TikaAkita

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.

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

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. :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.

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 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. 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! :laugh: 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 :)

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

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.

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! :)