We’ve all seen the alarmist takes floating around the dog training world, but a recent video by prominent trainer Robert Cabral takes the cake when it comes to misunderstanding canine behavior. In the video, Cabral responds to a comment about a dog catching a rabbit in its own backyard. The commenter noted that the owner ended up with a “happy dog with a satiated prey drive.”
Cabral’s take? He calls this “stupid” and claims that if a dog’s prey drive isn’t strictly controlled through training, it will inevitably escalate on a terrifying timeline: first rabbits, then cats, then smaller dogs, and eventually—yes, he actually said it—a small child riding a bicycle. Lets push the fear on dog owners…
Let’s break down exactly why this slippery slope argument is not only unscientific, but flat-out wrong.
1. The Slippery Slope Fallacy in Canine Ethology
The idea that a dog catching a backyard critter will naturally progress to attacking human children is a classic textbook logical fallacy.
From a behavioral science standpoint, predatory behavior is entirely distinct from social aggression.
- Predation is food-gathering behavior: It is governed by a completely different part of the brain than aggression. When a dog chases a rabbit, it isn’t angry, malicious, or expressing dominant aggression. It is fulfilling an innate, genetically wired motor pattern.
- Humans are not prey: Healthy dogs do not look at human children as the “next step up” from a rabbit. Conflating a dog’s natural instinct to hunt small vermin with a propensity to attack humans or other pets completely misrepresents how dogs categorize the world.
2. Satiation vs. Deprivation: Fulfilling the Instinct
Cabral argues that letting a dog satisfy its prey drive naturally will make that drive “wild” and uncontrollable. However, animal behavior science tells us the exact opposite.
When an animal has an innate genetic drive, completely suppressing it without giving it a natural outlet leads to deprivation, frustration, and behavior problems. Fulfilling a drive—whether through structured play like flirt poles, dog sports, or the occasional accidental backyard catch—can actually provide massive mental enrichment and lower overall frustration. A dog that occasionally catches a mole or a rabbit isn’t becoming a “feral dog”; it’s just being a dog.
3. Alarmist Rhetoric Hurts Dogs
The most damaging part of this claim is the assertion that letting a dog catch a rabbit is a direct pipeline to the dog being “dumped in shelters and euthanized.”
This kind of fear-mongering does a massive disservice to everyday dog owners. It makes people terrified of their dogs’ completely normal, natural instincts.
If a dog kills a rabbit in the backyard, it means you have a dog with a functional predatory drive. It does not mean you are harboring a dangerous animal that is a ticking time bomb for the neighborhood children.
The Bottom Line
While we absolutely want to train solid recall and management for safety reasons (nobody wants their dog running into traffic after a squirrel!), we need to stop treating normal canine instincts as psychological emergencies.
You cannot train an instinct out of a dog, nor should you want to. Channelling a dog’s drive through training is great, but pretending that a backyard rabbit chase is a precursor to a public safety crisis isn’t just bad science—it’s pure crap.
What are your thoughts? Have you ever been told that your dog’s normal prey drive was a sign of “aggression”? Let’s talk about it in the comments below!