Drive vs. Prey Drive

Comments

• WrylyBrindle

  October 2009 edited November -1

  Roger Abrantes:
  "Drive means compulsive energy. Self preservation, aggression and sex are drives." then he describes each one and says " we must distinguish between instinct and drive, where instinct is the inborn ability to perform a complete behavior sequence. For example it is not mating that causes the animal to show sexual behavior, but the opposite; sex (drive) compels the animal to mate and for this purpose it uses the inborn ability (instinct) to perform the act of mating. Drives are highly relevant in building communication patterns since they ultimately motivate the individual to act."
  
  and
  
  "Motivation is what compells an animal to do what it does...motivation must be able to be explained exclusively by the law of causality; every effect has a cause....what motivates the animal are the drives: self preservation (drive) motivates hunting, sex drive motivates mating and aggression motivates expulsion of the rival. however the problem is more complicated when we become aware that the drives operate through a complicated system of behavior patterns, some of which are inborn while others develop through interaction with the environment."
• tjbart17

  October 2009 edited November -1

  Interesting topic. It brings up a lot of thoughts for me, but I will start simple by comparing Koda to Roxy the Boxer I have with me most time.
  
  Roxy HIGH drive, low prey drive
  - tons of energy, no separation anxiety but when left without anything to keep her mind occupied will become
  destructive i.e. digging holes in walls ruining sheetrock.
  - almost manic like in her overt sense of self worth and high self esteem
  - gets over stimulated in groups of people or other dogs
  - when taken to the dog park she runs around like she owns the place and is into everything- a little goofy ADD
  - loves to please humans
  - very stringent about dog rules-i.e. a smaller dog must know there place when it comes to Roxy or she will correct
  them with a growl or bark
  - chews, chews, chews, but out of more anxiousness
  - good recall about 99%
  - not into smelling, but will mark over another dog
  - humps to relax herself, i.e. her bed
  
  
  Koda low drive- higher prey drive
  - very calm in the house
  - rather than getting overstimulated by crowds will keep to himself and has a way of ignoring things or people that he
  doesn't like
  - would rather play one on one wrestling with another dog than in groups, wants dogs to chase him and loves chasing
  - doesn't need to be the "dominant" dog when playing perfect balance of taking control and then being submissive
  - walks become a hunt- smells, tracks, and gathers items constantly
  - re-call sucks when he's off on the trail of something or a smell
  - low desire to please-unless it's me. He will do anything if he thinks it will make me happy and doesn't break the rules
  - can sit with a food puzzle for hours, likes to go in the backyard and dig up the peanuts the squirrels leave
  - can chew a bully stick or tear apart a rope for hours, but not in an anxious way. He just likes to keep his mind
  occupied.
  
  Not sure if you can get anything out of that.
• BradA1878

  October 2009 edited November -1

  I agree with the quotes Chrystal posted.
  
  The term "drive", to me, referrers to a dog's willingness to spring into action (but *not* their willingness to please). It doesn't matter if it's an instinctual behavior/action or a learned one.
  
  The term "prey drive" just simply refers to the dog's natural draw toward self preservation. I have noticed, in canine, that prey drive tends to be higher in females than males. This may be because a female has a higher interest in self preservation - which might stem from being motherly (just my theory). Actually, the female dogs around our house that show the best parenting qualities are the ones with the highest prey drive & fight drives (Ahi, Loa, Fuji, & Masha).
  
  I think that anxiety is often mistaken as "drive", but it's very different (tho I think there is a strong connection between the 2). A good example of this is Blue vs. Fuji. Blue is always ready to spring to action, you "turn him on" and he goes - if you don't let him work out the energy it will turn to anxiety and he will start to display so relief seeking behaviors. with Fuji, she is very easy to get excited, and she is always on alert waiting to do something, but it comes for from high anxiety and not drive becuse if you were to go and try to work her she would shut down and become uninterested. JMO
  
  On a side note, there really is no such thing as "defensive drive", it's a term that is used to describe protective qualities (sexual drive & fight drive).
  
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• dlroberts

  October 2009 edited November -1

  Ok. This is helping me to put better language to what I was thinking.
  
