Train your dog to search, it would have save you a lot of time! Then he would be too busy to search for poo!

Would be very interested to read that.

I have let my terrier kill rats before when we had a house over the back being renovated and the rats just poured out from under the floor. I only let him kill the rat after the rat unbelivably went for one of my cats, my first reaction was to let the dogs out to it. I have a guinea pig that he adores and also a rabbit that he adores. Freya has a habbit of chasing birds. I used to let her chase them untill the one day when the swallows were out and i had to spend an hour and a half after a walk trying to get her back, she ripped the claws off in the process of trying to catch them as well, she isnt allowed to chase them anymore.

You can tell when holding a lurcher or greyhound when the predatory bit kicks in. Everything about the dog changes and if you hold its collar you can feel the tension and the concentration.

Its as if the dog changes completely from the one you thought knew.

rune

ive had to chase my dog three fields when she went after a rabbit. from that day shes not allowed off lead in them fields as her prey drive kicks in soon as she enters them its only small furries that intrest her and shes fine with sheep cattle etc both my dogs i can walk by cats in the street but in the garden is another thing my staffie has managed to get hold of one lucky i was there and managed to get him to realeas it and it ran off.but i do have te problem mentioned in previous replies my other half will take them out on there extendys and chase rabbitts so my hard work to stop them doesnt work

It hasn't been a case of allowing Duncan to hunt on the occasions he has killed rats it has been complete surprise to us as we hadn't seen them before he found them. Either in holiday cottages where you just don't expect to be infested having paid so much for your weeks holiday or he has been on lead and a rat has literally run into his path and his reaction was quicker then mine or the rat's !

We don't allow him off anywhere near rabbits as Iam sure he would hunt them, he was pretty good when off lead he came across 3 deer - started chasing but when I screamed at him he stopped and came back so no harm done.

Mollie has caught rabbits but she carries them to us and gives them to us, so if they survive the shock they can be let go. Again she isn't allowed to do it just on a few occasions she has been quicker at seeing them than me.

I have never come across deer but i have come across horses and both freya and harvey came back when called. But they are both accustomened to horses as they have been around them since they were pups. as for chasing cats i have always had a large number of cats and the cats ahve always been boss

daphni will chase a rabbit if she sees one, but i can call her off, and she has never ignored me. i cant help that we see rabbits, i live in the middle of the countryside, and rabbits are about. she is fine around livestock and sheep, doesnt bat an eyelid and just walks past them.

asbo on the other hand is proving more of a problem in this department. he will chase rabbits, has chased a squirell and some geese. he goes on lead around cows and sheep because i dont trust him yet, he barks at them when he sees them, and i have no doubt that he would give chase if they ran. so until we do some more training i wont take the risk.

Also, most owners may well have “proofed” their dogs amongst fields of sheep but are surprised if and when their supposedly “sheep proof” dog will chase a singleton which appears out of the blue on the moors say. The sheep often smell different and move differently as well.

This is due to a phenomenon known as SEC (Sudden Environmental Contrast); which is one of the reasons a dog will chase a hare when it has been rock steady in a rabbit pen!

Flynn is not a natural chaser but is more inclined to give chase when the other dogs are present. He normally hangs back, preferring not to waste his energy chasing things he realises he wont catch. However, if he thinks he stands a good chance of catching something then he will go for it and if he gets it then it's dead within seconds. Out of the 3 of mine, he is the least likely to give chase but has the stronger kill instinct. If he does take off after something I can recall him back quickly and he wont venture far.

Jessie will chase and has killed but she only joins in when the other dogs are there, she isnt fixated on hunting and can take it or leave it really. That means I can call her off easily or prevent her in the first place. Her prey drive is pretty low for live animals (never chases cats) but is more directed at toys really.

Jed is the worst. He never hunted until I got Flynn and then he realised what he'd been missing out on and now he's a liability. I cant call him off and he will run a good distance away from me and just keep going until he can no longer see or smell the prey. He's the type of dog who is very independent and has little desire to please humans so coupled with his prey drive makes him a nightmare. For this reason he stays on lead in places I feel are unsafe and I only tend to walk my dogs in places where they cant really get into trouble. So that means away from roads, train lines, farms etc.

As prey driven as all of my dogs are, they have never bothered sheep. We always used to walk in the Peak District where there would be the odd sheep on the moor or hillside which would take flight and my dogs never gave it a second look. If I saw the sheep first I would of course reel them in and keep them away. We were at Bradgate Park the other weekend and there was a few deer over the brow of the hill. I didnt realise and my dogs went over the brow and out of sight but came back within a few seconds. Thankfully they paid the deer no interest (good job really because it gave me a serious wake up call that day!) and they even ignored a red stag running from us.

I'm not stupid enough to think that these things are guaranteed and I always exercise caution and try to weigh up the surroundings.

For me personally, I dont see predatory drift as a problem but I do keep my eye on the dogs if they come across smaller dogs. We came across a Papillon the other day who got a bit bothered by my 3 looming over it. It started yelping and running in circles so I was quick to move my lot away, especially as they'd just been play fighting.