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1st Session With Rocky Part 1

Rocky, an American Pit Bull Terrier in the board and train program, is undergoing intensive training for his extreme prey drive, which makes him highly aggressive toward animals; his body language, often mistaken for play, is closely monitored to address the common misinterpretations and mistreatment of high prey drive dogs.

Rocky is an American Pit Bull Terrier and is the newest member of our board and train program. He has just completed his first of 8 weeks of training.

Rocky is in training for intense prey drive which makes him highly aggressive toward all animals. He will attack any animal he can get close to and has caused several serious injuries before his training program.

We are documenting his case very closely because many dogs with high prey drive are misunderstood, misread, and trained incorrectly.

Dogs like Rocky can be hard to read because of their body language. When we think of aggressive dogs, we think of the body posture associated with defense drive (growling, lip curling, stiff posture, whale eye, tight mouth, etc.), but because Rocky is not fearful, anxious, or territorial, he is not in defense drive. He is strictly in prey drive (to an extreme degree). This can make Rocky's body posture look more playful than aggressive.

Play drive is a subset of prey drive. While play allows dogs to get to know one another and establish relationship dynamics, its primary purpose is to practice hunting skills (stalk, chase, take down). Most dogs have low to medium prey drive and find play more rewarding than actual hunting.

Rocky is not that way. He has no off switch because he is a dopamine junkie. Nothing compares to the actual chase, bite, thrash, kill of an animal. It is intoxicating for him. And to him, it is the best game ever. He doesn't hate other animals. He just loves the high of this dangerous game, and his body language can easily be misinterpreted as play because the subsets are so closely tied.

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