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Location: UK
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 1,096
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IMO they are the same thing but to differing degrees, depending on the dog's personal prey preference, which is why trying to transfer problematic predatory chasing onto a (to the owner) more desirable target does not tend to work with those dogs who are highly committed to live prey but only moderately committed to ball or toy chasing or social hunting.
It's no different to different value food rewards producing different results - too low value and the dog isn't motivated, too high and the excitement or fixation on the food may actually interfer with learning to required behaviour. The perceived value of the prize affects the effort worth going to obtain it.
How appealing what is being offered will also be affected by the alternative options. Ball v nothing can make the ball appealing, ball v bunny will never work with some dogs. Likewise dog biscuit v nothing may be effective, dog biscuit v meeting another dog may not be but for some dogs roast chicken may trump meeting another dog, or chasing the bunny- meal obtained, hunt/predation concluded.
Predatory behaviour is not expressed the same way by all dogs. As Coppinger says, predatory behaviour involves orient, eye-stalk, chase, grab, bite, kill-bite, dissect, consume. However different breeds can typically abort or virtually bypass certain stages.
Collies have strong eye stalk but should have repressed kill-bite, as should soft mouthed gun dogs, livestock guardians have inhibited dissect, sighthounds have a much more developed chase than eye-stalk, terriers generally have a strong grab and kill bite.
A dog can still be in prey drive whichever part of that sequence they are in, and at whatever intensity, it does not have to be the entire suite of predatory behaviours to qualify as part of prey drive and the intensity and determination can depend on the arousal level, which will be higher when the dog is more excited by more exciting prey.
To some dogs intangible shadows and lights are prey, sometimes to a compulsive level, but they can never grab hold of light or shadow, with there being a hypothesis that this inability to reach an satisfying end point is part of what contributes to the compulsive behaviour in predisposed dogs.
Some dogs who stare intensely and fixedly at something stationary can be in an exaggerated orientate/eye section of prey drive, even if they don't move, as they wait for the "prey" to "break" and move, this can be clear in some dogs while they are waiting for a toy to be produced, or for a release command to be allowed to grab something.
All prey drive, imo which can be performed playfully (practise behaviour) or in earnest, without that determining which drive they are in and with the behaviour potentially being intrinsically rewarding with or without the handler's involvement.
Even those dogs whose involvement is dependent on owner involvement are probably exhibiting overlapping pack and predatory drives -a dog may be motivated to go on a pack hunt with the added social reinforcement but not be motivated to "hunt" by itself.