TikaAkita

Have you considered giving her access to the house? Time inside with you is time in company and that's important for a social animal.

She has somewhat limited access to the house. I'll let her in on and off for a few hours during the day. I like having her near me. Even if I do have to vaccuum 10x as much. OH is more funny about it. He comes from a family where dogs are outside pets. My family had dogs sleep on our beds. So its a bit of a comprimise.

I only walk onleash at onleash places. One dog off leash and one on leash means that one dog can't get away. Brighton is great for big, bomb proof dogs that back down from fights - not really suited to any other kind of dog! The botanical gardens before 9am o. The weekend is a beautiful, interesting walk that will stimulate her senses. There aren't too many people there early in the morning and we haven't had an issue with off leash dogs there.

That reminds me, I've got to come up with a phrase to yell out to dog owners with off lead dogs who approach Tika while she's on lead. Maybe something like "Call your dog back, mines not good with other dogs'. Not very clean cut though. Any ideas anyone?

Would hiding treats around the yard keep her busy for awhile? When we just had one tibbie , I hid treats in puzzle balls,kong wobbler, frozen kongs and planted them around the garden. It kept him going for some time although admittedly, he isn't a high energy breed. I once hid a bone in some palm fronds (we have a lot of palm trees!) and he ended up finding his own entertainment by shredding the fronds! Kept him going for many hours and made it much easier for us to dispose of the fronds. We did obedience training once a week and I found he would sleep all day after one hour of training. Our tibbie is reactive but I found that he settled down quickly in class as it was a controlled environment and no dogs off leash to worry him.

Tika was actually doing that this morning, chewing up the palm things that are apparently called fronds? :laugh:

She had a sand pit at our last house and we would re-bury all her bones several times a week.

Another idea is to pop into the reactive dogs thread in the training forum for tips on keeping her entertained that don't involve off leash runs at dog parks.

I'll look there, thanks I didnt think to label her as reactive or that there was a thread for it.

I have a toller and a kelpie x shepherd in a unit, and it works fine. We have a yard which we split into 2 sections (half for kid, half for dogs) and the dog bit is mulch. When I was working (am a stay at home mum now) I would sprinkle cat food through the yard and go over it with a rake so they had to find it in the mulch (cat food works best cos it is tiny), they got kongs, giant frozen ice blocks with treats inside and food hidden through the unit (we have a dog door). Once I got home it was a few training sessions and walkies. They have always been quite content with it. My kelpie x I had before we moved here, he was used to coming to work with me all day then up to the horse paddock and home to a huge house and yard. After we moved he had to stay home days and within a month he was fine with it, provided he had stuff to do. You may find things settle down with time too.

Also can you pop the plant up high?

Theres really no where to put it, its already on the deck but there are no ledges or any other options for height. We could block off half the deck if it becomes a haibit of hers.

Don't expect her to entertain herself. That's rule one for dogs in the burbs. Stimulation and exercise will have to come via you.

Discipline yourself to walk her more. Either drive to better walking or walk her twice a day.

Her socialisation boat has sailed. I'd be focussing on the loose leash walking and forgetting about her meeting new adult dogs. If it goes wrong it will go badly wrong.

Obedience clubs aren't usually much help on behavioural issues.

I will be driving to different reserves and walking tracks as often as I can for sure. The only hold up on that is that OH takes my car to work instead of his fuel guzzling V8, which I cannot drive as I'm still a p-plater. Hopefully it will be sold soon and we can get back to normal. Until then I'm just walking her around my streets and taking her out on the weekend.

I have 2 BC's and live in a unit. Most nights we walk for close to an hour. We go to training classes twice a week (some weeks there may be an additional evening). I train them a little bit each day. I have found a couple of places I'm happy to let them off lead, but we may only go there once a week. When I go to work (1 usually comes with me so the other is home alone) they are left with their food in kongs, boxes, etc and they get a chewy. Once it's routine none of this is that hard! Mine do fine if they have a night where a walk is missed, but it does mean we have to play games and do more training! Have you taught your dog to settle and to entertain himself? That was a priority of mine and I have to say my 2 are pretty good at it and that helps make life easier!

