Is Your Dog a Hunter?

I don't mean hunting dog exactly, but does your dog have a strong prey drive? Are they good at it or do they just see it as a great chase? Has it ever created a problem? How do you feel about it?

Sophie fears our house cats, except the two or three that sleep with her. But outside...well she knows our cats even outside. But she's gotten some neighborhood strays in her time I still feel horrible about.

Obviously why I only walk her in the woods now. She galumps after squirrels and chipmunks, runs headfirst into trees not thinking to look UP-yes the smell goes UP the tree duh. she's tried to chase geese and a deer and both times gave up halfway, seemingly puzzled as to why they wouldn't stand still.

Any profile on pitties usually mentions a high prey drive, they don't say anything about intelligence...poor dawg

Most definitely.

Squirrels, rabbits, birds... he always will go after them.

To be honest, I'm not sure a recall would happen if he were on the hunt for a fast moving small furry creature outside.

Bailey of course is a hunter...as a working coon dog he will tangle with anything that isn't fast enough to get away. But he definitely doesn't have the hair-trigger response that a lot of really prey-driven dogs do: when he's trailing something exciting, he's not too into squirrels or deer or whatever. Unfortunately, he has also killed two farm cats (not ours) =(

Liberty's all about barking at things. I think the only thing he's ever killed was a bird (and I suspect Bailey killed it, only to have it taken away by The Boss Dog). He also got sprayed by a skunk once.

Mammoth is blind =)

Mine all love fast food -- anything not quite fast enough to get away

Bimmer used to hunt rabbits with a redtail hawk out in the pasture. He taught Shiva and Kharma to hunt. He flushed Kharma's first groundhog when she was just five months old, but she killed it and ate it herself. Shiva was about eight months old or so when she got hers. Then she learned to kill skunks without getting sprayed. And yes, she ate them. We kept finding skunk skins laying around with only the head and tail assembly left.

Kharma and Tallulah are adept at catching birds too. Kharma caught the mockingbird that kept bombing her every time we'd leave the house . . . while she was on a 3' lead. And yes, she ate it. Left the feathers, head and feet. While I was on the other end of the leash

Desoto will chase things (rabbits, deer etc) but not to kill, just to herd them and he always listens when you call him off. He once caught up to a bunny he was chasing only to have an awkward and confused stare off and then let it scamper away. :rofl1: That being said if it was a predator he may react differently. Buns are not really a threat to us or the property.

Radar chases to kill, he is a successful mouser (better than the cats!) and is basically determined to kill any non canine creature smaller than him. He stays leashed in unfenced areas.

Duke (sister/roommates pointer) chases just to chase he would never really hurt anything he is just a good ol' boy having fun. He is also easily distracted and um...slow, so if it where my preference he would stay leashed most of the time.

I'm not too sure if she'd kill anything.
She stalks and chases, but 90% of the time, the critters she's after are in a tree. I found a dead squirrel and bird recently in our yard, and while she did eat them, I don't know if she killed them.
Another kind of interesting thing, she recently saw a baby mouse and started playing with it. My mom and I thought it was just a really big bug, but when we saw it was a mouse, I pulled her away and picked it up. It wasn't hurt at all, just very wet from her mouth. And she's pretty good with cats. Maybe a bit too rough, but I doubt she'd ever hurt one on purpose.
Long story short, Kailey has prey drive, but I'm not sure she has the instinct to kill.

Sonic/Olive based on their individual criteria: yes/yes, okay/surprisingly, not really but close/no, it's the reason i got him/lucky

Zander is pretty good at catching birds. He's never encountered anything like a deer or rabbit, though, so I don't know how he would do with ground critters?

Or if he would even see them as food. Between ferret, rat, and bunbun friends, he might have it in his head, "FRIENDS not food!". But he WILL chase anything that runs, period. Just don't know if he would kill it purposely, considering all his little animal non-food friends.

Yoshi is sometimes. She doesn't really notice cats other than to check them out. Most things inside other than a toy she's fine. But when you let her outside anything on the ground that runs is free game. Not cats but rabbits, mice, other small critters.

I think it definitely depends on the circumstance. Liberty is only likely to give chase if the potential prey item is running or darting away from him, and even Bailey will yield if a large animal turns around on him (a bear, once! Yikes!). Liberty had an ongoing non-aggressive relationship with a rabbit that didn't give a f___ and just sat around while he hopped around it and barked. He never touched it.

