GSD (Is there such a thing as too much Drive ?) - Page 4

It damn well IS a problem, if the dog's going to kill my cat, and sees fast-moving children as prey! 

Oh, but these are SPORT dogs...you only take them out of their kennels to train them, so it doesn't matter...

What I've observed from my (brief) time in the sport, is dogs that have trouble capping their drive. They get so excited they loose focus. Whining/screaming is common, and totally different training techniques have to be used with these dogs to keep them on task. Their handlers have to use a very calm approach with them, rather than amping up their drive with lots of fast-moving tug and ball work.

I'd rather have the calm dog, thank you very much. Like the one that's lying at me feet snoozing right now. If she thinks we're going out to training, she will be doing laps around me, and yelping with excitement. She's totally focused on the field, and loves to work. She has ball drive aplenty, and at home, will sometimes fall asleep with a ball in her mouth, with my cat curled up beside her. And she is perfectly safe with children of all ages.

BALANCE, folks, balance. Is that word becoming obsolete??

Ive never had a high drive dog yet unsafe around kids thats crazy,I never had one yet growl or show any desire to bite a child,cats are a diff story and any level headed dog do not view the two as the same, balance can be used in all sorts of ways and some seem to hide behind the word because their dog,s drives are low.

Duke. Agree. Balanced is always best. Even too defensive gives you problems with out, blind search , obedience, etc.

bundishep, high preydrive dogs dont growl before biting 

What about dogs that are so amped that their bark is high pitched shrill, or people have to spend months just trying to get the dog to bark in H&B, .....part of the reason for the proliferation of the " silent guard" is to support dogs that get so locked in prey that their bark is pathetic or a falsetto!  This is not natural folks, and this is a creation of past 25 years in breed in sport. It is unbalanced and just as detrimental as conformation that does not translate into superb working but does well in ribbons. Yes, you can have too much prey....unless you are skilled handler/trainer on sport field. Unfortunately, I don't think this breed was created to do sport, or maybe it was.

Silent guard . I have worked with Police K9 who require this as a stealth tactic. it has real world application. High pitched barking. I have worked dogs who bark with too little "base'' in the voice but I know they mean business. I loved the videos posted by Duke above. i watched a great cooperation between handler and helper to train several dogs of different ages and 2 different breeds. The helper was using prey drive in every single session. He also ''touched'' the defence drive in each dog. The helper used ''feel'' for how much stimulas he created with each dog. He channeled the stim into a prey object each time. Great work. I beleive this work was done in the last 25 years. Everyone be proud of your work with your dogs and keep evolving. The old dogs were ''out of balanced'' also as every ''old dog trainer'' was not perfect as every old dog is not perfect. 

I think far too many people mistake "anxiety" with drive. A dog that is kept kenneled while not being worked is definitely more anxious, than those that are not.

    A dog that has a naturL prey  drive does not have to be a dog that is going to stalk and kill anything that crosses its path.

    My father was an avid sport dog fan when I wzs a kid. We grew up with beagles and German Shorthaired Pointers. My father and his dogs did rabbit hunting and duck hunting.

    His dogs were still our family dogs yet they hunted their asses off. You could hear the beagles running the rabbits for lond distances and he always brought home his share of ducks.

    Yet we had pet rabbits and chickens and cats. The dogs knew when they were workung, and when they were living home. On duty, off duty. They had more than enough prey drive, but knew when to turn it off.

   I cannot have cats. They are fine with the Shepherds, as long as I am present. But let a cat run through the yard in front of dogs unsupervised, and that is it. The chase is on. They do not set out meaning to kill, but with that excitement, unfortunate for  cats, thats the end.

    Kids can run all around, of course the dogs will run with them, but they certainly have no sense of prey...until the ball drops.  That ball quickly is preyed upon. Snatched and taken off with, than everyone wants that ball.

    A dog that is crated, is building anxiety. NOT DRIVE. The drives is built in natural. It is up to us to direct it, and encourage it, in its appropriate direction.

   Thats where the training plays the biggest role. It's not too much drive that makes a dog scream in anticipation, itis anxiety. At least thats the way I see it. I have a screamer, I know whyt and when it occurs

kitkat, a dog with good balance will not get more crazy if not worked, even for longer time, many of todays high prey drive dogs dont have an "off ""  switch and get crazy if they dont get their daily session to unwind

Kit kat your flat out wrong.

Didn't see where anyone was talking about " perfect" dogs anywhere....I thought the discussion was about whether you can have too much prey??  Anyway, not interested in going off topic to debate a point.