• Daria Rylkova

    Member
    January 29, 2020 at 10:56 am
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    I have heard of that, specifically from the Sympawtico dog trainer. My understanding is that when you have a dog with a genetically high prey drive, it is very important to find appropriate ways to satisfy that prey drive. Eg fetch, tug, flirt pole.

    I haven’t personally raised that many dogs, but my assumption would be that if you have a dog with a high prey drive, preventing him from having access to squeaky stuffed animals, won’t deter him from going after your pet guinea pig, if you just leave them loose together.

    In terms of concerns about preventing her from stealing and destroying blankets, I think that satisfying the prey drive, leadership and management are key. She should not be allowed to have free range of your house if she is doing that behavior. Toys that you use to play tug with her, should only be available when you are playing with her and you should initiate and end the game, put the toy away. When she is alone, give her something that she can chew on like a raw marrow bone or bully stick to get some of that need to destroy/tear things apart out.

    On a personal note, when Ella was a puppy, I did use my old socks to play tug with her and would leave it in her crate for her to tear up. She would for some time after I stopped doing that, bring me one of my socks to play with or get excited when I was putting on socks. It was more amusing than anything, but yes I definitely wouldn’t recommend doing something like that. But that was definitely my fault for confusing her, since I was leaving it in her domain (crate).