I've only had my one Kai so far. However he is super egar to work with me. If we work too long he will get bored and if he is not in the mood he'll ignore me. He has this thing when I call him he'll be gazing off somewhere and then just turn his eyes toward me. If I walk towards him and tell him I know he can hear me he'll wag his tail. If I get close he run to the house acting like he is listening all along lol. He has a big personality. Kage tends to be treat responsive. He knows come, stay, sit, lay down, turn, give paw, stand and crawl. We have been trying to teach him bow the last few months and he gets it most of the time. Regardless of this, or how trainable any Kai may or may not be I would never off leash with him. When he gets in hunting mode, chasing a squirrel or ground hog in the yard we don't exist until we can break his attention.
What is "trainable?" What is "stubborn?" Everybody may have different interpretations of these terms. And compared to what? Compared to other NK, or to typical western breeds?
But additionally, it probably depends on the individual dog and his/her direct lines, as well as age and possibly gender. If you are looking at a puppy, get to know the parents' (and grandparents') temperaments. If you are looking at breeders, go visit them and meet their dogs and ask about their breeding goals.
I consider trainability to be the aptitude to learn new behaviors and the willingness to perform them when asked. Stubbornness would be the lack of interest to perform a known behavior (opposite of eagerness to please). But there are more factors that affect trainability, including but not limited to, food motivation, focus (opposite of distractibility), and general intelligence (picking up what is asked of them).
I have 3 NK - a Shiba (neutered male 6 yrs), a Kai (intact female 2.5 yrs), and a Shikoku (intact male 11 months). If I compare them to each other, my Shiba is the most trainable, followed by the Shikoku, and lastly the Kai.
More rankings, high to low -
By stubbornness: Kai, Shiba, Shikoku. By food motivation: Shiba, Kai, Shikoku. By focus: Shiba, Kai, Shikoku. By intelligence: Shiba, Kai, Shikoku.
Bonus -
By reactivity: Shiba, Shikoku, Kai. By owner attachment: Shikoku, Shiba, Kai. By prey drive: Kai, Shiba, Shikoku. By independence: Kai, Shiba, Shikoku. By frustratability: Shikoku, Shiba, Kai.
I think @zandrame brings up some really good points here. Every dog is an individual and people have different understandings of what "trainable" is.
Personally, I think that every animal is trainable - there are people out there who trained marine animals, lions, tigers, and bears oh my. Dogs have been selectively bred towards cooperation with humans so of course they're trainable! I think training anyone to do something relies more on the teacher's skill rather than any inherent trait in an animal. How one motivates an animal (or human, for that matter!) to perform a task is pretty important in training, IMO. Honestly it makes me think of my life as a human and all the good/bad teachers I've had haha. But that's my interpretation of the term, which you can see differs from the one that @zandrame gave
I think "biddability" is more what people are looking for when they're looking for a dog who is easily trained, and handler focus, and predisposition to performing tasks repeatedly.
The best book I've read about training so far, which really helped me focus on where exactly Koharu was on various scales (because of course, it's all a spectrum, not simply black and white), is Denise Fenzi's Train The Dog In Front Of You. It's more geared towards people in dog sports but I found it super useful for my camping companion dog who goes camping too much for me to take her to dog sports classes lol. Anyway, she definitely talks about it better than I do, so I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in some practical theory (is that the term I want? haha) for dog training.
Comments
What is "trainable?" What is "stubborn?" Everybody may have different interpretations of these terms. And compared to what? Compared to other NK, or to typical western breeds?
But additionally, it probably depends on the individual dog and his/her direct lines, as well as age and possibly gender. If you are looking at a puppy, get to know the parents' (and grandparents') temperaments. If you are looking at breeders, go visit them and meet their dogs and ask about their breeding goals.
I consider trainability to be the aptitude to learn new behaviors and the willingness to perform them when asked. Stubbornness would be the lack of interest to perform a known behavior (opposite of eagerness to please). But there are more factors that affect trainability, including but not limited to, food motivation, focus (opposite of distractibility), and general intelligence (picking up what is asked of them).
I have 3 NK - a Shiba (neutered male 6 yrs), a Kai (intact female 2.5 yrs), and a Shikoku (intact male 11 months). If I compare them to each other, my Shiba is the most trainable, followed by the Shikoku, and lastly the Kai.
More rankings, high to low -
By stubbornness: Kai, Shiba, Shikoku.
By food motivation: Shiba, Kai, Shikoku.
By focus: Shiba, Kai, Shikoku.
By intelligence: Shiba, Kai, Shikoku.
Bonus -
By reactivity: Shiba, Shikoku, Kai.
By owner attachment: Shikoku, Shiba, Kai.
By prey drive: Kai, Shiba, Shikoku.
By independence: Kai, Shiba, Shikoku.
By frustratability: Shikoku, Shiba, Kai.
Personally, I think that every animal is trainable - there are people out there who trained marine animals, lions, tigers, and bears oh my. Dogs have been selectively bred towards cooperation with humans so of course they're trainable! I think training anyone to do something relies more on the teacher's skill rather than any inherent trait in an animal. How one motivates an animal (or human, for that matter!) to perform a task is pretty important in training, IMO. Honestly it makes me think of my life as a human and all the good/bad teachers I've had haha. But that's my interpretation of the term, which you can see differs from the one that @zandrame gave
I think "biddability" is more what people are looking for when they're looking for a dog who is easily trained, and handler focus, and predisposition to performing tasks repeatedly.
The best book I've read about training so far, which really helped me focus on where exactly Koharu was on various scales (because of course, it's all a spectrum, not simply black and white), is Denise Fenzi's Train The Dog In Front Of You. It's more geared towards people in dog sports but I found it super useful for my camping companion dog who goes camping too much for me to take her to dog sports classes lol. Anyway, she definitely talks about it better than I do, so I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in some practical theory (is that the term I want? haha) for dog training.