I'm a month or two late on the prey drive discussion but it's something I've been diving into quite a bit recently as I volunteer as the behavior consultant at DogBreederGame.com
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
I had to jump in when the admin was proposing the personality traits be "prey drive, pack drive, fight/defense drive." It's hard to boil all the complex behavior of dogs down into various statistics, but we managed to get it down to 26 traits (25 on the site at the moment, but soon we'll be splitting anxiety into "anxiety" and "alertness" -- with a shared component meaning you can't have a hyper-vigilant dog without at least average levels of anxiety, nor a hyper-anxious dog without average alertness, which was the initial concern with separating them). We don't even have a separate trait for aggression as that is complex in itself; there's irritability and anxiety, which can both trigger the fight/flight trait. Territoriality is separate from those altogether, and the various stages of prey drive (scent, sight, stalk, chase, grab, kill) are separated out as well to allow for pointers being different from retrievers being different from hounds etc. It's been complicated but I feel like I am learning a lot by having to think about this all so much. I had never thought so hard about how herding works in a dog's mind until recently! Tending style herding is still strange and fascinating to me.
We've moved into a house with two roommates, and every time they or their roommates talk about how skinny Delta is I want to scream
![Embarassed :oops:](./images/smilies/icon_redface.gif)
I may try to get a longer-cutting clipper blade so that he doesn't have to be taken down to the skin when it's time for a trim just so they shut up a bit lol.
Parents got their GSD puppy -- decently bred and local, and for once I am happy GSDs are fairly popular as otherwise it would have been difficult to find a breeder that was local enough for my dad and good enough for me to approve of
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
Flint is a handful though, and will definitely keep them active and alert. A couple months ago he got an awful spider bite to his tail and had to have it amputated, so now he has a little nub. Very cute and the only way I could tell him and one of my clients' dogs apart. (Said client wrote a great book on training her first human remains detection dog. Hopefully I will get to continue working alongside her when my next puppy comes along and we test those waters!)
I am so glad we are getting into the holiday-heavy part of the year. I need some breaks before I collapse of exhaustion.
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)