"Prey Drive is a Genetic Instinct to Chase, Catch and Kill a Prey in order to satisfy Hunger." J.K.
This is why in my opinion Prey and Food Drive is in some aspects the same thing or in other words, a Food Drive is one of the building blocks of a Prey Drive.
It is also one of the most important instincts that all dogs have. Unfortunately, many breeds of dogs have had a large portion of the natural instinct bred out of them for various reasons, often unintentionally. Wild predators simply can not survive without being able to catch their food, where domestic animals are generally fed by their owners. Therefore I believe it is very important for us to consider breeding dogs with at-least sufficient drives. Working breeds of dogs still have often a healthy amount of prey drive left in them, but even then there are great differences within each specific breed itself depending on individual bloodlines. Usually the Law Enforcement Shepherds breed specifically for their purpose or hunting dog breeders keep breeding for their abilities and so on. Most working dog breeds were developed some 200 years ago or so with a specific purpose in mind. This is mostly a thing of the past and since we do not hunt rats with Jack Russel Terriers anymore, I believe we still need to selectively breed with their purpose in mind in order to keep up their working ability. At the end of the day IMO a good dog needs a healthy amount of drive in order for his/her life to be fun and exciting and in order for us to have tools to train and reward him with, whether it is a Military dog, Bird Hunting dog, Drug Detection Dog or an Agility dog, they all must have lot of the same prey drive.
This type of a dog can be a bit more of a handful for some owners because they are generally more lively, want to play more and can get in trouble a bit more often if we don't focus their drive into good energy and channel it to good use. They can simply become bored and frustrated. If you are after a dog that will lay on the couch all day and will cuddle with you in the safety of your warm house then probably a King Charles Spaniel or a Bichon is a good fit for you. If you are a person that wants to have more fun with your dog, enjoy some quality training, fetching a ball, teaching some tricks or possibly try hunting or some of the protection sports then you for sure want a dog with a nice drive.
Prey drive is something that, as mentioned above, a dog is born with to some degree, but then it's up to us (the puppy's family) to nurture it and develop it. I can take a dog with a natural drive lets say of 4 out of 10 and make it to an 8 or take a dog with the genetic drive of 6 and bring it down to 2 or even 1 sadly. Obviously, as I said earlier, if you want to win a hunting championship you will look for pups that are born with as much drive as possible.
Prey drive and Aggression. They are two completely different things and very often mixed up. Even at the world level of protection dogs. Dogs bite from both drives, but their bites look different. Prey bite is faster, cleaner and looks better for judges. Modern competitive protection dogs almost solely bite out of prey drive in the last 30 years. In my opinion, it is wrong, but that is a whole separate article. Prey drive often looks like aggression to people who can not tell the difference. Pit-bulls are a very good example. I had many people in the past come to me with their what they thought is aggressive pit-bull to train for protection to only find out that their dog wouldn't hurt even a fly till she flies away from him (act as a PREY running away from the PREDATOR). This lack of knowledge hurt many breeds if not all that were meant to protect, German Shepherds, Malinois, Rottweilers, and Dobermans. That and dog show in North America, but that's a different story again.
In Europe, for example, working breeds of dogs need to have certain titles in order to have litters of puppies registered. Hunting title, protection title, tracking title, obedience title and so on, that will somewhat keep the dogs who lack enough genetic drive out the breed's genetic pool. Unfortunately, in North America all is needed is 2 registered dogs. That is why it is so important to look at the parents of the pup we are buying.
Puppies and Prey Drive. I will try to write this as well as I can, but perhaps it should have been an article on its own. Puppies don't have aggression, they play with each other and us humans to practice for their life skills of hunting and killing their prey in order to survive. This is sometimes misunderstood with the puppy being aggressive. Aggression doesn't usually come till sexual maturity and honestly, it is very hard to find in modern dogs in the western world. To the point that many import specific dogs from overseas just for this reason, it has simply been bred out. Remember I explained that Prey Drive has 3 building blocks. The puppy has to learn how to chase, bite and kill. This is why many good puppies will chase your pant legs or a broom and when they bite it they will start shaking it to kill it. This is often misunderstood with aggression, but this learning curve doesn't last very long and usually goes away on its own in a few weeks. I never correct puppies for biting and chasing, but I try to focus it on their training toys, bones and tennis balls, for example, all of which will become very helpful training tools. This process is called imprinting and the training is called positive reinforcement training.
Why is feeding dogs properly important. As I said IMO prey and food drives are very important for a healthy mind of a dog. We already also know that the food drive is one of the blocks of a prey drive. If we leave food in-front of our puppy we will destroy the genetic instinct for food/prey drive and will have that much of a harder time to work/train our dog in a positive reinforcement fashion because we simply won't have many tools to reward him with. He will not work for food and his hunting/chasing prey drive will be reduced so he will not care for his toys as much. Now there will be people arguing "but I can train my dog and he has food nonstop". Yes of course, but you will be only 1/2 as successful as the other and your dog will want to work only 1/2 as much and will have only 1/2 as much fun doing it. That is why we recommend feeding adult dogs once or twice daily and take away the food they don't finish.