One thing though to try, which really helped when my boys would grab something they shouldn't have. When I play tug with them, I would teach them to drop the toy (or let go when I'm holding it) and show them that even though I have the toy, doesn't mean I'm taking it away. With Drop it, you basically offer them another toy and get them to let go of the first one. Eventually they will learn to let go on command.
Thanks Beth, I will integrate that into the tug-of-war games.
Nicole - I'm still pictured out! I think in about a month, when the leaves are really starting to come down, we'll be taking a bunch more photos of Tomo-chan, then again in the winter when it snows (though you won't be able to see her!)
Tomoe is really growing fast - she's putting on tons of muscle and her head is bulking up, which is very strange...I always thought Nihonken faces got longer and leaner as they grew up. She's starting to look MORE like a polar bear.
She is SMART. Last night while we were eating dinner, I swear she made eye contact with me and Saki through the reflection in the sliding-glass door. Maybe she just made "eye-contact" with something that looked like eyes through the window, but from a certain place under the dining room table, she can use the sliding-glass door to watch both of us eat, which would be something advantageous for a moocher whose mommy spoils her with pieces of chicken to do. So yeah, I currently hold the fervent belief that my dog uses reflections to watch me.
The first couple months are so great. Everything is new and everything is a learning experience for both of you. You sound like you are doing such a great job working with her. Koda uses the mirror in my bedroom to watch me. He always has, so I bet Tomoe is doing the same thing. At first I wasn't sure either but at 5 months he is more apparent that yes that is what he is doing.
I know people say no off leash with these dogs, but I bring Koda off leash. He does great. Partly because he is so attached to me that he would never leave me and partly because I have treats in my pocket that the never gets anywhere else. he he. I'm not sure if you were going that way with Tomoe, but I am under the belief that some of our Nihonken can do it and do it successfully.
My wife and I had some business on saturday in nearby Laurel, which has a little historic "main street." I took Tomoe all over main street, and she had many adventures. She met some nice kids and was cautious but seemed very interested.
She had a high-intensity encounter with three dogs being walked by a couple. The man had two Samoyeds, which were GIGANTIC I honestly thought those dogs didn't get that big. Thos two moved in on her like a gigantic wall of white fur, but they were polite enough to hold back. However, the woman had an extremely friendly border collie, who managed to flank Tomo-chan while she was busy being petrified by the gigantic dogs. She yelped and whined and pulled away. But once the border collie was in a down-stay Tomoe did let the lady pet her a bit.
There were cars and motorcycles and trucks, and I had her on the leash for at least 90 minutes walking. Then, a good friend of mine brought his 5 year old daughter over to visit. They got along well. The girl was a little bit rough - at one point she pushed Tomoe away from her toy so she could pick it up, but Tomoe didn't seem the least bit reactive to that.
Sunday we did a lot of yardwork and Tomoe had her first exposure to the joys of piles of raked leaves! There was a lot of running around in the backyard, and then we went to my parents' house for dinner and there was more running around, and hunting for The Other Cat (who cared not to reveal herself).
I was wondering where she was getting all this energy, but then this morning, after I let her out to do her business and put her food down, she ate about a third of it and then immediately went back to her crate and passed out.
Tomoe is getting better on the leash. She has met a lot of new people and dogs.
For the most part, she is wary around men she hasn't met, the bigger they are the more wary she is. However, Saki brought her to the Aikido dojo while I was training earlier this week and after class one of my senior instructors who is an extremely scary individual (teaches SWAT and did VIP protection for years) had her calmly chewing his thumb in about five seconds. She has also demonstrated that after she meets you a couple of times, she knows you. And there is a definite love for my parents, who have doggysat her three times so far...she still submissive-pees on my dad!
The dog reactiveness is really apparent. She's either pulling away or surging forward, depending on what energy she is getting from the other dog. All dogs must be dealt with. I've been trying to keep the meetings around the neighborhood as low-key as possible. I try not to force her into anything, but if she is pulled against her leash I will hold her still. Her reactiveness is unsettling to the other dogs always.
Tomoe is very very aware of her surroundings. On walks she sniffs everything with interest, but she will raise her head a lot and listen / look. When Saki had her at the dojo she was apparently very attentive and interested in watching what was going on on the mat. Presumably the Aikido movements catch her eye.
