Aspects of the Hunting Drive Complex

Trying to match instinctive acts with specific drives can create problems, because often an act will fit more than one drive. That’s why we like to speak of a drive complex, because we believe that a separate drive can’t have an impact without touching the total characteristics of the dog. The dog has a whole set of drives that, with its sense organs and temperament, form its “doggy” character.

Professor Konrad Lorenz defined those drives as follows: “All little forms of behaviour are in service to the four big drive complexes. These are breeding/reproduction, food acquisition, escape and aggression. A drive will be stimulated when a certain stimulus from inside or outside reaches a living being. This drive will be the button to release a whole set of reactions, the so-called instinct acts, which are pressing for satisfaction and relaxation.”1

For a short definition of the different drives, we here employ the work of Eugen Seiferle, a Swiss professor of veterinary anatomy and an authority on canine behavior.

By hunting drive we mean the characteristic drive of dogs to scent for game or to chase game on sight. This drive goes back to the ancestors of our dog—the wolves—and finds its origins in the pressure to find food. The hunting drive is still present in modern dogs in a more or less emphatic form, although the drive has nothing to do with feeling hungry or pressured for food acquisition. Therefore, the hunting drive is not only present in hunting dogs, but also in just about every dog. However, in some house pets the hunting drive has been, for the most part, lost. When this hunting drive still exists, we speak of a passion for hunting.

Figure 3.1 A dog that likes to work shows a lot of interest when it sees that you’re getting ready to go. It approaches a rubble pile with excitement.

The prey drive is very similar to the hunting drive. Originally the prey drive grew out of the attempt not only to hunt game but also to catch and kill it to satisfy both the dogs’ own hunger and that of their young. This drive is also present in many pet dogs; however, it is now often focused on chasing toys. Chasing game is no longer taught to young dogs (except, of course, in trained hunting dogs), and the prey drive is now expressed most often in chasing, catching, and shaking articles to “death.”

The tracking drive is expressed in the willingness of the dog to follow a game track or pick up a human track (smelling with the nose on the soil), and in following that track with enthusiasm and perseverance. When the tracking drive, which can be directed to something hidden under the soil or snow, is decidedly present, then we speak of a passion for tracking.

By search drive we mean the dog’s interest in catching game (or missing people), not only by using its nose but also with the support of its eyes and ears. It follows the found odor enthusiastically by air scenting with a high nose in a determined way.

Figure 3.2 Dogs follow an odor by air scenting with their nose. They exhibit enthusiasm and great determination.

In canines living in the wild, the bring drive is expressed, under the influence of the pack drive, by the dog picking up the prey or parts of it and bringing the prey to the lair, where the mother and young dogs are waiting.

The hunting, prey, tracking, search, and bring drives form a chain that takes care of getting the necessary food for the dog living in the wild. For our house pet, for which this problem of food acquisition no longer exists, these drives can show up independently of one another. Then we see, for example, that the hunting drive can be present without the prey drive, or that the bring drive has nothing to do with food.

The hunting drive of our dog, as well as the prey and bring drives, can be worked off by replacing prey with a toy, stick, ball, or, for Greyhounds, piece of rabbit skin. Given the prey and bring drives and some focused training, the dog can be trained to pick up and bring replacement prey to the handler, which is usually called retrieving.

The play drive is naturally present in the dog, particularly so in young dogs, but also in older dogs. This drive has a strong relationship with the motion and occupation drives. By play-skirmishing with pack mates or by playing with dead objects, the young dog learns to use and control its physical and mental skills and power. That way it can prepare itself without effort for the serious tasks of life. During play the dog learns all important forms of behavior for survival and pack life.

Dogs striving for temporary or long-term group relationships demonstrate the pack drive. For most house pets, humans and human society become their pack. The human family replaces the pack and becomes the dog’s familiar social and family circle. In this pack the dog will then orient all its drives and instincts (in a somewhat altered form) toward living communally.

Satisfying and releasing, which is the ultimate purpose of every drive, takes place in the hunting drive complex by bringing the replacement prey and sharing it with the handler, just as a wild dog would share prey with the pack.

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