Many of you who frequent this blog know that I had a very driven retriever with very strong retrieving instincts. She is really what got me into working-type golden retrievers.
Now, I may have mentioned what a good retriever she was and how good her soft mouth was. She could carry an egg in her mouth without leaving so much as a scratch on it.
However, she had another interesting behavior. She had the full predatory motor pattern sequence. Now, it never hurt her retrieving behavior. She seemed to have almost parallel motor patterns, one with a killing bite and one without one.
She learned to kill from a Norwegian elkhound, who was a fierce rabbiter and squirrel dog. He was also a good ratter and mouser. He had the full predatory motor pattern and no retrieving instinct. He was very typical of the elkhound-laika type of hunting spitz. We don’t have moose in West Virginia, but he was used as a working gun dog for small game. The golden accompanied the elkhound on hunting trips, and because dogs are actually quite good at observational learning, picked up the kill-bite technique from the elkhound.
Generally, working retrievers shouldn’t be allowed to develop the full killing motor pattern because there is a chance that this could turn into hard mouth. However, in the HPR breeds, like Weimaraners and the other German HPR’s, the dogs can retrieve, and they are allowed to kill and fight game. These dogs are used on pheasants and patridge as well as rabbits, hares, foxes, and even wild boar. And yet these dogs have retrieving instinct. That tells me that it is more common for working gun dogs to have the ability to have the retrieving motor patterns and sequence and a full hunting behavior sequence. I have never read about this in the canine behavior journals, but HPR owners in that part of the world require both the full sequence and the modified sequence that we call retrieving. I think we need some really good studies on dogs that have parallel predatory motor patterns, but thus far, I’ve yet to see any mention of it.
The only other place I’ve found mention of a successful retriever is George T. Teasdale-Buckell’s Labrador retriever:
“The only dog the sort [Labrador] that the author ever had was death on cats, but this accomplishment did not make him hard-mouthed with game, as it probably would nine retrievers out of ten.”
George T. Teasdale Buckell The Complete English Shot (1907) p. 194
A breeder of Large Munsterlanders says the following about early imports of the breed to this country in an article in Gun Dog Magazine:
“Some of these imported dogs came from parts of Germany where hunting big game was a major objective. Those dogs had been bred as trackers that would follow wounded wild boar, bring them to bay and kill them if necessary.”
Now, Large Munsterlanders usually have retrieving instinct. They aren’t used exclusively as retrievers, as the breeder suggests. However. they also show that it’s not that uncommon for a dog to have retrieving instincts and full predatory motor patterns. How these coexist in the same dog is a question well worth the study of any ethologist or animal behaviorist.
After all, the literature seems to suggest that dogs with modified predatory motor patterns, like retrieving, cannot have the full sequence, simply because if the dog had the full motor patterns, it couldn’t do its work.
I think this assumption is mostly poppycock. However, I still don’t recommend turning golden retrievers into varmint dogs, if you want to also use them as working retrievers.
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Before I get comments pointing this out, I need to make a point that many people don’t often consider. While the other German HPR’s are of gun dog ancestry, the Weimaraner is actually a big game hound that later developed pointing and retrieving behavior. The others are gun dogs that also have been developed to hunt game as hounds. The Weimaraner got its pointing and retrieving behavior through cross-breeding with the other German HPR’s. That’s why they look similar. However, I think the best idea of what a Weimaraner once looked like is actually something like a Plott hound, just with that typical gray coloration. The Plott family now considers the original Weimaraner to be one of the ancestors of their unique breed.
I’ve never seen Weimaraners hunt anything other than birds, and most of the ones I’ve been around don’t have much retrieving instinct. However, I think any study of this behavior needs to be careful when considering the Weimaraner.
I’ve been told that an experienced hunting retriever will sometimes figure out how to kill a cripple (often with a quick shake) to make life easier for itself, and that it doesn’t necessarily mean the bird will be delivered unfit or the dog will develop rough mouth habits otherwise.
Not something anyone ever wants to see in a competition dog, and who really wants to go down that road (in case it’s a slippery slope), so generally discouraged. But, further evidence that killing and retrieving can exist in the same dog’s “skill set.”
That squirrel doesn’t look too fresh, BTW… ew.
Charles Darwin wrote about retrievers that when they were sent for two wounded ducks, they would kill the first and then pick up the second. Then they would go back for the dead one. That way, the dog would have to manhandle only one wounded duck.
That squirrel looks like road kill. I don’t remember where I got the photo. In Europe, retrievers have to retrieve fur, so it might be wise to keep a few dead critters in the freezer for training purposes.
My first dog was a superb working retriever, but she was also a good varmint dog, a skill she picked up from the Norwegian elkhound.
Those Munsterlanders that hunt boars are trained with other dogs that go after boars. Most American Munsterlanders don’t do big game.
I think that prey drive is one of many areas where many people underestimate the intelligence and ability of dogs. I have heard many people say that once a dog ‘learns to kill’ an entire cascade of vicious behavior will unavoidably ensue. I don’t know where this idea comes from – I certainly haven’t seen this in my own dogs (a mix of herding dogs, hunting dogs and molossors).
The two dogs I have now (a Kelpie and an English Shepherd) kill squirrels, chippies, moles, voles and woodchucks. They herd sheep without gripping (biting). They chase cats out of our yard without hurting them. And they run unsupervised with my flock of free range chickens.
Dogs are capable of so much. With just a bit of time and patience they can easily learn to distinguish friend from foe, prey from stock and game from trash. While genes are important, I still believe that (as Cesar Millan says) breed is not destiny.
I think focusing on motor patterns is a nice heuristic for the scientists, but I think dogmatic insistence upon that model (as with many other heuristic devices) results in missing important exceptions.
You don’t want much prey drive in a livestock guardian dog, but many of them have it.
I think it’s quite possible to have the best of both worlds,My 1st dog (a GSD-chow mix ) could retrieve ducks all day, and trail,tree,and kill raccoons all night.(He learned the coon trick from a Siberian husky, the duck thing was all him though,