Terrier.

[oneboy3girls]

My son has a Patterdale cross. Third owner .Knows nothing about history. Had for 5 months. Settled and affectionate. When out walking on lead goes ballistic at cats .Is she likely to kill a cat ,if she got off the lead? Thankyou.

@oneboy3girls

Asked my son ,probably crossed with a Lakeland .Does that potentially make things slightly easier?

Nope. Lakeland terriers also have very, very high prey drives.

Does he realise what he's taken on here? That's two very intense, high energy working dogs he's got.

Does react to rabbits, not sure about squirrels .I think he is realising what he has on his hands.Large garden helps.

Lakeland’s and patterdales are both working terriers.
They should have a sky high prey drive.
Both terriers can take down foxes.
They are not dogs id have off lead tbh

Make sure the garden is VERY secure - both Patterdales and Lakelands are bred to disappear down rabbit holes - they will dig if given the opportunity!

Getting the dog something like a sandpit filled with treats and toys to discover will help - I remember it on an episode of It's Me or the Dog where the family had a Patterdale terrier. As I recall, Victoria tried recall training her (the terrier) and she lost it for nearly an hour in the woods!

Personally I would never ever let a mix like that off the lead - a longline or a much-hated flexi-lead would be ideal so the dog can still run about but can't disappear, as well as a solid harness that can't be easily escaped from.

Working dogs are generally unsuited for pet homes (which is presumably why the poor thing is on it's third home) unless the owners are prepared to put in the time and effort to train them and keep them mentally stimulated.

I would also say - work the breed you have. Terriers like that are bred to run, chase and kill, so keep them on the lead and don't risk them getting lost or injured by trying to let them off the lead.

Totally agree , I wouldn't trust either of mine off of their lead for a hot second. We have a huge field near to us that runs alongside a golf course so I have the long line and they seem to feel they are getting their freedom and enjoy it but they are ont track minded when they smell or spot something it wouldn't be worth the risk. And it's so right they do like a fair bit of stimuli at home , chew bones , licki / snuffle mats , balls all sorts of things that keep them occupied and I walk mine three times a day that way at night they love to just relax on the sofa and don't wanna tempt fate but aren't any bother , I don't know anything about lakelands I was brought up with the amazing laid back greyhounds so these have been a whole learning curve for me

I’d hate to keep mine on a lead or longline all the time , he loves just snuffling about with his tennis ball and always has , it’s perfectly possible for them to be trained you just need to find the right motivation . We had a digging pit for ours and he wasn’t interested, even when we hid things but stop to chat on a walk and he’s instantly digging a trench , he’s not allowed on the grass areas in our garden unless he is supervised . Ours is docked and presumably was bred to work but was handed in to Battersea as a stray puppy , he had very obviously never been in a house .

I’d hate to keep mine on a lead or longline all the time , he loves just snuffling about with his tennis ball and always has , it’s perfectly possible for them to be trained you just need to find the right motivation

I really don't think this is always true.

You can do absolutely everything right, but you can't train a dog out of having a very, very high prey drive. Nothing will be more tempting to my beagle than the thrill of the chase, so there are some circumstances where it really just isn't safe to let him off.

Part of me suspects the reason your puppy ended up in rescue was because he was no good at working, so he was abandoned or handed over to Battersea to be rehomed.

Honestly mine would do anything for cooked chicken but on a walk when trying to offer that as training method they would not even look at the chicken , if it was a cat in front of them/ bunny/pigeon/squirrel the chicken wouldn't do a thing to help me distract them , I am not the worlds best dog owner / trainer obv , I grew up with parents who had greyhound racing kennels but these boys , their high value treat won't ever out train their want to get at the thing they want

Exactly @Foxlover46.

If I'm out with mine and he spots a squirrel or a deer, I could have a sizzling steak next to me and he wouldn't even blink. His focus is 100% on the animal he's after, his ears switch off and there is nothing I can do to get him back if he's off the lead.

Some dogs just have very, very high prey drive. Mine has perfect recall in the house but in the woods? Never in a million years, lol.

We had a JRT X other working terrier and she had epic prey drive. She was fine with the cats in the house, but not with any others. I used to have to keep her on-lead past the area where the feral cats in the woods were fed.

God, she was opinionated. Loved her, though.

@icedcoffees that's literally like mine ! My dad calls them house angels street devils 😂
One of them when he spots the" thing" will even stand still
On the spot and shake , nothing except the lead/ longline would help me keep him from chasing I am 100% certain of that , I don't feel either are missing out , they love their walks and have enough roam to sniff about and explore I just don't want to be irresponsible because if they did catch and kill that is completely on me

my jrt ignores rabbits, i think because we had pet rabbits, but a deer would be so exciting, as would a cat, but luckily we dont see many cats when she is off the lead
and she has never caught anything

My beagle caught a rabbit when out once - I was simultaneously horrified and impressed, lol. He looked VERY pleased with himself. He was only out of my sight for a few minutes and I knew where he was as I could see his little white tail wagging about

His recall is fine indoors, fine in the garden, and even fine around the cats he lives with (we have three) but he absolutely would not be fine around other cats - even if I had the best treats in the world in my pocket.

@icedcoffees my dog has caught and killed a pigeon and has had a neighbours cat by the leg , fortunately I was able to get into the garden to save the cat . He also has been attacked by both a bulldog and a staffy and come off worse because he insists on fighting back rather than running . As I said I don’t let him off in places where he is likely to come across things to disturb him , it means we probably don’t have the same variety of walk as other people with normal dogs but he still gets offlead 6 days out of 7 .

Yes. Mine has done. Feral cat at the stables where I kept my horses.

They will kill anything they consider prey. They are working bred terriers.

People don't get it - I've been advised to distract with a treat 🤦‍♀️ he's not interested in treats. Or toys. Or anything except the prey in front of him.

@Floralnomad I let mine off-lead too, but at this time of year it's scent-hound heaven so he's stuck on lead restrictions until about November, lol.

I really think it's all very dependent on peoples' individual dogs. Training is all well and good but it won't override the inherent prey drive that some dogs have.

My bichon seems to have a ridiculously high prey drive cos even they, for all of their fluff, are proper terriers. And when he’s got his eye on the prize, there’s no distracting him…. Most terriers can be fearsome in the right/wrong situ.

As far as I am aware and having had a few different terriers, they are all hunters, its in them and you wont train it out.
Ours is a wolf in sheep's clothing looks all snugly and furry but she is a hunting machine.
Its best on a lead.

We had a patterdale x Border terrier, Mack. Lost him in June at the age of 14. we were all devastated, he was gorgeous and had the hugest character, we loved him to bits, he was a telly addict, would sit in front of it for hours! But we could very rarely let him off the lead as he loathed most other dogs and would bark, snap etc. His recall wasn't great either! Stuffed toys were destroyed in about an hour, loved to fetch a ball and punctured many a football which he loved to cart around the garden in his mouth. The prey drive never left him though, chased cats and went nuts if he saw a squirrel. Mack's finest moment (from his point of view at least! ) was catching a rat, he took off like a rocket when he saw it on the garden path, he had grabbed it, shaken it and killed it before we realised what was going on! This was last year, he was 13, the prey drive doesn't ever go!! Funnily enough he was always wary of hedgehogs though!!

Former Border/Lakeland terrier owner here - had him 13 years - he was a total terrorist and hated cats, males that were intact and anything bigger/smaller/furrier/faster/slower you name it than him.
We loved him dearly and missed him - he kept us on our toes for those 13 years and we still laugh at (some of) his escapades!