Canine Behavior

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Raising and training your dog to be happy and obedient requires a lot of trust and confidence, but it also requires motivating the dog to listen to you. Even if a dog fully trusts you and knows you would never do anything to cause them harm, they still will not listen to you unless you give them a good reason. For some dogs, verbal praise and physical contact are rewarding enough for basic obedience training. For most dogs, some kind of tasty incentive works best for operant conditioning. Some dogs, however, are not food motivated or praise motivated, so it is important to understand the different types of innate drives coded in a dog's DNA in order to figure out the best motivators for your dog.

Prey Drive

Prey drive is a dog's innate desire to chase and kill small furry animals. There are countless genetic modifiers on prey drive, and experience influences how it manifests as well, but it is basically their drive to pursue wild animals. For some dogs, prey drive only causes them to pursue prey animals (i.e., not dogs or cats); in other dogs, it means chasing anything small that is not a canine (including cats); but some dogs will try to chase and kill literally any small furry animal, including other dogs. 

Play drive is one genetic modification of prey drive that consists of a dog's desire to play with other dogs and/or humans. Some dogs are not food motivated but have high play drive, and a game of tug or fetch is often enough of a motivator for these dogs to let you train them.

Herding drive is another modification of prey drive that can be seen in the natural herding instincts of corgis, Australian Cattle Dogs, and a variety of other herding breeds. Typically, these dogs have a natural instinct to chase other species (even large animals such as sheep and cattle) but do not harm the animals if they catch them.

Defense Drive

This refers to a dog's innate instinct of self-preservation. Some dogs react more assertively than others (i.e., quick to defend themselves vs. more likely to run and hide) but all dogs will defend themselves if the situation is extreme enough (like if they are completely cornered and a dog is biting at them or a toddler is smothering them). Generally, this drive is the same as "fight or flight", but because dogs are a social species there is a third option—appeasement behaviors. Appeasement is essentially a dog's way of saying "I am not a threat; please don't hurt me." Appeasement behaviors include tucking the tail and ears, excessive licking of the other dog (or human), rolling over on the back, and lowering their head. A dog tucking its ears back does not always mean it is exhibiting appeasement behavior, but you should always look at the rest of their body language to be sure. Approaching a dog who is offering appeasement behavior can be dangerous, as this is their way of letting you know that they are afraid and do not want to fight if they don't have to.

Pack Drive

Pack drive refers to a dog's tendency to be close to other members of the pack. Some dogs desire to be close to humans but not dogs, some dogs desire to be close to dogs but not humans, some dogs are totally independent, and some dogs love to be around both humans and dogs. All of these illustrate the dog's level of pack drive. Some dogs want to be in your lap all the time, whereas other dogs want to be in the same room  as you but not on top of you. Some dogs will immediately get up and follow you every time you leave the room, but other dogs won't. Overall, there is a lot of variability and complexity in pack drive, but most breeds have patterns that are typical within the breed, and dogs with high pack drive can often be motivated by praise and affection. Dogs with low pack drive (regarding humans) tend to be described as independent, and they are often said to be "willing to work with you but not for you". In other words, these dogs tend to be more difficult to train to be obedient, but with proper motivation and ethical training practices and expectations there is no such thing as an "untrainable" dog.

Food Drive

Most dogs are highly motivated by food (or edible rewards), so this is typically what we recommend using for training. However, different kinds of food offer different levels of reward. We highly recommend using a variety of treats to help keep your dog interested, but also to determine a hierarchy of the value of those treats. For example, many dogs can be motivated by dry treats like MilkBones (we use MaroSnacks because they are smaller and slightly more motivating) but prefer stinkier training treats like Zukes and value hot dogs and braunschweiger (liverwurst) above all other categories. For a dog like this, we would use the most salient (most effective as a motivator) option, braunschweiger, to train the most severe or urgent behavior we want to modify, we would use hot dogs for whatever is second most important, and we would use Zukes and MaroSnacks for basic obedience training.