Best part of this update, is that I took her to puppy kindergarten last night for the first time! I took her to Coventry School in MD, which is a very nice, clean place.
It was very interesting to compare her to some other dogs her age in that class. I was relieved to see that she was no worse on-leash than any of the other pups. On the other hand, she was more quiet than anybody. And while the other dogs restlessly paced around their owners and seemed to confine their attention to a bubble about three feet around them and their owners, Tomoe was paying attention to everything in the room. She is just as distracted as other puppies, but when her attention shifts to something, she is FOCUSED on it.
She met a beagle pup who put its nose into hers, and she snapped at him a little, not hard enough for him to yelp or get scared, but I pulled her away. Later, when the beagle was beagling at her owner, Tomoe got very concerned and started looking from the beagle to me, then back to the beagle, and whining a little bit.
The beagle got a Kong with peanut butter paste in it to calm him down and Tomoe was REALLY bothered by that. She started looking at me and whining and then turning towards the beagle and wolf-barking. I kept her calmed down with training drills but she was clearly interested in the kong toy...and while I am anthropomorphicizing here, I daresay she was nonplussed that the beagle was given a toy for being loud and rude! "Dad! Did you see that? That begale just got a TOY! For being LOUD! Why is the American educational system so f'ed up, daddy??"
We went over some simple drills - clicker training type stuff - and then it was time for some leash work. When the pups and people in the room started moving around randomly, THEN the noble composure evaporated and Tomoe went into crazy mode. I am not sure it was the best environment to actually practice that exercise...when the pup pulls at the leash, stand firm, and then when they let the leash go slack, click and treat. Seemed like she was all "OMG dad! This retriever has no idea what is going on! I'm gonna...oh, hey, thanks for the cheese...LOOK! The border collie has the kong toy now! We MUST get to that Kong toy!"
Oh yeah and then on our way home we had to stop and get some food...so I phoned an order to our local beer-and-burritos joint and while waiting outside, the owner and some of the waitstaff came out and admired her. The owner is a long-haired outdoorsy type and he immediately was taken by her "primitiveness," noting with appreciation not just her wolfy good looks, but also that she was reserved around him and the girls. He said "Ah...she's totally loyal to you! See how she is blowing me off?"
It's been wet and dreary in these parts recently, and I haven't really had the camera out that much. But hopefully soon I will get a couple of recenter pics on the Tomoe Spam thread. She's growing!
Last week we finally got her to Down! Huge development, I am extremely proud of her.
She's here and there on the leash. The interesting thing lately is what direction / form her drive takes as we go on a walk.
When I get her onto the jogging trail behind my house, there's one obvious direction that "the hunt" is moving. So depending on her energy level she may pull at the leash to go forward or she may be good, but she will keep moving in the general direction. She steps off the path to sniff at Important Things and spends less and less time doing it...she's more "in control" and checking on things. I figured out a couple weeks ago to let her sniff whenever she wants to, as long as she doesn't try to pull me into the bushes. I watch her to see when her focus "unlocks" from something and give the leash a gentle tug, and she usually comes along and gets back on the trail.
The usual trail for the short walk ends on a largish street that circles my neighborhood. Suddenly, there is less to sniff at, but there is still a definite direction that "the hunt" is moving....she picks up the pace and tries to run along the sidewalk. Sometimes I run with her, sometimes I drag progressively until she stops pulling. But she is usually all about moving forward...there are two or three places she likes to stop and sniff and check on things.
Then we get to our street. There is a guy on the corner who owns about nine cars...seriously he has two driveways and a garage and then has two cars on the street. He parks these cars on the sidewalk so you have to step onto the street to get around them. This disturbs the clear direction of "the hunt" for Tomoe, and she gets very erratic and wound up!
As I try to lead her around the cars, she will run around in circles, try to buck the leash, and then if I stop and cross my arms she moves in and starts biting my legs. I have a ropey chew toy I whip out at this point, which works somewhat.
While walking back to the house, there are some parts of the sidewalk she wants to zoom straight along, and then other parts she loses the track and, again, starts running around in a circle hyperfast, bucking the leash, biting my legs, tugging the chew toy, etc.