I'm on my phone so can't see where you are. But can you figure out a series of road walks that will be long enough? If you walk far enough there's bound to be a few parks, etc you can walk through for a bit of variety!

:laugh: Sorry this just reminded me that Tika burried her last kong and we never found it (so we assume it got burried). Tika settles fantastically in a crate and will lie in the yard and sleep, chew bones or run round playing with her toys. I think theres just so much time spent in a yard (23ish hours!) that it gets boring, naturally. She also does not bark at pointless things (or anything really) so thats one thing I dont have to worry about :) Theres one park on our route, 10mins there, 10mins through/around and 10mins home. Maybe I should just walk around the few courts on the way home to add another 10 until I can go to more interesting places.

Hi there. The Chilli plant made me laugh!

Do you have a bike? I ride with my dog and it wears her out. Maybe not appropriate for you if she is strong.

Can't be very helpful, but I am happy to meet you for a dog park walk with my dog anytime. Williamstown dog beach is fantastic.

Thanks :) A bike would mean I could go further... something I'll look into if I can get her under control on foot first!

I was just reading these replies and I hear the same suspicious scraping sound I heard this morning, plastic on concrete. Sure enough shes out there with the plant on the ground! I've again replanted it and sprinkled it all with chilli spice. I dont know if it will survive being ripped out twice on a hot day though

I'm on the iPhone, so I can't post a long reply. Re: her greetings, I think she really needs to see a behaviourist. Her greeting isn't appropriate. Socialization doesn't mean making friends with dogs, it means knowing how to act appropriately - including ignoring other dogs. I don't think an obedience school can help with this. Most onstructors dont have the skills and naive owners just want their dogs to say hello - and this will only reinforce her behaviour.

Re: exercise, I walk, train and play games with my dogs every day (training is 3 mins TOPS). I don't train every day, but they also go to agility every week too. The good thing about having a small garden is that it forces you to exercise and train your dog - you can't just rely on self- exercise. I drive to walking spots at least a few times a week so that walks are interesting.

Yeah I was really worried by her greeting. Comes across so dominant and invasive. So i guess avoiding all dogs in the mean time would be best. I didnt mention, we also run around the yard with her while she does zoomies, picking up which ever toy she wants to play with with us.

Also, the Akitas tail ( always raised) can be misread as aggressive body language by many dogs (as a stiff, raised tail is a sign of high arousal in most dogs). If she is having tiffs with most dogs, I personally feel that a meeting at an off leash dog beach is way too risky.

I have read that before, thanks for reminding me of it. Yes I agree, I was taking her for an outing but did not really intend to let her off lead, particularly when I saw there was at least 30 dogs there!

2 dogs and 3 dog sports, mine are just grateful when I leave the house so they can get some sleep :laugh:

:laugh:

Can you do something to stimulate her mind?

Training tricks helps tire out the brain, zaps them for longer than just physical excercise.

You could try a dog sport, if she loves pulling you around perhaps you could harness that and try weightpull :)

She would probably thrive on a sport involving pulling, I've thought that the last couple times i've walked her. She sure is strong. I'll admit I dont know anything about dog sports. I'll look up what weightpull is :)

Moving to the suburbs from a rural town has been a challenge for Tika and I. And I've only been here for a couple weeks!

I want to ask HOW do you manage your high energy breeds with a 'small' (normal for suburbs) backyard? My dog isn't even a particularly high energy breed but she is struggling to entertain herself and get enough exercise.

Owning a dog on acreage was tonnes easier. Free play and exercise:)

I woke up this morning to Tika pulling the chilli plant out of its pot and dirt everywhere. She saw me opening the door and bolted round to the other side of the house. Knew she was being very naughty! I think I saved the plant. OH was not happy as he only just bought it. Unfortunately there were no mature chillis on there to teach her a lesson while she was doing it. She hasn't done something so naughty for quite a while. Though I haven't hung the clothes on the line for fear of tempting her! She's just bored in a small yard.

