Prey drive...help

Maska is an 8 month old Utonagan puppy. The Ute is a breed about 25 years old and bred from Siberian Huskies, German Sheperds and Alaskan Malamutes plus a couple of mystery sled dogs. I believe they have no wolf content but were bred to look like a wolf.

I took Maska for a evening walk last night and we thought we had lost him!!! We went out in to the woods and, as usual, he walked to heel until we got to the woods and then we let him off the lead for a while. He is normally pretty good now. He never goes more than 50/60 yeards ahead before stopping and checking where we are...guess that is because he is still young. He comes when he is called although getting to the age where he looks at you sometimes and kinda walks slowly back to you as if to say...I'm coming but in my own time. Shows no interest in squirrels, birds and lives with three cats (just loves to chase bees) Anyway we were walking along when suddenly he took off at great speed. Took me by surprise, I have never seen him move like that! I saw a deer dash across the hill and the chase was on. He was up the steeply wooded hill in seconds and gone...

We called him for a while nothing. I set off after him up the hill ( at a good deal less speed than Maska I have to say) and my husband started to circle around the slope and we just called and called. Was starting to think we had lost him and, as we had gone to these woods in the car, he would not find his way back. Was also worried about the reaction of others the next day when a 'wolf' suddenly appeared in the woods!! Could just see the headlines...or worse...someone else just took him. You never go out without people commenting on him and he is a very friendly guy.

After about 15 mins of calling I looked up and saw this rather magnificent creature standing on the top of the slope. I have never seen him from that distance and he did look rather fine standing there surrounded by nature.... He came dashing back to us, fortuately not covered in blood, so I guess the deer lived to see another day! Funny that when he came back after the first couple of licks, he just rubbed himself in the leaf litter around us for ages rather than greeting us more.

Anyway, and the point of this ramble...I am now rather worried about letting him off his lead. He will come if he is called but yesterday instinct took over and he took no notice of us at all. What is the best way to handle this??

Until a dog would rather "make prey" with you rather than in response to deer, squirrels etc, then I don't think they should be off lead as it will only be a matter of time before they take off. Once they experience prey-making in the natural way, it will become more and more difficult to attract it toward the human, and especially if it's one of the more primordial breeds. In my region there is a fenced deer yard and so with my dog in the car, I feed the deer near the fence to draw them near, and then I get my young dog from the car and play tug/push of war before he's seen the deer. Then I throw the toy toward the fence and all the deer go flying away, white tails flagging off in every direction, and he runs to the fence, grabs the toy, pauses for a moment as all this registers, and then brings it back to me for another round of push/pull. He's learning to channel deer energy into an attraction to me, and with repetition in various venues, this becomes what chasing a deer feels like to him, i.e. feeling prey-making attraction to me. Now this came after a long phase of development, so to get started, don't go for a walk with your dog through the woods. Begin the walk with ten minutes of hide 'n seek. You or another hide, then the person holding the dog releases him to find you. When this drive gets strong enough, your dog will start to feel prey-making possibilities with you. I'm arguing that the prey controls the predator, energetically speaking, the prey is the real leader of the hunt. Therefore, if your dog agrees with you what the prey is, then you are in charge. If you control the prey, you control the dog. In the absence of this, you will not be able to control a dog with strong prey instincts.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I could certainly start the walk with 10 mins of hide and seek. I do sometimes play this with him but not for that long and not for the reason that you have suggested it. I shall incorporate this activity in to his walks when I am walking him with someone else and see how this goes.

Can I ask you another question?
Have been thinking about what you said today and....like I said, I play hide and seek with Maska. I do it because until the 'deer' incident he had been really good at recall and only usually ever walked about 50 yards in front of us which was acceptable to me. (Since the deer incident he has not been off his lead as I realised then that his recall was not what I thought it was.) If he walked further ahead of me than say 50 yards, I would hide and he would come and find me. After I did this, I found that he would not wander far in front of me again on this walk. I took this as him feeling insecure that his 'mum' had disappeared but I am wondering now if it is more to do with what you were talking about. I certainly will do the hide and seek for 10 mins at the start of the walk and see what happens but would appreciate your comments

For a dog, every outing constitutes a hunt. So when you spend the first ten minutes doing hide 'n seek, you are becoming the object of the hunt, especially if the dog plays tug with you after finding you, this reduces the "charge" and then the dog will tend to orbit you much closer. If he wanders out too far, immediately hide again. In regards to teaching a dog its name, they don't perceive it as we do. We see it as an intellectual exercise, but the dog applies an energetic logic. So when my young dog comes to me, I don't say he's learning his name per se, I say he's learning to give me X amount of energy. And until I channel deer energy, squirrel energy, dog energy, i.e. 100% of its energy, then I don't consider that my dog "knows its name" at a peak state of intensity. For example, we all presumably know how to drive a car, and yet were we to be placed in a race car and travel faster than we've ever experienced, we no longer "know" how to drive. So it's very important not to trick yourself that your dog "knows" intellectually that you call and it is to come. Once the dog goes over a certain threshold in fact, he doesn't even "know" that you are you when you are calling it. The recall in my view is strictly a matter of channeling energy. And to tie it back with my opening comments, if you are the "charge" then you are in charge. Good luck and happy hunting.