Yes!! I pray the neighbor's cat never ventures into our yard. Romeo, Soldier, and Ritzy..not so much. Zoie likes to chase, but isn't really lethal. Boomer and Casey have both had rabbits, I'm assuming they each caught theirs (how the heck do rabbits come in, and can't figure out how to get out..). Skye and Fez are professional critter hunters. Fez has caught birds and eaten them. He swallows chipmunks whole. Skye...has caught chipmunks and LOVES to find snakes. She grabs, shakes, and drops until they are dead. In Florida she caught a coral snake..it's not a great thing for her.

He has lots of prey drive and he is ecstatic when he gets to "hunt" or chase something. It seems the bigger and more aggressive it is the better. He is beside himself when the raccoons come round. He couldn't care less about small birds (which is good).

But he has absolutely zero stalking sense. He just charges it. Very ineffective lol. He's only killed a rat that was corned, and he chased a rabbit hard enough that when it hid in a debris pile I was able to extract it without any fight. Those are the only times we've something to show for his efforts and he didn't even get to kill the rabbit, poor doggy lol.

As I mentioned in another thread, I have tried making him move towards it slowly but then he just screeches/whines/barks and it runs away anyhow. Stupid dog lol.

For Mia, her drive is for chasing. She has caught and killed a few little things on accident but she will usually do the cat-like thing and let them go and catch them again and again. And she loves to chase the cat but again it's just her wanting to chase and play. She will obsess over pretty much any kind of animal though.

Summer will only chase after squirrels if Mia sees a squirrel and Mia gets excited. She's very much a follower.

Lilly, Gunner, Dutchess, Kiley and Courtney have tons of prey drive. Thankfully no kitties have ever gotten into our yard because Courtney really hates cats, but plenty of squirrels, rabbits and even a possum have died due to these guys Mainly due to Courtney, but the others will join in once she does the catching.

Murphy caught and killed a squirrel in our yard a couple months ago. To my knowledge it was the first one in the five years I've had him (but not for lack of trying). Mu likes to chase squirrels and did catch one the other day. She squished it a couple times and the poor thing started squealing and she lost her grip. I'd feel worse but TWO dogs were circling his tree and he came down anyway. He escaped and ran back up the tree. She will probably kill the next one she catches.

Tipper wouldn't catch and kill anything I don't think. She would chase if the other dogs were chasing though.

I have no doubt Murphy would kill a cat that came in our yard. The squirrel population is apparently not attracted to barking or I bet he'd catch and kill all of them.

Yes Art loves to chase the cats/rabbits/squirrels/birds/etc that run outside. When we lived at our old apartment ther were so many stray/loose cats! You couldn't go outside without a stray cat running across your path or off a car. So what we did was Art got very excited when he see them, we made him sit and if he sat and stayed until we released him, we would let him chase the cats until his hearts desire was fullfilled.

Now I know that sounds mean, but he was always on leash and never got anywhere near the cats really, we didn't let him. It was more the "you listen to us, we will let you do what you want after" type thing and it really worked! His focus when he sees a small animal is completely fixated on the animal, but we are able to break through and require a sit/stay until released now.

He doesn't catch anything, though there have been a few close calls with the rabbits in the backyard and a few birds.

The cat chasing was one of our biggest concerns when it came to getting our new kitty (Kat). But Art respects her space adn they are very very slowly becoming good friends, I swear they almost started playing yesterday lol

Heck, even my budgies can be out flying around and they are perfectly safe with Art. He has great respect for "my" animals.

Not really. They will attempt to chase rabbits/squirrels in the yard, but they are not good at it and if I have them off leash somewhere, they can easily be called off. They just want to run and chase.... I don't think they have any idea what they would do if they actually caught up to it.

No issues having a cat and rats in the house.

No kills but Tika and Aura retrieve mice and birds that the cats have killed. They do chase but I don't think they would actually kill.

Scamp has killed kittens and has tried to kill an adult cat before. I think he caught a mouse once as well. Generally I don't give him the opportunity.

Fudge is the dog everyone hates. He chases everything. Rabbits, mice (he caught it and then didn't know what to do with it lol. The cat was with us and demonstrated it to him clearly.) and horses. He's since learnt the error of his ways about chasing horses and can come on rides with me as long as I keep an eye on him and don't mess around too much.

Taz doesn't really chase (which is the point!) and he's never killed anything either.

Suzie views it as a big chase, she loves chasing our cat, and will bug the poor thing until Sign runs. But she never ever tries to actually hurt her. She does it the multiple squirrels that the cat kills, and if she ever did catch something, I don't doubt that she would kill and eat it herself. Funnily enough, she doesn't look twice at squirrels when they're living.