I have a question on when it is okay to allow my dog to chase and when it isn't and how to train that.

Question

I searched through your site and didnt find much on chasing. I am awaiting your ecollar intro DVD. I just bought the tritronics G3 sport combo. So far she is just wearing it and on and off, I have not used it yet. i have someone coming over tomorrow to help with finding her level and comparing it to a dogtra 280 with more low level of stims.

The dog is a 10 month old spayed female akita with high prey drive. She has been in training since 4 weeks. (I visited her a few times a week at the shelter before taking her home at 7.5 weeks) She was spayed at 9.5 months. She takes 2-3 classes a week and excells in obedience, rally and agility. She does many tricks, I'm working on shaping piano playing now. She gets an hour walk a day and play with other dogs as much as I can. Her groundwork obedience is very good. She is a smart girl. She is a low to mid level dog for corrections unless the distraction is high.

My questions are how to use the collar for chasing. Keeping in mind my dad's house, my main babysitter in the winter, has 2 dogs, 3 cats, and an african gray parrot, who is loose most of the time. The old cats never ran so their dogs don't chase them. These new cats run from Roxie. So I need to deal with the cats and leaving their bird alone - ok to hang out but no chasing.

She had been chasing squirrels in my yard to the point of running into a tree. She is frenzied and not paying attention to where she is going. For birds it is not so bad, she stalks first then chases but not as bad as squirrels.  I had tried a remote citronella collar. It worked well on interrupting for birds enough for me to get her off and to 'here'. For squirrels it didn't work. She continued the chase. I was having her drag a long line. Going out to the yard was a 5 minute prep of collars, long line, food, clicker etc. basically nuts. I've had a trainer here to help with the yard. The suggestions are helping. Since then I also put fox urine in holders in the trees, since then about 2 weeks ago, I've had no squirrels in the yard. So I've been able to relax, she is playing with me again (she had been even refusing fetch which she loves, while hovering at the trees looking for squirrels).

So the last few weeks have been calm. No squirrels. I've been working on her holding stalk in a whoa, or a sit. She does this pretty well.

Questions are how to handle chasing.

Do I have her not chase at all, complete avoidance of everything, birds/squirrels etc, using no command, just that its not fun to chase. Or with command to 'fooey/leave it'. If done this way will this translate to her out running with my dad's dogs in the yard on visits upstate or their house. If she does get to chase during these times will it undermine the 'complete avoidance training'.

Or is it better to let her chase birds/squirrels, just not the cats and my brother's bird (who talks) but have her come off them when I don't want her to chase. Basically a great distraction recall.

Or do I have her not chase squirrels/cats ever, but ok to chase birds unless I call her off. 

We were at the beach today on a flexi, she was chasing birds, jumping through the water like a gazelle, (but did hold a sit when I needed her to). Seeing her jumping through the water like that was beautiful. When she stalks birds in the yard, it is a beautiful sight to see her natural instincts in motion.

I guess I'm concerned about having her not chase anything ever, rather than calling her off something, that it will squash such a large part of her. She gets such joy out of it. I do lots of retrieve, scent games, finding toys, treats, I built a digging pit for her where I hide goodies for her to dig, I will be starting tracking soon, so im trying to let her have appropriate outlets for her drive. I wish we werent excluded from hunting and lure cursing clubs due to her breed. An akita is a hunting dog!  My last akita's drive was not as strong. she stalked and stamped without the frenzied chase so i never had an issue with it.

Thanks for helping me choose between:

1. Complete avoidance no chasing anything i havent thrown for her 
2. Letting her chase when its safe, but calling her off when i need to with the remote collar.
3. Letting her chase birds in the fenced back yard, but nothing else.
4. Putting chase on Q, and sending her to 'hunt' when its safe, but never allowing her to chose to do so on her own.

Thanks so much,
Rosanne

Accepted Answer

It’s probably the most fair to the dog to not let her chase when she is with you.  In other words, if she is loose in the fenced yard it’s HER time to sniff around, chase birds and do doggy things.  When she is with you, I would not allow chasing. 

    I have some of the most prey driven dogs around and they will not chase cats, squirrels, deer or our poultry when they are out with me.  I don’t allow it and it’s very black/white to them.  If they are in the fenced yard and a bird or squirrel is around, of course I can’t and don’t correct them because I am usually not watching so they get reinforcement from chasing in that setting.

    Prey drive typically grows as the dog grows and if you let her chase animals when she is with you, it will just make things more unclear for her.  If she happens to catch one (which one of my dogs has done, a squirrel) the drive goes through the roof and the dog will require HUGE corrections in the future. I’d rather have control of my dog in these situations.  No need to feel sorry for her because you aren’t letting her do this.  It may save her life someday, because dogs chasing other animals can become hurt, lost or hit by cars very easily.

    Once you watch the dvd and work with the collar I think you will be very pleased.  I can walk all of my dogs off leash around livestock, poultry and squirrels because I have used the collar as a ‘back up’ to my recall.  It’s the best tool ever.