  If I read all of this correctly, speaking about a "high drive" dog is actually a very generic term. It doesn't really provide enough information to be descriptive of behavior. For example, both Lucy and Joey are high drive in a sense---Lucy has high prey drive and Joey has high play drive.
  
  So we've mentioned:
  - prey drive (is this self-preservation?)
  - fight drive (is this aggression?)
  - sex drive (desire to mate)
  - self-preservation drive (desire to hunt, how is this different from prey drive?)
  - aggression drive (expulsion of enemy)
  - Are there others????
  - Can drives be more modern in context like play drive? or attachment drive (for companion dogs)? or eagerness to please?
  
  Does it make sense for us to talk about "high drive" dogs without being more descriptive? If so, what would it mean?
• ayk

  October 2009 edited November -1

  From Leerburg website:
  
  DRIVES - Subconscious impulses to react to stimuli.
  TEMPERAMENT - Attitude towards life.
  COURAGE - Absence of fear towards objects or situations.
  HARDNESS - Resiliency toward unpleasant experiences.
  SOFTNESS - Remembering unpleasant experiences.
  SHARPNESS - Tendency to react aggressively to stimuli.
  SENSORY THRESHOLD - High / Low Amount of stimulus to obtain a reaction.
  HUNT DRIVE - To pursue objects. ( out of sight, etc.)
  TRACKING DRIVE - To follow ground disturbance odors, (animal or human tracks)
  AIR SCENT DRIVE - To follow wind born scents.
  RETRIEVE DRIVE - Drive to bring back prey(objects)to handler. (pack leader)
  PREY DRIVE - Drive to bite and kill prey. (refusal to release when playing tug of war, or when sleeve happy)
  FIGHT DRIVE - Drive to measure physical prowess with rivals. (same as rowdy human)
  GUARD DRIVE - Drive to warn intruders by barking, growling, or biting to stay out of territory. ( yard or patrol car, in lay terms, defense)
  PROTECTION DRIVE - Drive to defend the pack. ( family or handler)
  RANK DRIVE - To achieve higher rank in the pack. ( biting or growling at handler while under stress. )
  TRAINABILITY - Drive to please the desires of the pack leader.
  SURVIVAL / FLIGHT DRIVE - Drive to flee from real or imagined danger.
  HOMING DRIVE - Drive to return to territory, or pack. ( handler)
  PLAY DRIVE - Drive for physical contact with pack members.
  ACTIVITY DRIVE - Drive to move and act. ( digging, chewing, running fence, etc.)
  PACK DRIVE - Drive for emotional contact with pack members
  
  
  Brad, I'm curious about your statement that there's no such thin as defensive drive. The term seems to be used quite a lot in training protection dogs. For example, keeping the dog in prey drive during decoying and not wrecking a green dog by pushing it into defense drive too early. Defense drive seems connected with pressure, no escape option, and therefore almost a little bit of fear in the motivation.
• Sangmort

  October 2009 edited October 2009

  This may be because a female has a higher interest in self preservation - which might stem from being motherly (just my theory). Actually, the female dogs around our house that show the best parenting qualities are the ones with the highest prey drive & fight drives (Ahi, Loa, Fuji, & Masha).
  
  This is actually very interesting. I'm taking a class called the Human Species, but it also involves the study of primates & their behaviors & cultures. [ & before neone asks, why an IT Major is taking this class...it's a required general education course..."fun." LOL ]
  
  Neways, in the text, it talks about different male & female reproductive strategies amongst [ non-human ] primates. Going to type out what the text says to give you an idea;
  
  Female primates spend almost all their adult lives either pregnant, lactating, &/or caring for their offspring, & the resulting metabolic demands are enormous. [ ... ] Even if these demands are met, her physical resources may be drained. Given these physiological costs & the fact that her reproductive potential is limited by lengthy intervals between births, a female's best strategy is to maximize the amount of resources available to her & her offspring. Indeed, as we just discussed, females of many primate species are competitive with other females & aggressively protect resources & their territories. Males, however, face a separate set of challenges. Having little investment in the rearing of offspring, & the continuous production of sperm, it's to the male's advantage to secure as many mates & produce as many offspring as possible. One way of doing this is to compete with other males for mating partners. [ source: Essentials of Phsyical Anthropology, 7th edition. ]
  
