Hurricane Deck

I am a great peruser (is that a word?) of Rat Terrier websites, more specifically other breeders' websites. On many websites I see the words "hunt[ing] ability" and "prey drive" used over and over, and I wonder what exactly those words mean to those breeders. I found a good definition here, that "prey drive [is the] the canine’s inherited need to engage in the type behaviors that would lead to the capture of food if they were in the wild." In my experience, a prey driven dog means "if it is small and fuzzy and moves fairly quickly the dog will try to kill whatever it is." A highly prey driven dog will attempt to kill without regard to life or limb or it's owner screaming at it to get the hell out of the road. Those kinds of dogs rarely make good family pets mostly due to their owner's inability to maintain good control over the dog. Supposedly, one can redirect a highly driven prey dog into a highly driven performance dog in one venu...

It is rare that I get to talk dogs with people who are interested, especially people who are interested in Rat Terriers. It is even more rare that I get to talk with folks about hunting with their dogs. And even more rare, and a precious experience, when I get to talk with people about hunting with their Rat Terriers. I received that rare gift today when Tim Brown stopped by on his way to his brother's house in Cody, Wyoming. It was too short of a visit! I do hope that I get forgiven for my being a little rattled when he first came, I wasn't expecting him until tomorrow; we all know how some folks can be when their house isn't in good shape - that was me. Tim soon put me at ease when we sat to talk for a few hours about my current dogs and dogs that he has had. Tim was instrumental in preserving the line of hunting terrier dogs from Milton Decker. If you click on his name above, you will read more about them and their Rat Terrier heritage. Most all "Decker Ter...