I'm hoping someone can clear up some things about training with prey drive and toy drive that are confusing to me. Are they basically the same? Different but similar? Different and unrelated?
Sometimes I hear about people training in what they call prey drive, but it seems like they're really training in toy drive. For example, they say they want a BC for agility with high prey drive, so they can reward with toys instead of food. To me, they really want a dog with high toy drive, but not necessarily high prey drive (because they probably don't want the dog focusing on every squirrel they walk past). I've also heard people talk about Sch/IPO as training in prey drive, but again it seems more like toy drive, or maybe some other drive, but not necessarily prey as I understand it (which is why I think I might not understand it correctly).
IME though, prey and toy drive don't necessarily go together. Watson has pretty strong prey drive when it comes to actual animals. Seeing a cat will cause him to flip out, and using his nose to hunt animals is his favorite thing. Nothing gets in his way when he wants to go after prey. His toy drive is only meh though. He'll fetch about 10 times before he wants to go off and sniff things. He'll tug like crazy when he's in the mood, but again can be easily distracted by actual prey outside. Maybe his prey drive could be used to build more toy drive if I was a better trainer, but they don't seem to be the same thing to me.
So what's the definition of these prey drive and toy drive? How do you understand them? And most importantly, how do you personally make use of them in training?
Sometimes I hear about people training in what they call prey drive, but it seems like they're really training in toy drive. For example, they say they want a BC for agility with high prey drive, so they can reward with toys instead of food. To me, they really want a dog with high toy drive, but not necessarily high prey drive (because they probably don't want the dog focusing on every squirrel they walk past). I've also heard people talk about Sch/IPO as training in prey drive, but again it seems more like toy drive, or maybe some other drive, but not necessarily prey as I understand it (which is why I think I might not understand it correctly).
IME though, prey and toy drive don't necessarily go together. Watson has pretty strong prey drive when it comes to actual animals. Seeing a cat will cause him to flip out, and using his nose to hunt animals is his favorite thing. Nothing gets in his way when he wants to go after prey. His toy drive is only meh though. He'll fetch about 10 times before he wants to go off and sniff things. He'll tug like crazy when he's in the mood, but again can be easily distracted by actual prey outside. Maybe his prey drive could be used to build more toy drive if I was a better trainer, but they don't seem to be the same thing to me.
So what's the definition of these prey drive and toy drive? How do you understand them? And most importantly, how do you personally make use of them in training?