Understanding Your Dog: Dog’s Drives

Understanding your dog means understanding their temperament and personality.

It is a very important aspect of training an obedient dog. By understanding your dog better you will be able to effectively communicate and handle your dog. But to understand your own dog, you first need to understand canine behaviour in general. In this post I will give you an insight into a dog’s drives.

All dogs, no matter the breed, have certain basic drives. They are internal instinct mechanisms that affect the dog’s decision making process. Therefore drives push dogs into taking specific action or to behave in a certain way. 

What do drives mean? 

Drives are the energy that causes a dog to act instinctively. For example, when you play fetch and your dog chases the ball, the dog is displaying prey drive. You might not think about it, but your dog is basically “hunting the ball”.

The differences you see among dogs are due to the variations in drive intensity and thresholds. Your dog’s threshold means how long it takes for the drive to kick-in. This varies depending on a dog and breed. Some dogs with a low threshold will respond very quickly even if a ball is simply rolled in front of them. Some dogs with a high threshold may have to be stimulated more by bouncing the ball.

PREY DRIVE 

This means a dog’s natural desire to chase and capture prey. You can easily see this with dogs that try to chase moving objects like bicycles, or other dogs and animals. How strong your dog’s prey drive is, determines how eager your dog is to chase things.

For example, if you’re playing fetch and the ball falls out of sight, a dog with high prey drive will not stop until he finds it. And dogs with low (or none) prey drive might be difficult to get interested in ball games. Sports dogs usually have high prey drives.

DEFENCE DRIVE 

Defence drive means a dog’s instinct to defend itself and it’s pack. A dog in defence drive perceives something as a threat and displays it by barking, growling, and/or biting. The dog’s goal is to push the threat back or away. 

There are two important issues that must be considered when talking about defence drive: drive strength and threshold. Strong defence drive must be balanced with strong nerves. This means that a dog with strong nerves doesn’t scare easy. A dog with a strong defensive drive and low threshold is easily frightened and could be a very difficult and even dangerous. In other words the dog may see threats that do not exist and over reacts with aggression. 

FIGHT DRIVE 

This drive is a combination of prey drive & defence drive. Fight drive is a genetic trait that can be seen when the dog has matured. These dogs can be very social but fight when challenged or even challenge other dogs into fights. Staffies are a great example of these kind of dogs. 

RANK DRIVE 

This drive is related to the hierarchy in a pack. 

A dog with a high rank drive is called a dominant dog. These dogs are usually very confident and demanding. A dog with a low rank drive is called a submissive dog.

PACK DRIVE 

Dogs are pack animals and pack drive is a dog’s natural desire to be part of a group. A dog with a low pack drive is independent. Dogs with a high pack drive often suffer from separation anxiety. 

Pack drive is very important in dog training. A dog with sufficient pack drive is more eager to please other pack members, you in this case. And dogs with low pack drive are difficult to train because they couldn’t care less about pleasing you.

In conclusion, when ever we train dogs, we must remember that they are animals with different behaviours to ours. Understanding their point of view and how their world works helps us to train them. Drives are very important in understanding how dogs perceive the world around them and, lucky for us, we can use them for our benefit.