[VIDEO] Akashi, Ritsu, and Taka Playing With Kaiju

edited September 2011 in General
It's been awhile since I shared a video, so I thought this was a good one. Here is Akashi, Ritsu, and Taka playing with Kaiju (Shikoku Ken)...





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Comments

  • LOL, Kaiju is a monster...trying to mount Ritsu like that...
  • Such a shikoku move :P hahaha.
  • I would contest that statement but my female Shika does the same thing to my male Shiba so...guilty as charged.
  • Does Kaiju always bite the dogs legs? lol

    Saya will do that with Bella to get Bella to play with her or during wrestling.
  • Is anyone else noticing the Kais shunning him? Am I the only one who sees it that way?
  • Not all of them did, Akashi was lying down playfully near Ritsu and Kaiju nipping at Kaiju's feet while Kaiju was pestering Ritsu. I think tolerantly ignoring his annoying play behaviors would be what I see.

    Jesse
  • At the end of the video there is a little conflict between Ritsu and Kaiju, and then Kaiju charges Nio through the gate... so, you may be on to something.

    Kaiju is such a nice companion - so amazing with us, and chase, and great with some of the dogs. But damn if he's not a total asshole when it comes to Kodi, Nio, Luytiy, and sometimes Ritsu. He can be a real jerk.

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  • edited September 2011
    @Crimson02 First I will admit that I'm watching this video through the lens of someone who has lived with two kais and watched them interract with other dogs. I may be bias in that I'm associating how Koda and Mei would act and putting their behavioral traits onto Ritsu and Akashi.

    There are three natural reactions to stress or annoyance from animals: fight, flight, or freeze. How I see it, Akashi shows freeze when Kaiju has him by the neck. Although it is meant to be playful, I'm not sure it's as socially polite as the way Kais play. (This may be my lens showing through). When Ritsu walks over to Akashi, Akashi then invites him to play by opening up his legs and allowing him to engage. Ritsu continually uses avoidance with Kaiju even when he's nipping his legs and being mounted by Kaiju. Good boy. Akashi then runs off the platform and continuously looks straight at Ritsu inviting him to play again (flight). When Kaiju runs with them and tries to engage again, this is too much for Ritsu who then snaps back (fight). Kaiju in Kaiju fashion deflects and goes after Nio.

    Kais can be pretty passive in their attempts to not include another dog in their play. I have also found that they have a low tolerance for rudeness. This doesn't always mean fight like a sharper breed would do, but I see freeze and flight a lot with Koda and Mei.

    Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but I really don't think I am. I think they would rather not have him there. Maybe something happened right before the video was shot.

    @brada1878 I can definitely see that Kaiju would have issues with the bigger dogs. And I can see why Nio and Ritsu too. Nio's a pretty confident man. He kind've ran the Kais during my short visit, and did his own thing. I liked his independence and confidence a lot. He's also not one to take anything which is great when living with other dogs. Not that he's over the top or anything. He reacts in perfectly acceptable ways, but just doesn't get bullied. Kaiju is just that, a bit of a bully. Ritsu let him bully him as a pup even though Ritsu was older and bigger. He just kind've didn't care. I remember Kaiju attacking him for a toy that they were playing tug of war with in Corina's backyard. Ritsu won and Kaiju got pissed! He then went after Ritsu, and Ritsu just dropped it. I think Kaiju at that point associated bullying with getting what you want. As Ritsu got older I'm sure he stopped allowing that behavior as much and that may be where you are seeing conflict. Also interesting, I picked Kaiju up to stop the argument, and Shuran came over to me and Kaiju went after him. He can't calm down quick enough after an incident not to deflect on another dog. Totally a guess based off of 3 days with being with them as pups.
  • I think Kaiju's varied relations with other dogs is normal. Not all personalities mesh nor should they be expected too. Glad to hear he is great with you guys and quite a handsome boy. I think Kaiju wants/needs a shikoku bro. :D Many dogs do not have and cannot handle the level of energy and an enthusiasm a shikoku can bring. They have so much bounce and desire to play that they can come off as rude and forceful. Inu goes for the legs all the time too. I bet Inu and Kaiju would have a lot of fun together.
  • @the_november_rain After reading my post, I could see how someone may think that I think poorly of Kaiju. I liked Kaiju a lot. In fact, at the time, I was more interested in him than Ritsu. I loved his spunk and personality.

