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Doberman Prey Drive?

16K views 26 replies 23 participants last post by  FiReBReTHa 
#1 ·
As suggested by Asmit, I am making a thread about prey drive in Dobermans. How high would you say prey drive is in dobermans? Any difficult experiances dealing with it? Would you say raising a doberman around the family cat and small dog is safe? Are dobermans different from sight hounds or is the prey drive the same? Do dobermans think before they chase? Are they reliable to recall or let off leash? Does prey drive vary at all between American and European bloodlines? Is it ever commonly unmanagable?
 
#2 ·
I have 3 show line dogs and one rescue boy. All have pretty high prey drive, and I run them free with an ecollar in order to call them off deer, rabbits, etc. The youngest, at 10 months, is not old enough for e collar so only runs in fenced areas so far. He has the attention span of a gnat at this teenage stage!

Out of the 4 Dobermans I own, 2 probably would come back after about 500 feet of chase with all cares thrown to the wind. Two would keep going and never register that they heard me call them at all if a deer popped up and ran.

My rescue boy was adopted at age 2, and is a highly trained obedience dog. However, he will take off after any cyclist, 4 wheeler, etc as he is driven to extreme heights of distraction by things on wheels that move.

I think there are several people on this forum who do lure coursing with their Dobes as they love to chase that artificial "rabbit" along a course. Dobes are smarter than sight hounds and probably more obedient but I don't think I'd call them a breed with low prey drive as a general rule.

My dogs are raised with a family cat and we have a small terrier who visits. The youngsters have to be trained to "be gentle" repeatedly until they develop a brain at about age 18 mos-2 yrs. They are boisterous and just can't help an over-exuberant playbow or two....the cat is very mean and kind of trains them herself earlier than that with claws!

No, they do not think before they chase...they are just gone.

They are reliable off leash as they get recall trained and trained and trained some more, and then I use an ecollar to be safe at age 18 mos and older. I never run my dogs at public parks, dog parks, etc off lead. We live in the country so they can run free here and attend classes each week.

From what I've seen in my experience, the euro line/working line dogs would be more over the top than my dogs with regards to all this chasing business!
 
#4 ·
In my experience their prey drive is pretty middle of the road, certainly not anything like the prey drive I have seen in some other breeds. All 4 of the Doberman bitches I have lived with (3 BYB, one American show-line) have lived with other animals, including free-range pet rabbits and chickens, and livestock. They were all raised around animals from when they were puppies except Cricket who was a breeder rehome, and was reported to have killed a sheep. We always kept a close eye on her, and she never tried anything with our livestock. In the situation that she had killed the sheep she was left alone in a fenced yard next to where some lambs where kept, and she was able to put her head through the fence and get one.

We wouldn't have Dobermans on a farm if they went around rampantly killing livestock. They all have enjoyed hunting and killing birds, hedgehogs and wild rabbits, but don't chase any of our own animals, and I find their recall is great when they are out in the paddocks.
 
#5 ·
Skoll was fine with the cats once he learned that they will bite and scratch rude dobernoses in their space- if they ran he'd chase them but they'd turn around and smack him a good one if he didn't leave them alone after a few steps. Nonetheless I never left him with them unsupervised- my cat is a LOUD cat and very confrontational so when he was loose in my room overnight I would know immediately if he was bothering her.

With small animals forget it. Borderline obsessive. He spotted my roommate's pigeon ONCE on a ladder to the loft and for two weeks he would jump and bark and try to climb the ladder just to get to the spot where the pigeon was. Even though the pigeon wasn't there anymore and he never saw that pigeon again (roommate learned her lesson that DOGS WILL EAT BIRDS :screama:). Same with any small animals he spotted outside. If there was a squirrel under the mailbox one day, he'd check that mailbox every time we passed it for days afterward acting like the squirrel was still right there in front of him.
 
#7 ·
I have seen many levels over the years. Some middle of the road and some over the top. My old girl (North American showlines) is so berserk in prey drive that when she was 6 mos old she squeezed under a fence to get to a llama. She chased him til he collapsed with exhaustion. Poor fella..he spit at people for days after that.
She used to go so crazy at a squirrel or bunny screaming and raging that I stopped walking her in town early mornings and evenings because people would come out to see who was abusing their dogs.

My male who is average normal prey drive in his bite work just looks with interest at squirrels and bunnies.

Both of these dogs are excellent with the resident cat.
 
#9 ·
So far... Mila want to take off after anything that flees. Be it a stray neighborhood cat, a flock of birds on the ground, or a poor doomed butterfly at the lake the other day.

She will be shown how to hunt this Fall and we hope she takes to it with the rest of the dogs; if not, she'll hang back with me (I'm merely a bystander while my SO's family does their traditional hunting excursions lol)


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#10 ·
I do not permit Hades around small dogs at the park. He is very playful with most dogs but he doesn't do well with puppies or small dogs. He will push a small dog and if they ignore him he will run off and find someone else to play with, but if they act fearful or growl or snap at him, he will do the same back. I don't know if that's prey drive or just being a bully. If he reacts to them I put him in a timeout (down stay for a few minutes) after that he'll typically go back to his normal happy self. Maybe it's an albino thing.

He also does a weird thing with my moms cat. He will dober poke it and lick it but then his pupils dilate and he tries to bite him. When I yell at him, his pupils contract and he walks off.