Its very interesting...when we're on a more leisurely walk, whenever we hit junctions in the trail network and she can smell / sense different possible tracks to take, its the same thing - sudden toothy zoomies.
I've tried to focus my own mind in the direction we're going but it's kind of difficult to do that when I've suddenly got to reach for the chew toy to divert her from sinking her needle teeth into my calves.
Oh one more thing! I'm sure there are many possible explanation for this, but last night was puppy kindergarten class session 3.
I was sitting in my office doing some stuff about half an hour before it was time to head over to the school.
Tomoe is over by the front door landing (we've got a split-foyer kinda house and she still won't go down those stairs) WHINING loudly. This is not a behavior I have ever noticed...there is a much better vantage point for her to pay attention to stuff out front of the house. All I can think of is that she knew it was her class day and she was excited to go!
She's getting bigger every day. She weighs abotu 25 lbs now, Carleen estimates she will be 42 lbs or so when she is done growing.
Her tail does not curly-queue completely. It just points forward.
Bit of cream coloring down her back.
She's still a bit of a terror - she jumps on people, pulls on the leash, mouths, etc. Definitely getting better with the mouthiness, I think she can feel that mouthing turns the fun off because we tend to pull our hands away and stop petting her. The jumping and pulling on the leash, I should probably work harder to engineer some training situations. I envisioned myself as tackling these things from day 1, but the fact of the matter is, its hard!
What I should be doing is taking her out on walks, planning on not getting further than ten feet from my house, because as soon as she pulls on the leash I am going to change direction, or stop, then click/feed when she turns towards me, etc. I should set up situations where we run into people when we are out on walks, and they know to ignore her until she is sitting. But the fact of the matter is, I take her on walks because I want to walk too. And I've got no neighbors I can be in cahoots with.
The worse thing we are going through right now is the fact that she HATES the rain. And it's been raining a lot around here. When it rains, she tends to forget to poop outside. There have been a bunch of accidents this week, which is demoralizing. She actually pooped in her crate yesterday. Today I made sure she was out, but then in the space of about two minutes she slipped into our empty back room and pooped in there. Very ninja-like.
At some point, maybe I was a bad owner, but she decided that she needs to go into prey mode when I need her to come in. She can feel that I really really need her to come inside because I have to go to work or leave the house, and she can feel that I am worried that she won't. I try to project enthusiasm and fun, but she ain't buying my act. She won't come in for me or for treats and when I finally HAVE to go out and get her, she REALLY REALLY enjoys the fact that my knees are a little shot and I can't catch her.
I have taken to putting a leash on her and letting her run around with it dragging. Hoefully she won't go under the deck like that. Or poop on it...
In the meantime i'm trying to keep her up with her puppy kindergarten material, spending as much time as possible with her, taking her with me places, etc. Hoping that she'll grow into the role I make for her.
Oh yeah one other thing is the cat. My cat grew up with dogs so I assumed she'd figure out how to handle Tomoe. What I did not anticipate is that my cat will not or cannot jump up on things to get away from the dog. She makes a stand and fights it out. Tomoe has gotten nicked twice now, and that's another thing that is panning out in a way I had not imagined: Tomoe has honestly learned respect for the cat. But the cat is just FASCINATING and Tomoe has to do things like put her paw on the cat to see what the cat will do, fly at the cat and then spring away from the arc of the claw, etc. The cat will also call Tomoe out from across the room sometimes. It is like, okay kitty, Tomoe was not bothering you at all until you opened your mouth.
Fascinating stuff though....the two will face off, and just as Tomoe is about to do something, the cat will hiss, spit, and maybe swipe. This totally disupts the dog's flow and breaks whatever Tomoe was going to do. I practice martial arts and I've been trying to figure out how to do that for YEARS. Tomoe will sometimes look like she was bounced sideways in mid-air because she puts a foot down and throws herself away from the energy that the cat is projecting.
Anyway when they get bad I put one or the other of them in time-out. I think that maybe if I can keep them from hurting each other for a year or two, Tomoe might learn to show feline respect, and Charlie may learn to be less offended by the dog. I've seen what could conceivably be the beginnings of some affection from the cat when Tomoe is asleep in the open.