I have just returned from walking Tika, she's never liked her gentle leader but it softens her pulling strength so I've persisted with it, plus I barely had to use it on her, just a lead to take her from A to B then let her off to run. Now however, her daily walk is a snuffling grunting struggle. She tries to get the leader off at least 5 times per walk. If I try and run with her, she just goes faster and with enough momentum it can be hard to stop without falling over (luckily that hasnt happened!)

Clearly, I need a loose leash training plan.

Please tell me how you trained your stubborn dog to do this?

And how do you give your dog enough exercise to keep them happy and fit?

Tika is a bit more complicated as I cannot take her to off lead parks nor can I let her off lead in unfenced spaces.

We took her to Brighton dog beach on the weekend. Was a fair failure. We kept her on lead because I wanted to manage her behaviour and not just send her off to cause trouble. Any dog that approached does not like her.

Its her 'meet and greet' that doesnt go down well. She puts her foot on the other dogs chest almost as soon as they are with in reach, they instantly growl and of course she will not turn down an arguement and growls back. Then its snarling and snapping until they are seperated! I will not put us in that situation again as I feel with the right dog, it could get nasty and I can only pull back on dog at once, making it difficult to break up a fight.

She hasn't met really any other adult dogs as an adult dog herself. I know this is poor. I had her booked in to the local obedience training (where she would meet other dogs) from when she was in puppy school in August. But a spot didnt open up until January when we'd just moved away.

There is a class in Kew I'm looking to book her into, maybe that will help her social skills.

*I walk her a half hour a day, after that I kind of run out of small streets to walk down. An hour would be more ideal, but just means driving somewhere better to walk.

Thanks for reading.

That last pic with the bernese mountain dog :laugh: Sure looks worn out!

Was Zeph the really large male with a lovely broad head there sunday arvo? If so I saw him :) I was going to ask about him and see if I could find out who bred him but everytime I went past there were people enquiring. The whole place was pretty busy!

I really liked the show, bird exhibition did not have much variety but the dogs and cats had a good amount :)

I'm planning on going, provided I can drag OH along. Cannot wait to see everything :)

Survey completed.

We came very, very close to having the house inundated on Sunday.

We had previously made abstract -in the future- plans re emergency evacuation but due to lack of time and money, had not implemented them all.

Fortunately the water was rising slowly enough for us to be able to throw the plan into some kind of panicked action and, although not to the standard we had originally set in our plans, at least was jury-rigged together enough to be functional.

Clyde, you may also be able to consider something like this; we have an old (not registered, but new tyres and fully towable) caravan on our property that is used for storage and ocassional guest accommodation. It only cost us $1000 to purchase last year.

We had decided to convert the caravan to an "emergency evacuation vehicle" - completely strip out the caravan and build in a number of cages so that animals can be separated from each other, also with a small sleeping area for us and a portapotti. We will keep it fully stocked with non-perishable food, dog bowls, leashes, litter boxes, etc. We will also kit it out with a few portable stock pens, so that the dogs and our two pet pigs have a small fenced area to get outside for toileting.

We are fortunate that we have large acreage and can get the caravan to higher ground, so although we would be cut off completely from the outside world, at least everyone would be warm, safe and dry until we could get back down into our house. In the case of a bushfire, the caravan is towable and we could evacuate to a safe place and still be fully self-contained.

Edited 'cos I can't spell.

Love the caravan idea. Really interesting. Surely in an emergancy situation, no one will be harsh enough to fine you/take away an unregistered vehicle? I understand it has to be road safe but if it simply hasn't been payed...

