Explaining "Drive" in dogs

So you might hear a dog trainer say this dog is high drive or could even be mentioned in a description for a particular working dog breed, as it is a commonly used term to many professionals. Well what is it exactly? To put it in simple terms its based on your dogs internal mechanism to get something, take action, or do a specific behavior. So for example it’s the energy that propels a dog into action and the determination in its behavior, such as dogs who love to chase a ball have prey drive, dogs who herd livestock have herding drive, protection dogs have the drive to take on an opponent, etc. Some dogs have a really high drive, like if you have ever had a dog you might call “ball crazy” and is obsessive about you throwing its ball for it. Those dogs would do anything for that game and some can never seem to turn that desire off. It would be the same with my working Border Collies and the sheep, they see sheep and immediately go into herding mode. I don’t train that into the dog as it is not a learned behavior but I can mold that natural drive in my dogs for a better result in training that learned behavior.

Each dog has a level of drive that will vary genetically, however, we as owners can build up drive or take it away depending on what results we are looking for in specific situations. You ever meet a dog that would do anything for food? Well that energy and obsession is what drives his need for food. Many dogs can even show drive to defend ones property like barking at strangers or charging forward to chase the mailman off. Drive is bred into dogs, meaning it is in their genetic make up, so a working dog breeder would breed for more drive in order to maintain a type of dog that will continue to work even with high levels of distraction, stress, or difficulty in the task being asked. Pet bred dogs might have a lot less drive and tolerance for stressful situations as it is not designed to have those high maintenance drives for working tasks. So that could take the form as the type of dog that has no interest in doing tasks for food or toys, or who kinda play with a ball but lose interest quickly. This is considered low to moderate drive in dogs and although harder to train they can be easier to live with as a pet.

Drive will present itself in different ways depending on the breeds and individual dogs, and breeders have molded what drive is best suited for the specific job that is needed. Lets use herding dogs vs hunting dogs for an example. Herding dogs have been bred to herd livestock, that is their drive and it is 100% genetic in that dog, so herding dogs that don’t have enough drive to complete the difficulties in its work would not have been used to breed future generations of herding dogs, but the dogs who do have the right amount of drive would be used for future breeding. Ok there are other desired traits that a breeder would be looking for as well but that is for another day and a different blog! So how is a hunting dog using drive but not the same drive as a herding dog? Well that is from careful selection by years and generations of purpose based breeding. Dogs that had the drive genes to retrieve or flush were used to breed but the dogs that didn’t were passed by, kinda the same as a herding breeder but different natural traits were the designed goal for the job. This is also why in companion breeds they have a lack of drive, as they would have had the opposite goal in mind. They would NOT be bred if they had high drives and energy, as their job is to be a companion to their owners and so those traits would not be conducive to the over all use for that breed of dog.

Now when you have a mixed breed dog the genetic makeup of that individual dog is a crapshoot so to speak as we don’t know what genes it will get from either parent, or what kind of drive the parents even had. This makes it difficult to make an educated decision on possibly adopting a mixed breed dog or a pure bred dog that was not bred specifically with drive in mind from the breeder. This makes it especially difficult when you have a specific job or task in mind or just want a pet with no job at all. I know when I go to evaluate a dog that I am giving an obedience lesson to or even looking at fostering a dog out of the shelter I always bring treats, a ball, and a tug toy! I want to see what drives and motivates that dog, as this is ultimately how I will train that dog and mold his inherent drive into behaviors that I want.

This is how I like to train dogs, I use that dogs individual drive for what motivates it and use that as the reward for learned behaviors such as; sit, recall, down, etc. We use repetition, consistency, timing, and easy to follow basic steps, in order to explain to that dog what we are asking it to do and have the dog be happy to comply with those commands. I know, it’s like magic! Imagine a dog that has this huge happy compelling urge to not only listen to commands but react to them immediately, wow!

You might be sitting there thinking about how a dog who loves a ball, tug game, or food can be easier to train and get fast reactions to commands. Well in a nutshell I break down every command to its most basic and simple parts then any resulting try is instant gratification with whatever reward that dog has drive for. If the dog sits for a single second, boom, ball toss. If the dog heels into position on my left left, boom, tug toy. If the dog turns when hearing a recall and takes a step towards me, boom, tons of praise. These are a few examples when I mean “molding behavior by using drive” and it surprisingly takes some practice to get it right as timing and situations are key to being successful while training a dog.

Now is the best time to build your dogs drive in order to have better results from learned behaviors. There are several ways to do this but take this with a grain of salt because like I discussed earlier drive is basically genetic so we can only build so much into a dog that has little to no drive. If they like a ball or toy really engage with them and get them excited to play together, or even have a few tugs that you miss on purpose to really get them revved up to get the toy the second time, or find that really special treat that your dog goes crazy for (hotdogs, chicken bits, cheese, whatever), or mix up where you throw the ball or different throw lengths. These are just a few fun examples to be more engaging with your dog and not just mindlessly throwing a ball with a chuck it. I always put a command with it as well like “get it” or “find it” or “ball”, doesn’t matter the word choice but that I incorporate a command to the motivating action.

We talked about building drive in dogs to be more engaged with you and your training, but here we'll discuss when we might want less drive in our dogs. When you don’t want your dog to chase the mailman (trust me that does not end well), or chasing and possibly killing livestock (really does not end well!), or obsessing over a toy for hours on end. Well this is going to be achieved by using control, and no I don’t mean a leash, I mean the obedience you have on your dog that he is controlled by command or knowing that these behaviors are unacceptable. We can still use the drive in our dog but for the sole purpose of the redirection of the dogs attention. My motto is “correct, redirect, reward” I correct the unwanted behavior, I redirect them into doing other behaviors with commands, and of course when the dog behaves correctly in those wanted behaviors I reward. Rinse, wash, and repeat!

This all sounds so fun and easy written but it truly takes some practice to get it all correct and in the right order, I highly recommend finding a trainer that understands drive and how to best use it in order to help you be successful with your own dog. Each dog is its own individual and each has a different way to learn, a good trainer will understand that and find what is the best motivation for that particular level of drive. This blog was only to teach about drive and I want to add that there are many other factors that go into training a dog, personality, hard or soft mentalities, situations or environment, genetics, and stress, all have a part to play so drive is just one ingredient to the whole process.

Always remember to have fun and play to train!