Sadly, I imagine I will always have to manage the food. Charlie doesn't jump, so there is nowhere I can put the food out of reach. We've got an unused closet that we can restrict access to, but the litterbox goes in there...I'd 100 times over prefer that the dog eats the cat's food than her litter.
Those epic dog/cat battles sound pretty funny. As long as no one gets hurt. Charlie sounds like a real sensei, lol.
Keep it up with the training. Nothing really tests the limits of your paitents and resolve like a puppy. But it sounds like you guys are very dedicated to raising her up the right way. Stick with it! I'm sure in the end you'll end up with a loyal and well behaved pup.
We're working on Katsus' mouthiness too. When she bites we do the yelp and stop paying attention, and we tell her KISSES. Now we can tell when she's about to start and we say kisses and I'd say half the time she'll actually just lick you.
We're also dealing with her lack of recall. Getting her in her harness and collar has turned into a game for her. She normally starts the Shiba 500 as soon as you grab her stuff. Now I just stand and wait for her to finally either come over, or to stop and pay attention so I can put her into a sit or a down. When we finally get everything on her it's lots of praises and some treats. I think she's finally getting it. Yesterday when I went to go leave the dog park. I pulled her leash out, I keep the collar and harness on when she's playing, and she actually walked right up to me and sat down.
I've started treating Tomoe whenever she crossed the threshold of the back door. Hopefully that will sink in over time. in the meantime, we put a leash on her if we let her out and need to bring her in at a certain time, e.g. before we leave for work or when I am feeding her at lunch time. I can get close enough to her to step on the leash and slowly pick it up while praising her, it's a whole different ball game from leaning in and trying to grab her.
She still goes NUTS occasionally when we're out walking. Zooming all over the place, then coming in and biting. Really worrisome behavior that I don't know the right way to handle. Do I stop and ignore her, even though she will sometimes just start chewing on the leash in this case? Corrections don't work - she is already treating me like a moose she wants to take down or something. The trigger MAY be that I am taking her off a "hunting trail" she wants to be on. Last night, she was sniffing at garbage cans on the sidewalk and I was like, no, let's move on. So she starts zooming all over the place, with her ears up and back which means trouble. What's funny is, and this has happened two times previously, we wind up with her on her back and my hand on her chest invariably. I'm not intentionally alpha-rolling her, I'm just trying to untangle the leash and her struggles end up taking her down. She doesn't bite hard or growl and I don't do anything but speak to her soothingly, but if Caesar walked by he'd probably give me props for being a good pack leader!
But you know what - every time I start to get really worried that she's got a real temperment problem or something, something else "clicks." Like as of two days ago, she will just happily trot right into her crate when it is time. She has never been unhappy to be placed in her crate, but we used to have to put her in there physically most of the time. She just crates up now.
And she still is quite friendly with people - though still mouthy - quiet, mostly clean, and non-destructive in the house.
I still feel that the challenges we are facing with her now are related to prey drive, and we are trying to get her prey drive tuned into us so we can channel it.
I'm not experienced with Kishu, but it sounds like Tomoe is a typical Nihon Ken puppy. Don't forget, you've got a hunting dog that was bred to catch prey, not bay. The biting and mouthiness is to be expected. It's part of how the prey drive is expressed, part of the FAP. Make sure you are diligent about redirecting and using rewards for good behavior. And be careful about alph-rolling your puppy, even if it is accidental. It's best to let her do her craziness and then, once she has calmed down, you can untangle the leash.
Comments
One thing though to try, which really helped when my boys would grab something they shouldn't have. When I play tug with them, I would teach them to drop the toy (or let go when I'm holding it) and show them that even though I have the toy, doesn't mean I'm taking it away. With Drop it, you basically offer them another toy and get them to let go of the first one. Eventually they will learn to let go on command.
Nicole - I'm still pictured out! I think in about a month, when the leaves are really starting to come down, we'll be taking a bunch more photos of Tomo-chan, then again in the winter when it snows (though you won't be able to see her!)
