Is Your Dog’s Behavior Working Your Nerves? Try Harnessing the Predation Drive

Snuffle mats and other food-puzzle toys can help exercise your dog’s predation drive. photo: AdobeStock

Is your dog digging? Chasing? Eating non-edible objects? Lunging and pulling on his leash, trying to get at whatever it is right now? 

Often your dog may be acting out and doing things you don’t want him to do because he has unsatisfied predation drive needs. The good news is that it’s easy to fulfill these biological and genetically driven needs with some simple actions on our part.

There are eight basic steps in a typical dog’s predation drive: orient, eye, stalk, chase, grab bite, kill bite, dissect, and consume. Most dogs need to exercise these behaviors or they will find a way to do so on their own. It’s also important to note that when a dog seems uninterested in treats, it can sometimes be because he is not in the “consume” phase of the drive. He wants to stalk, chase, nip (grab bite) or perform other steps, but he is not ready for, or possibly even interested in, consuming the prey. Allowing our dogs to fulfill the steps before consuming is good for their mental health. It can also help us salvage our shoes, couches, and sometimes even our pup’s teeth.

My top recommendation to satisfy this drive is to provide meal puzzles at each and every meal. If this is a new concept for you, watch this short video demonstrating a variety of objects that can be used for this purpose, including an example of how you can put them all together. If you’re already an old hand at meal puzzles, but are only using them occasionally, I highly recommend making them a regular part of all your dog’s meals.

You may have noticed that we trainers use the word “enrichment” a lot. What this really means is giving your dog the ability to exercise his brain. Most dog owners know to provide physical exercise for their pups, but mental exercise is equally as important. When combined, you get a satisfied animal who has had all of his needs met and has less desire to find annoying or destructive ways to meet them on his own. 

By mental exercise, I mean any activity in which your dog has to think about what they need to do to get the reinforcement they want. Just like the predation drive, reinforcement also usually contains several elements: attention (“Hi!”), interaction (playing tug, for example), touch (getting petted), play (again, tug or any training game), praise (“Who’s a GOOD BOY!?”), and finally food. 

Providing your dog with food puzzles for his meals gives him the opportunity to think about what he needs to do to get the food out of the puzzle while, at the same time, allowing him to use his paws to hold and dig, his mouth to tear and eviscerate, and his teeth to chew and consume. My dog Balto will even sometimes consume part of his meal and then hide some to go get later. This is also a genetically driven behavior, inherited from furry ancestors who stored food because they did not know where their next meal was coming from. (With modern dogs, the storing impulse can be less than ideal, at least for their humans. One client found a moist pig’s ear hidden under their pillow - more than once!) 

Another useful outdoor exercise is to consciously acknowledge and reinforce your dog for seeing, eyeing, and stalking prey animals such as birds, squirrels, or mice. Let’s say you’re walking with your leash in the desired L shape and suddenly your dog notices a flock of birds grazing just ahead. Immediately he shows laser focus, his body tensing and pushing forward. Maybe one paw even lifts. He is now eyeing, seeing, and stalking, all solid elements of the prey drive. But how do you prevent the next one - chasing! - that results in his lunging and dislocating your shoulder? Immediately mark his behaviors by calmly saying “Yes…good boy…” followed by a treat. If he’s not interested in consuming a treat at this point, try using a tug toy, dog flirt pole, or a game of “Find it” to redirect him before he begins to chase. Of course, “Find it” also involves treats, but it includes scavenging and snuffling, which are part of the predation drive.  

If you live in an area with gopher holes, allowing your pup to search for these can be hugely reinforcing while reducing unwanted behaviors tenfold. In fact, this is Balto’s absolute favorite activity, and I often use it to reinforce walking with me on a loose leash and eliminating outside without tugging toward prey, children, adults, or other dogs. He does his business and does not jump because he knows that behavior means he’ll get to those fascinating Caddyshack gophers sooner rather than later. 

Providing my own pup with as many predation activities as possible has greatly  reduced his unwanted behaviors. And on those occasions when he still acts out, I stop and ask myself what I can do to provide enrichment and get him refocused on a desired behavior. Often, I’ve found just playing tug for a few minutes will solve the problem - and the best part? It’s fun for both of us. 

So instead of scolding your dog for behaviors that, after all, are just part of his innate dogginess, try harnessing the predation drive instead. I think you’ll find less acting out and a happier, more satisfied pup overall.