I have no plans as in my most recent town we were surrounded by grape vines (like, the whole town) and low scrub, and lived on high ground. Now we live urban so no risk of bushfires. Only have one dog anyway so we'd grab her and leave. Pretty straight forward luckily :)

I'm just watching Maddie asleep on the lounge now. I forgot the nose and whisker twitching and the occasional exposed fang :laugh:

I love the lip curl! It would look so scary except, they're asleep :)

Aren't Akitas a dog that howls anyway? or am I thinking of a different breed? :)

Tika very rarely barks which I know is a breed thing, but I'm not sure that they are more likely to howl than other breeds. I would have to say she barks nearly as rarely as she howls. I reckon I've heard her bark about 10 seperate times and howl 4 times ever.

Joeys done it twice, scared the c*&p out of me first time ! Once when he was asleep and once in daylight while he was awake ! It was bizzare, especially coming from a Cavalier! My husband thought I was making it up but he has since heard Joey howl too!

I panicked and googled about why dogs that don't normally howl, do? don't google it, you won't like what it comes back with ! But its good to know Joey's not the only one then! ;-)

I briefly googled it before posting on here, and of course googled it again now that you said that :laugh:

You're refering to the howls being related to deaths I'm guessing? Weird that it comes up on a few different sites. I'm not worried though :) I'll let you know if I can link anything crazy to it

Thats the thing isn't it, its cute and funny when your awake to watch it, but in the middle of the night its creepy or annoying!

Good to know theres other sleep howlers out there too :)

I can't understand how they don't wake up though! It must be like sleep walking or something. They're so out of it they don't wake up.

I was lying in bed last night at 11:30 and suddenly hear a huge howl coming from the dog! I've heard her howl probably 3 times before this, and this time it was a good one! Like a long siren.

Of course I call out to her saying its okay, jump out of bed to go check her in her crate in the lounge. Hesitant because its her second night in a new house and I was worried there might be 'something' she was reacting to.

Funny thing is, she was lying down on her side snuggled up in her sleeping position. Not one bit alert! Only sat up because I gave her a pat.

I've concluded she was sleep howling. I have no idea how she didnt wake herself up doing it, she was so loud especially in a quiet house.

I'd like to know if any of your dogs sleep howl? And does it mean anything to you (eg. dog is stressed)?

As a side note, the telstra guy came to our house today. I held Tika back while he came in and he said he likes dogs so if shes friendly I could let her go. So that was fine. Next thing, he's getting her to sit and shake hands (which she isnt even trained to do!) and shes all 'look at me I'm perfect!' doing it all instantly. I know it was because he had her full attention and she was alert and responsive. But really, I was on a street curb yesterday for 5 minutes before she would sit for me!!

Thanks for the great replies everyone! I've been away for the weekend so I've only just read through the post.

I can't bring myself to take my eyes of the child when I'm minding just him alone :) I'd be much too anxious to leave them alone together! Theres far too much room for disaster. But thanks for the reminder :)

Erny that sounds like a good plan, Tika is crate trained (one of the best things ever, makes transitions less stressful for her).

Avoid making the focus of visits about the dog and child interacting

I like this advice. Hadn't thought of it that way.

I will definitely try to teach the child to be calm and relaxed around the dog. The last dog he spent time with was very boistrous (although somewhat harmless) and may have scared him off dogs a bit. The family would like it if he could spend time with animals, even if it comes down to just watching 'the puppy' through the glass door.

Donatella-I can't believe how your dogs legs got broken! It is really shocking and reinforces how delicate small puppies are. Hope your pup is healing well both physically and mentally!

I'll try and add an update of how it goes when I take Tika for a visit in a couple weeks.

Hi all,

I will soon be introducing a family members 2 year old toddler to my 10 month old Akita, Tika.

My dog hasnt met many children as the ones that I knew were quite reactive around her and just wanted to squeal (at 7yrs old!) and run around and stress her. So there was a bit of interaction with 'little people' but I decided she was better off not spending time with these kids rather than having stressful, potentially negative experiences with them.

Thats the back story. I'm just after some advice on introducing an extreamly quiet, well behaved 2 year old. If Tika gets along with the child they will be seeing a lot of each other. Hence why I'm keen for it to go well.