  So, the fact that you mention that the females have a higher prey drive because of interest in self preservation / being motherly, seems to coincide with what Sexual Reproductive Strategies that come from [ nonhuman ] primates. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to apply it to other animals. Very interesting you made that connection tho Brad, good job! ~
• BradA1878

  October 2009 edited October 2009

  @Dave -
  
  So we've mentioned:
  - prey drive (is this self-preservation?) <- yes
  - fight drive (is this aggression?) <- yes, or more like agression is fight drive
  - sex drive (desire to mate) <- yes
  - self-preservation drive (desire to hunt, how is this different from prey drive?) <- Prey drive is preservation drive
  - aggression drive (expulsion of enemy) <- fight drive &/or sex drive
  - Are there others????
  - Can drives be more modern in context like play drive? or attachment drive (for companion dogs)? or eagerness to please? <- I dun't think so, I think they need to fit within the basic three: Preservation, Fight, sex. If there was a "Companion drive" maybe it would just be a form of preservation drive (???).
  
  Does it make sense for us to talk about "high drive" dogs without being more descriptive? If so, what would it mean?
  >>> I see the term "high drive" as an accumulative thing, and one that is different pending circumstance. Example, a "high drive" obedience dog would not be a "high drive" fighting dog.
  
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  @Ann - It's JMO, but quoting from Leerburg is a joke. Have you ever watched any of his DVDs? You couldn't pick an older-school source for dog behavior and training. I am not a fan, and disagree with almost everything that guy says. Again, that's JMO.
  
  Yes, the term "defensive drive" is used a lot (I even use it), and it's an easy way to describe how a dog reacts defensively. At the risk of sounding like a Kevin Behan crony, I'll quote him as I think he made a good point which applies here: "...defensive is a apt description but not a true explanation..."
  
  It's become my opinion that dogs have 3 main drives: Preservation, Fight, Sex (as described in Chrystal's post).
  
  When a decoy puts pressure on (acts aggressively toward) a dog that is operating in it's preservation drive (prey drive, for example) the dog chooses a different preservation behavior (you know, fight or flight).
  
  The dog may choose to fight (which is what you would want in your description above) or may choose to run (which would be seen as "wrecking a dog" as you put it). They are the same drive: Preservation - the dog is just acting defensively.
  
  It's similar to how a wolf would react to a moose turning on it. When a pack of wolves are hunting they select a single target, that target has an option (a preservation choice): they can stand their ground or they can run. If they run, they will more than likely be killed, as the wolves will run them until they tier. If they stand their ground they alter the wolves reaction and therefore force the wolf to chose a new preservation behavior - just like the decoy is doing. A confident and courageous wolf will not back down, they will push harder to get the prey to select a new preservation behavior, a less confident wolf will run.
  
  That describes exactly what a hunter selects for when selecting hunting dogs to breed - they want the dog that will not run from the boar (or whatever) when it stands its ground - same applies to the police dogs, personal protection dog, or LGD.
  
  In the case you described above, the dog's choice of preservation behavior is made based not only on the decoy's pressure but the environments pressure as well. I learned this the hard way, at the unpleasant end of a Caucasian Ovcharka; how differently they act in a house opposed to outside a house given the same pressure from me - the response is situational.
  
  But, again, I am just going based on what I have read, discussed, and agree with added to my personal experiences with a broad range of dogs. I could be completely full of sh!t. LOL
  
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  @Osy - exactly. Thanx.
  
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• ayk

  October 2009 edited November -1

  Brad, yes, I know of people's opinions of Leerburg. I don't agree with him for many things, but he did have a handy list of "drives". His list is a "splitter" rather than a "grouper". Perhaps it can be argued that it is more behavior/training rather than drive, but you do see those components in untrained dogs.
  
  Thanks for you explanation. I still have to read up more about Natural Dog theory.
• dlroberts

  October 2009 edited November -1

  Ok. So this is interesting.
  
  It seems that a lot of the drives Ann quoted from Leerburg can be aliased onto the three drives Brad proposed.
  
