Keeping "Prey Animals" With High Prey Drive Dogs.

I'm due to move out in a couple of weeks and my mind has turned to keeping small furries again as I did in my teens. I stopped keeping them mainly due to a lack of space, but also due to my Dad having a major fear of rodents!

My question is, how fair is it to keep small furries in a household with high prey drive dogs eg Gundogs? I initially wanted to keep Guineas again, but then thought Rats/Dwarf Hamsters might be kinder all round as they can be moved from room to room.

Any thoughts?

LOL Rips.

Prey drive has a been a hot topic in other threads over the last day or so and as ever it's been debated..............

Zoundz will tell you Hannah is all ready for her rat and we're thinking 'dog' not least 'springer'.................

I have two degus. Jobie has a very high prey drive, but its pretty easily handled for us. For the first few months I didn't let him anywhere near the cage and told him off for staring at them. Now I can have them in my hands (at a safe distance) and he will lay there and completely ignore them he walks past their cage all the time and doesnt give them a second glance. I took him to p@h earlier and we walked past the bunnies, his ears were up and his tail was wagging but he wasnt totally 100% fixated on them like he used to be before I got the goos. Then again, gundogs might be a bit more tenacious!

Ah will have a look for those then. Not been on much of late, doing night duty!

Oh and "Springer" is definitely the buzzword. I don't think Oscar will be a problem, he's pretty easy to control (at the moment!), but Isla is very switched on to anything small and furry. Even the cat gets the odd look from her sometimes!

Interesting, thanks for that. I remember owning small furries when we had our last Springer. It was perfectly managable as we have a split garden so the Bunnies/Guineas were kept on the top lawn. My new house won't have this luxury, however, so I can't honestly see how keeping Guineas would be possible without Isla being driven to distraction when outdoors.

Think I might have to go for the Dwarf Hamster/Rat route!

I had 2 indoor guinne pigs with my working cocker and my collie x springer all went fine.
ATD

Did your working Cocker have a high prey drive (sorry, have to ask as many working dogs are kept as pets)? If so, how did you manage the dogs drive whilst in contact with the Guineas?

It's the Garden bit that's worrying me with regards Guineas really, I can't get out of my head what Bonnie was like all those years ago.

And the images of Isla vole hunting on her walk this afternoon doesn't help much!

I've had rabbits and hamsters here.......and both Fin and Teagan both have a high drive.
They are both hell bent on chasing anything small that moves (and killing it is they could catch it!)
Fin was totally obsessed with the rabbit - she would stand and stare into the hutch for hours waiting for him to move so she could chase him!

Only one incident with Fin - when I got a rabbit out of his hutch and stood up, and Fin jumped up to bite him - she got his tail, but luckily only the fluff!

I've even had Teagan on the sofa at the same time as a rabbit, and I had one litter of baby rabbits ( running all over the sofa with Teagan in the room!
I also once put a hamster on Teagans back to run about!


Edited to add this:

We spent alot of time worrying about the hamster. Built a special shelf 7 ft up closed the doors never let her near it told her off for staring at it etc etc.
The gun dog lab just could resist when we returned she taken the carpet up got the door open taken the cage from shelf broken metal cage and spread hamster all over the bedroom floor!
I have never felt so rotten in my life how the poor thing must have felt. Had to lie to 6 yr old and say it had run away. All out hamster ban in my house while we have gun dogs.

I've had rats and Fly's quite high prey drive especially with ratties (when she was on the farm the dog's got out to the barn to chase the rats, and kill those they could catch) so she was a bit of a nightmare, but stopped after a few weeks, she still stares now and again but tell her to leave she does. They don't go near the rat (lost one to old age) and I have had Jasmine (rat) out when Fly and Shadow are about and they've never gone after her, but I usually let her run about the living room whilst the dog's and hubby are playing in the bedroom lol - just incase

I`d just make absolutely positive the dogs can not get into the cages or runs... my sister`s JRT took advantage of a ill secured rabbit run and killed the poor bunny in seconds.

My bigger bitch.. knocked an indoor guinea cage off a work top it was on (again at my sisters), trying to get at the guinea.. the cage landed upside down on the floor... luckily the cage held and guinea was none the worse for wear... She was then placed upstairs with the door shut.. so my bigguns couldn`t see her anymore.