My puppy has no play drive. What can I do to develop his drive to do protection work?

Here are some options to building prey drive:

1. Take a ball and put it on a nylon string. See if you can get the pup to follow it. Treat it like a cat - when the pup goes over to smell it - make it jump away but only about a foot away. If it will follow then just as its nose is at the ball make it bounce away a little more. There is an art to this. The key is to build the dogs interest and not bounce the ball too far away from the dog. Keeping the ball close to the pup but elusive. The pup can grab the ball every now and then and play tug (if it will) you can also have the dog try and chase balls (with the string attached and see if the dog will chase and play with them. To build prey drive you have to get it to chase before you get it to grip.


2. Make the sack smaller. If this means cutting one up then do it. Use a hand towel rather than a sack - its softer on his mouth. Tie the sack on a string and treat it exactly like you treated the ball on a string. If the pup will grab it - give it a small jerk so it comes out of his mouth (like it is alive) Go right back into playing with it on a string. This will build drive.

I hope some of these ideas work. This is not as simple as it may sound. Young dogs must learn what a prey item is. They don't instinctually think that a sack or ball is a prey item. They have to learn that they are fun to play tug with. So there is a lot of emphasis on the handlers developing the skills to bring out the drive that their dog has.

And finally - there are some dogs that are not fit for this work. These dogs have no prey drive and they cannot and should not be trained in protection work. Dogs have to have prey work for bite work.