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#13 ·
Kahlua will chase anything that moves and once she gets it in her mind that she's going to chase, there is no calling her off. I have to use an e-collar on her when I run her up in the woods to be able to call her off. She's more focused on chasing stuff then the hound mix I have.
 
#14 ·
I'll tell you at 12 years old... Someone's prey drive is still alive and kicking... so much that all leash manners go out the window, and I feel like I have a young dog full of piss n vinegar at the end of the leash....

See the squirrel? lol


On the other hand... Jones is middle of the road... He will give chase, but I can call him off. He is okay with small animals in the house, but outdoor critters stand no chance... The wild rabbits in my backyard, gone... because of him...
 
#15 · (Edited)
Following links is some good reading:
IMO - overall there is more to a doberman than prey drive alone, in picking out a suitable puppy of European or North American bloodlines.
I think a balanced dobe, with other supporting qualities is essential, with the proper prey drive (as well).

*****************************************************

Protection Training by Randall Hoadley: Schutzhund-Training.com - Protection
......."Before we start talking about dogs and drives let me explain how I see the three drives that I believe and train with at our club;

I believe in only three drives, "prey, defense and social," and the rest are just manifested from there. Prey drive - A reactive drive that is stimulus specific and can be satisfied. Behaviors include the urge to chase a moving object, pull it down, kill and eat it. Biting or eating can satisfy this drive. Defense drive - A reactive drive that is not stimulus specific and can be stimulated at anytime. Behaviors include the desire for self-preservation - fight or flight, growling or barking or running away. While in defense the dog can move forward as well as backwards from the threat. Both actions can be defense; we just prefer one to the other. The adversary running away satisfies this drive. Social drive - the desire to stay with and obey orders from members of the pack.

Aggression/fight drives are just a behavior for me, not a drive in itself. I believe that aggression comes from the defense-prey mixture and/or social. These drives are innate to the dog. It cannot be removed from the dog and all dogs have them. These drives can be high or low depending on the type and nerve of the dog.

To get a "V" in protection we need excellent control, excellent guarding and excellent biting behaviors and a very good dog. This means that the dog has to have the potential to move from social drive to defense drive to prey drive.......

Understanding the Drives of Protection Training by Ed Frawley: http://leerburg.com/drives.htm
.......To be successful in this training, handlers need to have a thorough understanding of the drives that govern a dog’s temperament in protection work. They are:
1. Prey drive
2. Defensive Drive
3. Fight Drive
4. Avoidance
If your goal is to learn how to train a dog in protection work, your job begins by understanding these drives and how they relate to each other........
 
#16 ·
Level of prey drive depends on the lines, breeding and individual dog. I have had varying levels. In my experience my last bitch (Euro show lines) had high prey drive. Certainly more than anyof the 5 previous American line dogs I had had over the course of 20 years. My current bitch (German working lines) has extreme drives all around, including very high prey.
 
#17 ·
EllenM, Thank you. This is really good information. I don't trust Kiss off leash. I still work with her, but she is VERY easily distracted. I see other people that NEVER leash train their dogs and they are always OFF leash, but I can't/won't with Kiss. Plus, then there is the Dobie phobia if someone were to see her off leash.
 
#19 ·
Toby has a pretty good dose of prey drive coursing through his veins.



He frequently catches his own supper, here is one he caught a week or so ago, thankfully my grandson dealt with little Peter Rabbit so I didn't have to.

In all honesty, once Toby goes there is no stopping him, not without an e-collar to back up my command of 'NO!'. But he is not alone in this. Russell my Terrier is pretty beligerant when he sets off after something as is Reina our Pointador (Pointer x Lab) so they too wear collars and if they are in an area where hunting is not an option then they get a tickle to remind them to listen to me not their base instincts.

Can't say if Europeans have a higher drive than Americans because I own a European in Europe and have never met an American Dobe with which to compare. But I would imagine, that a Dobe is a Dobe when it comes to certain things including prey drive. But hey, I could be wrong.
 
#21 ·
Shanoa is not entirely safe with even the resident cats she grew up with. Richter is fine.
 
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#24 ·
Rocket will chase any animal that moves - birds flying around, rabbits, my indoor cat. Anything small that moves and isn't a resident dog is fair game. There's no thinking or decision making. He's not really a killer of prey. He loves the chase.

When we do coursing he's out of his mind. He gets to a point where he can't contain himself and anything he's ever known goes out the window. The only thing that allows us to continue the activity is 1. having someone else to help me hold him down and 2. when the lure stops, he stops.

When we are off leash hiking he's on an ecollar. I've only had it fail once. He was tracking smells and decided to pick up a little speed and flush prairie hawks. It only failed because he got out of range. Every other time I've used it he responds.

He's the only Dobe I've had, but he seems pretty par for the course.

My Sibe and my mini Dach are the resident assassins. Many birds and rabbits have been lost in my backyard. I think they think the indoor cat is a dog....
 
#25 ·
at 8 months Deck killed his first rabbit. he chased off every neighborhood cat (GOOD boy...) and had difficulty restraining himself around the household cats. i'm confident that had he grown to adulthood he'd still have issues with prey animals.

he came from American show line dogs, and neither of his parents have been trained or titled in SchH.
 
#26 ·
I think a lot of it is the individual dog. My current 2 dobes tried lure coursing and neither bothered to run! My 2 previous boys love coursing (all of my dogs are rescues so American BYB'er lines). Toula although not interested in the lure is not good with cats but is fine with chihuahuas
 
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