    My take on the video does not mean that I think Kaiju is doing anything wrong, but rather how Kais may react to him.
  • edited September 2011
    @tjbart17- haha! No, I did not think that.

    I just think that shikokus can be misunderstood. When Inu is on, he is at another level, kinda psycho really , haha!. But you can see the joy in his eyes when he is at play. I think he has influenced this play style onto Kagome...
  • I agree, not all dogs need to (or do) get along, we don't expect them to. Tho, we do prefer dogs who get along with the majority and not a minority (which is how Kaiju is at times).

    Also, it's never a permanent thing, we have dogs who don't get along this month who will be BFFs next month. Kodi and Parka, for example, were BFFs like 2 months ago and then something happened and Kodi wanted to eat him for like a month an half - and now they're over it. They're just like school children.

    With Kaiju tho, I think Tara is right, he doesn't recover from conflict very quick and he holds grudges. Add that to his tendency to be a bully and he just seems to always have friction with one of the dogs. It can get kinda old, but that's who he is. He's not a bad dog or anything, he's just got his own personality. I'd rather him have personality than be dull and boring.

    Also, I think Shikoku are slow to mature, and with their maturity comes confidence. Ours all seemed kinda insecure as pups and young adults, and then grew into more confident dogs (with other dogs). That's just my observation tho - and it's only based on the 4 Shikoku I have owned.

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  • I should also add Shuran didn't come over the second after the conflict. It was a good 30-40 seconds. Kaiju should have been able to calm down.

    I don't want to work today. Can you tell?
  • edited September 2011
    @tjbart17 - I also thought that the Kai's seemed to not want to play with Kaiju when I first watched it, well before I scrolled down and read your comment. To me, watching Brad's videos over time of Kai playing, is that they have a much more subdued play style than I see with my 2 shikoku, or even the Siberians that I owned previously. My Siberians played a lot like my shikoku play, but the shikoku are more vocal.

    My impression was that Kaiju was tagging along and they were ignoring him. I kind of felt sad for him, like the kid in school being left out. ;-).

    As far as shikoku play, I agree with Jessika that it is wild, with a lot of biting, and a lot of noise and pretty rough. See Brad made a comment about the conflict at the end between Kaiju and Ritsu -- in my view of that, I didn't consider that a conflict, but then again, my two shikoku react like that a lot of time and it is all in play (as Jessika says, it is in the eyes). It seems to me that they have a lot more pushing and shoving involved -- rudeness to other dogs but all in play to a shikoku!



  • See that looks like a good time. It's mutual and both dogs are having a blast.
  • Well, like I wrote before, they were all playing before I started to video - I videoed the tail-end of the play session. Kaiju was not being left out during the play.

    As for the "conflict" at the end, maybe I used the wrong word, maybe "conflict" comes off as too harsh. At the end of the video there was a clear correction from Ritsu to Kaiju, probably a "I'm sick of you humping me" correction. Then Kaiju does that butt-rub move that Shikoku do during play, so he is clearly still playing even tho Ritsu was annoyed with him, perhaps Kaiju was trying to move the situation away from a conflict. But then Kaiju goes off charging the fence - in an aggressive posture - at Nio - that's Kaiju's MO.

    @Edgewood - Do your Shikoku put their hackles up and charge a fence line in an aggressive posture like that during play? That doesn't seem like play to me, but maybe I am reading it wrong.

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    I posted this video to show that Kaiju does play with the other dogs, since I bitch about him being a jerk a lot I want people to see that he's not as bad as I may make him out to be... but it seems to have blown up in my face here. My intention was not to get into breed comparison, or a situation where we were putting Kaiju down, or to make someone feel the need to defend a breed.

    Are the Kai avoiding Kaiju... Sure, they probably do avoid Kaiju. I mean, he is an asshole 75% of the time - the fence charge at Nio is just one second of what he does almost all day. So, yea, the other dogs do kinda avoid him - so they don't get bullied by him. But they do still interact with him peacefully and play at times. It's not as those he is socially retarded - he's just an ass. I don't feel bad for him, he's made that bed for himself - just like Ahi - most of the dogs avoid her because she's a bully too.

