where he gets tripped over and goes flying. Sometimes if he hasn't been tripped in a while he just throws himself on the ground as if he has. He will play tug and chase games sometimes, but as soon as he gets particularly aroused he wants to wrestle. Maybe that's why he likes to play with puppets so much. Erik is more about rehearsal, but as far as he's concerned, rehearsal is no fun without company. It makes it very easy to get him drivey. He loves tug and loves chasing, but wants to do it with someone. I'm happy to oblige and build training games into it! For my mum's little hunter, he has little interest in play at all. When he does get into play, it's quite social, although he likes tug. He won't hang off a tug toy and swing around on it like Erik does, preferring to focus on engaging someone. He's surprisingly gentle with tug compared to Erik. Just my thoughts on it.

Supposedly you can test it in a puppy by rolling a paper ball along the ground and guaging the response. A very prey driven puppy will immediately race after it, grab it, and rip it up. A moderately prey driven puppy might chase it and pick it up and then play with it. A puppy with low prey drive would have little interest in it. In ness' example, I would want to know more specifics about the body language of each dog. I swear you can tell intention in the body language. I've exposed a few different dogs to my rabbits and you can tell in an instant if there's any hope for the relationship and how much. I would trust my mum's intensely toy obsessed dog with my rabbits as long as they weren't able to run. She would trigger if she saw a running bunny zoom past her, and she's big enough that she would be likely to hurt them if she caught them whether she meant to or not. On the other hand, my mum's Vallhund can't be in the same room as my rabbits. He tries to bust into their cages. He doesn't play chase games, and rarely plays tug, but he'll snap a lizard up before you realise it's even there. My Vallhund is a tugging fiend and loves to chase things, but he's thoroughly trusted in a room with caged rabbits. He ignores them. To me, a dog that chases is not necessarily prey driven, and a dog that tugs is not necessarily prey driven. A prey driven dog is one that knows rabbits are for biting even when they've never laid eyes on a rabbit before.

I haven't read it, but I have heard of Panksepp and a dog-training friend is currently reading what sounds like a whole lot of scary neuroscience that he's written. I wish I hadn't had such a useless neuroscience lecturer in first year. I'm finding it really interesting stuff just as a hobby. But, you know, a little knowledge can be a bad thing. I can't help zipping around life looking for things that might be relevant to other things I'm currently learning about, and applying a simplistic, hobby-ish understanding of neuroscience to behaviour is maybe treading on thin ice.