Developing prey drive in puppy

I have been struggling trying to develop Isaac’s prey drive over the past few weeks. When he came home at 7.5 weeks I began imprinting which included him chasing a little rubber ball around his room. Isaac definitely liked the ball! The challenge came when I tried to transition the ball to the back yard after he had transitioned from his room to the basement. He just wasn’t too interested in chasing the ball (I wasn’t tossing huge distances).

In an effort to focus on prey drive (ball) for the past two and a half weeks Isaac has had NO tracking or obedience training. Just PLAY, food and walks. Progress was slow but I think we are moving in a positive direction with the ball drive. I say ball drive because pure prey drive seems to be fine not over the top, but it’s there.

Here is an example of his prey drive but not necessarily ball drive. Just this Friday I went to pick Noah up from goalie camp; I took Isaac, a lead, and a couple balls. Once he got the sniffing out of the way in this new location I teased him with the ball and he wanted it (chomp chomp). I tossed the ball and he looked in the direction of the ball and then back a me. Poor ball drive in my opinion.

I then noticed a chunk of concrete (that’s really a picture of it) in the grass and grabbed it before Isaac saw it (he has rock drive). Then when he was busy sniffing and looking around I tossed the chunk of concrete (what I thought was out of his range). He spotted me tossing it, saw it land, and was off like I had just thrown an entire log of summer sausage. He grabbed it and brought it back to me. I tossed it again with the same result, I even think flames shot out of his ass after he went after it. After about five throws I stuck the rock in my pocket in an effort to save his teeth. I then saw an empty Gatorade bottle and tossed it with the same results I had with the rock. Balls nothing, rocks and Gatorade bottles “prey drive”. Was it the way they roll, bounce, or the noise they make when they hit the ground. Maybe he’s just homophobic and won’t chase ‘balls’!

Two and a half weeks ago I started with a dish towel hooked to a string on a broken fishing pole. Isaac chased, pounced, and jumped for the rag. He would pull, tug and hold the dish rag in his mouth until I held it still and gave him an ‘Aus’.

After about a week of that I put a Gappay ball on a long string and repeated the process in the front yard and garage with similar results to the puppy rag.

On occasion I would work in a two handed tug or the leather puppy tug I have.

This past Friday I started tossing two Kongs for him. The Kongs didn’t get the same level of response as the rock or the Gatorade bottle, but produced a little more drive than the plain balls.

Currently I am working with two Kongs with webbing handles and I seem to be holding his attention and keeping him in drive. We’ll see how it goes…I tried the kongs without the webbing and I just couldn’t get him into it without being able to drag it in front of him bouncing around. The webbing isn’t optimal, but it seems to be more of a help than a hindrance.