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  • edited September 2011
    @edgewood You're right, their play style seems more subdued.

    Yeah, Inu will full on barrel charge Kagome and she has more than twice his torso. With Inu and Kagome there is a lot of biting and vocals, all play though. If you only listen to the Kuma and Sachi video, it will sound like small animals fighting, haha! Because they are so rough I do worry about injury, especially since Gome is kinda klutzy.
  • edited September 2011
    @brada1878 I should be the one apologizing. On the FB link I said that I felt sorry for Kaiju, and I still do. This turned into a Kaiju thing, and my intention in the beginning was actually to show that Kais can be a bit elitist in my opinion. I love my kais, but I've seen them ignore other dogs that are trying to play, and a couple of times I felt bad.

    One time a Husky owner called me and he wanted to meet Kais. He was really interested in the breed. I met him at a dogpark with both Mei and Koda. I felt so bad. His Husky just tried to play with them. She was the sweetest thing, but since she was vocal while playing Koda and Mei would not let her play. I felt bad watching it, like she was poor Rudolph and they wouldn't let her play in their reindeer games. Plus it doesn't make Kais look all that great to a person looking into the breed.

    I also met a forum member with a Shiba one time. They did the same thing to the Shiba. They are such great dogs, and when they aren't together they will play with other dogs, but together they become clicky. I just feel bad when they do it.

    And they don't just do this with eachother. When I have taken Koda out to meet other Kais, he will only play with them and no other dog. Even if we are at a dogpark.

    That was my original opinion watching the video. I felt bad for Kaiju. He's just trying to play with them in the video.
  • ...Kaiiiyuken
  • I find this video quite interesting, and the comments as well...

    I for one, don't feel sorry for Kaiju as that would entail that he is not having fun. Too bad this was only the tail end but that humping, to me at least, was an expression of how much fun he had (Tetsu does the same thing to Tikaani after a good play session). Even when the kai seemingly ignored him, he was still happily running alongside them.

    Kaiju took that correction from Ritsu better than Miyu would have. Miyu takes corrections from either boy as play, and will persist to butt bump and arm flail until we separate them or it escalates. I would love to see how Kaiju would do if he were with a dog like my Tikaani, a tolerant rough player.

    I find kind of interesting at the end when Kaiju focus on Brad, the kai follow suit and look in that direction. It seemed like none of them noticed him until Kaiju did, which to me shows that they are still paying attention and not fully ignoring him.
  • edited September 2011
    Well, I guess I was anthropomorphizing a bit and I do agree with your assessment Calia (@Calia). While the Kais seems to play without Kaiju a bit, Kaiju himself seems to be having fun anyway (and not feeling left out).

    @Brada1878 - I cannot answer your question since I do not have dogs on the "other side of the fence". Maybe they would? I don't know since we do not have multiple dog yards but only a single yard. I do know that Kuma's pleasure in life is charging the fence stiff-legged, barking with his hackles up to get a response from the barn cats just outside the fence. Usually a much more aggressive charge than Kaiju did (Sachi doesn't do this). The cats usually just ignore him completely. Than a minute later he is kissing the cats through the fence. So maybe in another dog was on the other side, he might do what you commented on Kaiju doing. And with my two, their hackles are usually up during play.

    I didn't feel like any of the comments were inappropriately attacking one breed or another, rather just commenting on the play differences between breeds. I know that I find it interesting that my Siberians had some of the same exact play behaviors as shikoku, but that Kai don't seem to play the same way. And shikoku are way noisier during play than my Siberians were. I thought that the commentary was more than, neutral commentary.

    And of course, each of us has our own experience with our own dogs -- and since dogs are individuals -- that could color our perceptions. I have no doubt Brad that Kaiju might be a more difficult dog to manage, by you and by others, since you feel he has fewer social skills. I think Sachi would be a harder dog to manage too than Kuma with a bunch of dogs, in a different situation. Because like Calia says about Miyu, Sachi's response to corrections can be pretty forceful (like Miyu's above). Kuma is a very tolerant dog, probably like Tikaani is....Kuma has the patience of a saint.
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