She is SMART. Last night while we were eating dinner, I swear she made eye contact with me and Saki through the reflection in the sliding-glass door. Maybe she just made "eye-contact" with something that looked like eyes through the window, but from a certain place under the dining room table, she can use the sliding-glass door to watch both of us eat, which would be something advantageous for a moocher whose mommy spoils her with pieces of chicken to do. So yeah, I currently hold the fervent belief that my dog uses reflections to watch me.
I know people say no off leash with these dogs, but I bring Koda off leash. He does great. Partly because he is so attached to me that he would never leave me and partly because I have treats in my pocket that the never gets anywhere else. he he. I'm not sure if you were going that way with Tomoe, but I am under the belief that some of our Nihonken can do it and do it successfully.
I'm so happy for both of you.
She had a high-intensity encounter with three dogs being walked by a couple. The man had two Samoyeds, which were GIGANTIC I honestly thought those dogs didn't get that big. Thos two moved in on her like a gigantic wall of white fur, but they were polite enough to hold back. However, the woman had an extremely friendly border collie, who managed to flank Tomo-chan while she was busy being petrified by the gigantic dogs. She yelped and whined and pulled away. But once the border collie was in a down-stay Tomoe did let the lady pet her a bit.
There were cars and motorcycles and trucks, and I had her on the leash for at least 90 minutes walking. Then, a good friend of mine brought his 5 year old daughter over to visit. They got along well. The girl was a little bit rough - at one point she pushed Tomoe away from her toy so she could pick it up, but Tomoe didn't seem the least bit reactive to that.
Sunday we did a lot of yardwork and Tomoe had her first exposure to the joys of piles of raked leaves! There was a lot of running around in the backyard, and then we went to my parents' house for dinner and there was more running around, and hunting for The Other Cat (who cared not to reveal herself).
I was wondering where she was getting all this energy, but then this morning, after I let her out to do her business and put her food down, she ate about a third of it and then immediately went back to her crate and passed out.
Tomoe is getting better on the leash. She has met a lot of new people and dogs.
For the most part, she is wary around men she hasn't met, the bigger they are the more wary she is. However, Saki brought her to the Aikido dojo while I was training earlier this week and after class one of my senior instructors who is an extremely scary individual (teaches SWAT and did VIP protection for years) had her calmly chewing his thumb in about five seconds. She has also demonstrated that after she meets you a couple of times, she knows you. And there is a definite love for my parents, who have doggysat her three times so far...she still submissive-pees on my dad!
The dog reactiveness is really apparent. She's either pulling away or surging forward, depending on what energy she is getting from the other dog. All dogs must be dealt with. I've been trying to keep the meetings around the neighborhood as low-key as possible. I try not to force her into anything, but if she is pulled against her leash I will hold her still. Her reactiveness is unsettling to the other dogs always.
Tomoe is very very aware of her surroundings. On walks she sniffs everything with interest, but she will raise her head a lot and listen / look. When Saki had her at the dojo she was apparently very attentive and interested in watching what was going on on the mat. Presumably the Aikido movements catch her eye.
Best part of this update, is that I took her to puppy kindergarten last night for the first time! I took her to Coventry School in MD, which is a very nice, clean place.
It was very interesting to compare her to some other dogs her age in that class. I was relieved to see that she was no worse on-leash than any of the other pups. On the other hand, she was more quiet than anybody. And while the other dogs restlessly paced around their owners and seemed to confine their attention to a bubble about three feet around them and their owners, Tomoe was paying attention to everything in the room. She is just as distracted as other puppies, but when her attention shifts to something, she is FOCUSED on it.
She met a beagle pup who put its nose into hers, and she snapped at him a little, not hard enough for him to yelp or get scared, but I pulled her away. Later, when the beagle was beagling at her owner, Tomoe got very concerned and started looking from the beagle to me, then back to the beagle, and whining a little bit.
The beagle got a Kong with peanut butter paste in it to calm him down and Tomoe was REALLY bothered by that. She started looking at me and whining and then turning towards the beagle and wolf-barking. I kept her calmed down with training drills but she was clearly interested in the kong toy...and while I am anthropomorphicizing here, I daresay she was nonplussed that the beagle was given a toy for being loud and rude! "Dad! Did you see that? That begale just got a TOY! For being LOUD! Why is the American educational system so f'ed up, daddy??"
