on other forum there was a discussion about the difficulty someone was having with their young dog and their cats - that their cats were just not safe around the dog, who was very 'extreme' (i'm paraphrasing) in its reactions.

several people commented that the dog seemed very aggressive, and that it was an unusual level of reaction to indoor cats. all i could think was 'hey! teagan!' i mentioned that the trainer who came in to help me w/her commented that while most dogs w/prey drive drive want to play with and dominant their prey, teagan wants to kill, and goes straight for the kill. there is no playing with her.

that was explained as prey aggression, rather than prey drive. so i did some googling, and this was all i found:
http://www.petplace.com/dogs/predatory-aggression/page1.aspx

the article is definitely negative re: prognosis. i did a quick search on here, but i'm pretty bad at searching on here.

i'm just curious on people's thoughts/experiences. where does a dog cross the line from prey drive to prey aggression? is it after a dog has successfully exercised prey drive, or is it a hardwired difference? are they really all that different? do they look and act different?

And....is this a silly distinction? Do dogs just have different levels of prey drive (what I had always thought)?

Umm, are they used to high drive dogs? Dogs naturally hunt and kill, it's part of prey drive. Higher drive dogs, especially without good training, are going to be a much higher danger to small animals.

When I got my younger Border Collie, he used to run in and try to bite the cats every.chance.he.got. He was high prey drive with no training. He had all this instinctive drive and was going to do something with it! Training him that is a big no-no and channeling his drive has made a huge difference in the way he reacts to the cats.

And there will also be dogs who will never be safe with cats. I don't know as I'd call them all aggressive, it's just that their prey drive is strong, and the cat becomes prey.

well, i always thought some dogs just had more prey drive than others, and that some dogs w/prey drive liked to play, and some liked to kill.

i'd never heard of 'prey aggression' as something separate from, or a higher level of, prey drive, until last night. i have to admit, i don't see where the separation is - it seems like a bit of a slippery slope.

It's a silly distinction.

I'm will to be dollars to donuts that the people on the other forum are much more "pet" oriented and don't really see much drives in their dogs, period - and I really doubt that they are used to using prey drive to train their dogs, like so many of us do here.

I have continually owned dogs with *very* high prey drive and I've owned three or four cats all during this long time period.
It just requires a motivated owner and good management of the situation ( which unfortunately is most often lacking with 90% of pet owners......hence the sad posts on pet dog forums.... )

it came out that the dog in question was also hackling and barking, which teagan does definitely not do (she doesn't go around warning things she's trying to kill that she's coming), but even then, when i mentioned what had been said by the trainer about teagan being focused on the kill rather than on playing, there was a distinction drawn.

a breeder on there made the comment that of the hunting sequence, different dogs have been bred for certain parts of it, and in a breed like GSDs, some dogs might have more of the killing part of the sequence than others, but it's all just prey drive (it was explained better than i'm doing here).

with teagan - i have her to the point that she knows she's not supposed to kill any of the small animals, but we're not at the point that i still don't have to be vigilant. now that we have a bigger house though, i do use separation quite a bit (the small animals have their own rooms, with child saftey knobs, and are allowed out w/out supervision when teagan is crated).