  It occurs to me though, that many of the things I described in my initial post and that Tara posted about are actually "expressions of drives". There is a one-to-many relationship between drives and expressions. For instance, the self-preservation drive can be expressed by prey drive (desire to gather resources), biddability (desire to maintain a bond with a provider), or softness (desire to avoid unpleasant experiences) to name a few.
  
  So, in that sense, characterizing the drive of a dog is tantamount to describing it's "capacity for expression of drives." A high drive dog has more "expression points" to allocate to the expression of their drives. So, imagine we have two "high self-preservation drive" dogs. For the sake of argument (I know being this precise is a fool's errand in reality, but bear with me), consider that each of these dogs have 10 expression points. One of those dogs could have a 5 for prey drive and a 5 for biddability whereas the other could have a 7 for prey drive, a 2 for biddability, and a 1 for softness. On the other hand, a "low self-preservation drive" dog may only have 6 expression points to allocate. So it could allocate all of them to prey drive and appear to some as a "higher drive dog" than the first "high drive" dog from this example, but in reality since it isn't as biddable would not be as high a drive dog.
  
  Does that make any sense? I'm still sorting out half-formed thoughts, but I think I'm getting closer!
• BradA1878

  October 2009 edited November -1

  Dave and I chatted about this over IM. I think we both came to the conclusion that "high drive", in dogs, is not easy to quantify as, in some cases, the dog's expression of drives may conflict.
  
  Dave suggested we use the phrase "expression of drive" when writing or speaking about the behavior a drive may create in a dog. He likes this phrase because it doesn't preclude behavior or instinct as being the expression of a drive. I really like his suggestion to use this phrase.
  
  The definition we have come up with for "high drive" in dogs is...
  
  A high drive dog is a dog that is highly prone to the build up and release of anxiety. Anxiety is the result of conflicting expressions of drives.
  
  This video shows an interesting example of all the points described above. Please look at 1:25 of this video:
  
  
  
  
  
  Note in the video where Blue starts barking, you can see there is a conflict happening. This is due to the very quick build up of anxiety caused by an external stimuli (in this case a dog running by the house). Note how Blue reacts to the situation by first becoming aroused (salivating and striping), then guarding, then looking to us for approval, and then barking some more.
  
  These are all examples of "expression of drive", in this case there are several expressions of drive (behaviors and physiological changes) but only 2 drives at work here...
  
  1) Blue gives a warning bark: This is Blue expressing self-preservation drive and/or fight drive, he wants to defend his home (he is acting defensive).
  2) Blue turns to us and looks a bit confused, seeking approval: This is blue expressing self-preservation drive, or his need to please us (we provide his food).
  3) Blue salivates: This is blue expressing self-preservation drive and/or fight drive (an expression can satisfy multiple drives), he wants to chase the dog.
  4) Blue shows signs of arousal: This is blue expressing fight drive, he wants to fight the dog outside the door.
  
  What makes this video interesting is it shows the dramatic, and quick, build up anxiety in Blue, and then it shows a very small amount of reinfoment from Jen which helps Blue to focus the release of his anxiety (via guarding).
  
  The video, and the above text, helps to demonstrate some things we have all discussed on the forum from time to time (like barrier frustration, kenneling dogs, and anxiety in general), and how early reinforcement of specific expressions of drive can "set" a "default" expression for your dog.
  
  For example, had Jen and I taken more time to reinforce Blue for gaurding property (which we have purposely not done), he would have looked less confused and focused more of his anxiety build up toward guarding the house. Instead, he looks at us and seeks relief from the anxiety. Once Jen gives just a little reinforcement he then expels the anxiety faster by guarding. Had we opened the door, and allowed him to run after the dog, he would have expelled the anxiety by expression of his fight drive (he would have attacked the dog). You can see how allowing your dog to act inappropriately toward other dogs, and not providing your dogs with a better outlet for (social) anxiety can cause your dog to default toward dog aggression.
  
  This helps to illustrate why so many higher-drive dogs end up with behavioral issues if they are not frequently allowed to relieve their anxiety via exercise, problem solving, play, etc.
  
  It may also help to show why wolves form packs, the interaction between each other builds anxiety and helps the pack to focus their anxiety relief on a common goal (expression of drive: defending territory or hunting).
  
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