We went over some simple drills - clicker training type stuff - and then it was time for some leash work. When the pups and people in the room started moving around randomly, THEN the noble composure evaporated and Tomoe went into crazy mode. I am not sure it was the best environment to actually practice that exercise...when the pup pulls at the leash, stand firm, and then when they let the leash go slack, click and treat. Seemed like she was all "OMG dad! This retriever has no idea what is going on! I'm gonna...oh, hey, thanks for the cheese...LOOK! The border collie has the kong toy now! We MUST get to that Kong toy!"
your observation skills will serve you very well with Tomoe> a lucky dog!
She does look like a baby polar bear.
Last week we finally got her to Down! Huge development, I am extremely proud of her.
She's here and there on the leash. The interesting thing lately is what direction / form her drive takes as we go on a walk.
When I get her onto the jogging trail behind my house, there's one obvious direction that "the hunt" is moving. So depending on her energy level she may pull at the leash to go forward or she may be good, but she will keep moving in the general direction. She steps off the path to sniff at Important Things and spends less and less time doing it...she's more "in control" and checking on things. I figured out a couple weeks ago to let her sniff whenever she wants to, as long as she doesn't try to pull me into the bushes. I watch her to see when her focus "unlocks" from something and give the leash a gentle tug, and she usually comes along and gets back on the trail.
The usual trail for the short walk ends on a largish street that circles my neighborhood. Suddenly, there is less to sniff at, but there is still a definite direction that "the hunt" is moving....she picks up the pace and tries to run along the sidewalk. Sometimes I run with her, sometimes I drag progressively until she stops pulling. But she is usually all about moving forward...there are two or three places she likes to stop and sniff and check on things.
Then we get to our street. There is a guy on the corner who owns about nine cars...seriously he has two driveways and a garage and then has two cars on the street. He parks these cars on the sidewalk so you have to step onto the street to get around them. This disturbs the clear direction of "the hunt" for Tomoe, and she gets very erratic and wound up!
As I try to lead her around the cars, she will run around in circles, try to buck the leash, and then if I stop and cross my arms she moves in and starts biting my legs. I have a ropey chew toy I whip out at this point, which works somewhat.
While walking back to the house, there are some parts of the sidewalk she wants to zoom straight along, and then other parts she loses the track and, again, starts running around in a circle hyperfast, bucking the leash, biting my legs, tugging the chew toy, etc.
Its very interesting...when we're on a more leisurely walk, whenever we hit junctions in the trail network and she can smell / sense different possible tracks to take, its the same thing - sudden toothy zoomies.
I've tried to focus my own mind in the direction we're going but it's kind of difficult to do that when I've suddenly got to reach for the chew toy to divert her from sinking her needle teeth into my calves.
I was sitting in my office doing some stuff about half an hour before it was time to head over to the school.
Tomoe is over by the front door landing (we've got a split-foyer kinda house and she still won't go down those stairs) WHINING loudly. This is not a behavior I have ever noticed...there is a much better vantage point for her to pay attention to stuff out front of the house. All I can think of is that she knew it was her class day and she was excited to go!
Her tail does not curly-queue completely. It just points forward.
Bit of cream coloring down her back.
She's still a bit of a terror - she jumps on people, pulls on the leash, mouths, etc. Definitely getting better with the mouthiness, I think she can feel that mouthing turns the fun off because we tend to pull our hands away and stop petting her. The jumping and pulling on the leash, I should probably work harder to engineer some training situations. I envisioned myself as tackling these things from day 1, but the fact of the matter is, its hard!
What I should be doing is taking her out on walks, planning on not getting further than ten feet from my house, because as soon as she pulls on the leash I am going to change direction, or stop, then click/feed when she turns towards me, etc. I should set up situations where we run into people when we are out on walks, and they know to ignore her until she is sitting. But the fact of the matter is, I take her on walks because I want to walk too. And I've got no neighbors I can be in cahoots with.
