siks3

What's scarey is at least that your dog might have reacted quite differently and your son would have been right in the firing line. You found out it wasn't "all out aggression" by taking the dog on. Some dogs are more than prepared to defend their perceived higher rank. I'm bloody glad your dog wasn't one of them. And its very scarey that you'd take your success based on one dog and transfer your method to another dog that you've never laid eyes on. The OP's dog isn't pushing around a 9 year old. He's doing it to a grown man. Didn't transfer my method to another dog just telling what worked for me. My dog is only a pup but he was testing the boundaries for a while. Now he's a great dog since we have our pack structure sorted out. I'm on the forum to learn, what should I have done different to stop the dominant issue using a positive conditioning method?

K9: well you could do that but often this type of aggression is increased by barriers and restraint. From my understanding of owning akitas it is a dominance issue and the owner stated there is now teeth baring it's just nipping and it is exactly what mine used to do with my nine year old son after a few times me back tying him then my son started to do it while highly supervised and me next to him with another lead conected to a prong collar to correct unwanted nipping the problem was solved in no time. That's probably about the scariest thing I've read here for many months. Whats scary about it the dog was confused on where he stood against my son for rank (use to nip him on the legs and heels) the prong collar corrected it so what it wasn't all out aggression or I would have tackled the issue differently. My son and dog have a great relationship now there is no issues with dominance and the dog listens to his commands. Problem solved

K9: well you could do that but often this type of aggression is increased by barriers and restraint. From my understanding of owning akitas it is a dominance issue and the owner stated there is now teeth baring it's just nipping and it is exactly what mine used to do with my nine year old son after a few times me back tying him then my son started to do it while highly supervised and me next to him with another lead conected to a prong collar to correct unwanted nipping the problem was solved in no time.

I would simply back tie the dog have a leash fastened to something in the house and when the dog misbehaves put him on the lead to restrict his freedom after a few minutes let him off then if he misbehaves it's back on the lead the dog will soon leave him alone after a few tries.

Can you provide me with more details as my breeder that I bought my akita from told me to feed eukanuba soaked in water with a good dollop of natural yoghurt.

If your worried about calcium just add a table spoon of natural yoghurt to your dogs food each meal it helps with digestion also.

I forgot that there is a lot of friction between breeders and as soon as you mention $$$ per pup the horns come out so my bad. I learnt from breeding years ago that no matter how nice a breeder is to you while at a show pretend to be a customer and ask them about your dogs and you will see what I mean. Any way if i only cared about the money i would have 4 OC bitches and cull them off after the litteres due to them being unmanageable due to the extended wait in customs so no I'm not in it for the money i just love both breeds and would like to be able to share it with other dog lovers. I'm going to look at importing in the next 12 months. I've just been layed off of work and need a new hobby to keep me busy.

Well said Aziah, I couldn't agree more. Anyone who joins a pure breed forum dedicated to responsible breeding and states that they've bred a breed of dog that they can't even spell correctly and then implies that the reason they want to bring in a rare breed is to make money out of the puppies should expect to be questioned about their motives. As for the spelling mistake try the safari browser I just click on all the red lines after I type and it does the correction automatic sorry if it doesn't recognise the word shepherd pffft. Any way I have travelled to America and a friend I have has both breeds and I fell in love with his dogs the OC he uses as a guard dog and he breeds shikoku dogs as well so I have looked into this in depth with him and as for health problems he has been relativity lucky. Also I'm not in it for the money I love Japanese dog breeds and would simply like to breed them with my friend and introduce this dog to OZ. NOT FOR THE MONEY.

I think a lot of people have trouble believing that the above is not necessarily true until they have seen someone do otherwise effectively. Dogs do weigh up reinforcers based on their value, but this does not always determine their behaviour if they are conditioned to emit one response over another (by someone competent). Whether we would choose to do that without corrections is another matter entirely, but what appears to be common sense is not always that simple. Agree What is the big deal these days with giving a dog a correction so it regains focus (not to be confused with a punishment) some dogs i would never fit a prong collar it is simply not needed. It would do more harm than good but as somebody has stated in this thread that it has changed a dogs behaviour for the better than to have it simply put down what is the better option putting it to sleep or giving the owner a tool that works when all other approaches have failed. Another thing I would like to add is that a lot of dogs these days are bred with week temperaments if a dog goes to water after a small correction in my book it has a week temperament and at the end of the day could possibly in a certain circumstances turn into a fear biter. Dogs are that dogs a correction that they understand is not doing a dog with the proper temperament any harm.

Are you implying you want/expect to make money out of this proposed venture...it sure reads that way! So what if I make a bit of money as long as I breed quality dogs and do my best to improve the breed as a whole. I have bred working German Sheppard dogs in the past and yes I may have made money off the pups (maybe not in the long run)but it was done for the joy of breeding not for money I am aware of the costs of breeding and if i make some coin good luck to me if I don't well I'm still enjoying myself by improving the breed as a whole

I use a prong collar not as a punishment but a tool that requires the smallest correction to get the dog to focus on what it should be doing. If a dogs drive around other dogs is stronger then the drive for food common sense would say a correction is needed in this case no if's or buts. So yes I use a prong in certain circumstances and it is an excellent tool that does have the power to be misused by an inexperienced handler. I like them so

I already own an akita but I really like the look of the Shikoku dog especially the ones with a brindle coat. Also they are a rare breed and fech up to $5000 USD for a pup. I would love to introduce the breed to OZ. I've looked at importing a Caucasian Ovcharca bitch as well but the temperament of the dog would be compromised after so long waiting in customs. I'm looking at setting up a Kennel in Australia with a unique breed that no body has yet.

Are there any Shikoku dog breeders in OZ. I already have an Akita and I am really keen on getting one of these. I can get one from America but I don't want to go through the whole customs import thing.