I've been on this site and found it very helpful http://www.liamjperkfoundation.org/stress.html

This is probably a 'done to death' topic, I'd be happy if someone could even just link me to previous conversations.

Thanks! :)

I wouldn't have guessed that so many adults had been fatally attacked. I hadn't thought of them as being so vunerable to dogs. Really good to read something thats not directly from the media :)

I use a damp cloth for the car, I have leather seats so fortunately I just have to worry about the floors as it vaccums right off the seats! Also those sticky lint removers help, but obviously dont get anything beyond whats sitting on the surface.

Dog hair and cleaning: A lifelong battle!

I'd be getting X-rays done before agreeing with ED as a diagnosis. And get more than one opinion on said X-rays...

My brother's Lab was suspected as having ED when he was about the same age as your pup - not a sign of it on X-rays at age 6... turns out my brother was over exercising the dog by going on long rambling walks and it was actually tendon strain during growth spurts causing the limp.

T.

Thanks tdierikx, thats the reason I posted on here. I want to make sure I do the best thing and ask the right questions.

There will definitely be x-rays if it doesnt improve (unfortunaetly involving an anesthetic, i'm told). I have another vet in mind who I would trust to check the xrays. I have been online searching for other things it could be, so I can mention them to the vet if need be.

Thank you Kadbury :)

Tika is on painkillers for a week, the problem may disapear or we could be back there next week for xrays.

The vet was concerned about elbow dysplasia, as she was stiff to bend her leg and 'crunchy'. And of course she's the exact age that it is likely to show up in her breed. It could also be something not right within her paw.

The vet called her limp a '4 out of 5'.

A week of waiting and watching!

My Akita Tika has begun limping in the last few days. She is just over 7 months old.

We didn't immediately take her to the vet as we thought it could be something minor that would fix itself. Like a sprain from playing. It wasn't sore or causing her any obvious pain, she was just favouring it.

I could squeeze her whole leg and paw firmly without a reaction from her.

Plus she runs around no worries and only limps when she walks?

The limping is especially obvious when she has just gotten up from a sleep.

Today she is giving a small noise of pain when her paw is squeezed gently.

So I have a vet app in a couple hours. I just want to see if theres anything specific I should ask the vet to check for?

Also if they want to xray her, is it likely they will sedate her first? Ive never had a dog who needed an xray.

I'm really hopping its nothing major with her joints or anything!

Sorry if this is a pointless post with obvious answers. I just want to make sure I do the right thing by my pup, any replies are appreciated :)

Waves to TikaAkita! :) We actually live half hour below Ouyen, but travel to Mildura every week. :)

Oh okay still pretty close :)

Hahah! These replies made me laugh, its not just me having this struggle with training. I love the jail break comment Kiesha09.

My OH certainly will never ever admit to being wrong, or that I might know more than him

I walked Tika with her gentle leader tonight rather than her harness. She was not impressed at all but was a heck of a lot more managable.

Hi guys, I get my first ever purebred puppy on the 4th Sept and am dying from the waiting!

I have no idea what to expect but am being as prepared as possible with all the things I think she'll need

Seriously can't wait

This is a pic of my little Shiba Inu girl (I posted in the spitz thread but need to chat to some fellow people waiting for pups! It's torture!)

The cutest little teddy bear! Good luck preparing :)

Aaaaw...how cute!! :)

We took Reggie to the vet for needles at Mildura yesterday and were there for quite a while as the staff had never seen a Sealyham before and were instantly in love with him.

He has been such a good boy. Travelled beautifully in the car and is also sleeping quietly at night with his Pekingese buddies. :)

A fellow Mildura person! ;p Very cute pup :)

Exact same thing I find happens to me if OH walks our girl especially. It is very annoying & yes I think it is cause they are stronger & also OH lets just say doesn't like to listen to me when I suggest not to let her "pull" on lead. I can only sympathize with you & watch this thread with interest :)

Exactly! I'm sure he just doesnt listen to me because he's stubborn and thinks 'how hard is it to walk a dog'