The worse thing we are going through right now is the fact that she HATES the rain. And it's been raining a lot around here. When it rains, she tends to forget to poop outside. There have been a bunch of accidents this week, which is demoralizing. She actually pooped in her crate yesterday. Today I made sure she was out, but then in the space of about two minutes she slipped into our empty back room and pooped in there. Very ninja-like.
At some point, maybe I was a bad owner, but she decided that she needs to go into prey mode when I need her to come in. She can feel that I really really need her to come inside because I have to go to work or leave the house, and she can feel that I am worried that she won't. I try to project enthusiasm and fun, but she ain't buying my act. She won't come in for me or for treats and when I finally HAVE to go out and get her, she REALLY REALLY enjoys the fact that my knees are a little shot and I can't catch her.
I have taken to putting a leash on her and letting her run around with it dragging. Hoefully she won't go under the deck like that. Or poop on it...
In the meantime i'm trying to keep her up with her puppy kindergarten material, spending as much time as possible with her, taking her with me places, etc. Hoping that she'll grow into the role I make for her.
Fascinating stuff though....the two will face off, and just as Tomoe is about to do something, the cat will hiss, spit, and maybe swipe. This totally disupts the dog's flow and breaks whatever Tomoe was going to do. I practice martial arts and I've been trying to figure out how to do that for YEARS. Tomoe will sometimes look like she was bounced sideways in mid-air because she puts a foot down and throws herself away from the energy that the cat is projecting.
Anyway when they get bad I put one or the other of them in time-out. I think that maybe if I can keep them from hurting each other for a year or two, Tomoe might learn to show feline respect, and Charlie may learn to be less offended by the dog. I've seen what could conceivably be the beginnings of some affection from the cat when Tomoe is asleep in the open.
Sadly, I imagine I will always have to manage the food. Charlie doesn't jump, so there is nowhere I can put the food out of reach. We've got an unused closet that we can restrict access to, but the litterbox goes in there...I'd 100 times over prefer that the dog eats the cat's food than her litter.
Keep it up with the training. Nothing really tests the limits of your paitents and resolve like a puppy. But it sounds like you guys are very dedicated to raising her up the right way. Stick with it! I'm sure in the end you'll end up with a loyal and well behaved pup.
We're working on Katsus' mouthiness too. When she bites we do the yelp and stop paying attention, and we tell her KISSES. Now we can tell when she's about to start and we say kisses and I'd say half the time she'll actually just lick you.
We're also dealing with her lack of recall. Getting her in her harness and collar has turned into a game for her. She normally starts the Shiba 500 as soon as you grab her stuff. Now I just stand and wait for her to finally either come over, or to stop and pay attention so I can put her into a sit or a down. When we finally get everything on her it's lots of praises and some treats. I think she's finally getting it. Yesterday when I went to go leave the dog park. I pulled her leash out, I keep the collar and harness on when she's playing, and she actually walked right up to me and sat down.
I love your updates, but we need more SPAM!
She still goes NUTS occasionally when we're out walking. Zooming all over the place, then coming in and biting. Really worrisome behavior that I don't know the right way to handle. Do I stop and ignore her, even though she will sometimes just start chewing on the leash in this case? Corrections don't work - she is already treating me like a moose she wants to take down or something. The trigger MAY be that I am taking her off a "hunting trail" she wants to be on. Last night, she was sniffing at garbage cans on the sidewalk and I was like, no, let's move on. So she starts zooming all over the place, with her ears up and back which means trouble. What's funny is, and this has happened two times previously, we wind up with her on her back and my hand on her chest invariably. I'm not intentionally alpha-rolling her, I'm just trying to untangle the leash and her struggles end up taking her down. She doesn't bite hard or growl and I don't do anything but speak to her soothingly, but if Caesar walked by he'd probably give me props for being a good pack leader!
But you know what - every time I start to get really worried that she's got a real temperment problem or something, something else "clicks." Like as of two days ago, she will just happily trot right into her crate when it is time. She has never been unhappy to be placed in her crate, but we used to have to put her in there physically most of the time. She just crates up now.
And she still is quite friendly with people - though still mouthy - quiet, mostly clean, and non-destructive in the house.
I still feel that the challenges we are facing with her now are related to prey drive, and we are trying to get her prey drive tuned into us so we can channel it.