Lost Shikoku in Illinois

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  • All of mine will come back. Tora is know to go off hunting on her own. It is pointless to go looking for her because she will tune you out. She usually returns an hour or 2 later. 3 days before she was due to have her first litter she went off hunting. Scared the crap out of me, but 2 hours later she was at the door asking to come in. Kuma and Tora took off once, they slipped through the door. They were gone for 4 hours. I found them about 3 miles from home. The thing was they were on their way back home when I found them. They were very happy to hop in the car and ride back home at that point. I think the bigger issue is something freaking the dog out and it goes into flight mode. That is when it is hard to get them back.
  • edited February 2013
    Oh yeah, Mei will jump the fence and go off hunting. She does that all the time. She comes back a couple of hours later. My parents live across the street from rolling hills with pigs, turkeys, deer, etc. on them that extend 18 miles.
    Sorry, didn't mean to make it sound like there's been several lost. I guess the few Kai that I was thinking about were Shakko, Mochi, and a third that I'm having trouble remembering the name (could be confusing this last one with another NK). Maybe there aren't anymore Kai than that on this forum that have actually fled, which would be a good thing!
    Lol don't ever feel like apologizing. I just couldn't un-crypt the dogs you were talking about. I think the third you are talking about is Taka. She was found.

    Since I'm near Shakko, I can answer that one. He was on a leash. He was being walked by someone who lacked experience with dogs and shouldn't have been walking him alone. He was also being walked on a very busy street, one that I won't walk my dogs on. It was poor judgement, and it ended badly. Just lack of experience really.
  • @ayk
    Just out of curiosity, have the Laika gotten more opportunity to go hiking and get worked off-lead than the NK? They get to know the routine more?
    Um, I don't think so. My off-lead Kai have probably gotten more time out with me than the Laiki... but it should be noted, my off-lead Kai NEVER run off the way the Laiki do at times. 95% of the time the Laiki are great, but that 5% they are really bad.

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    @MontanaKai
    @tjbart17 Sorry, didn't mean to make it sound like there's been several lost. I guess the few Kai that I was thinking about were Shakko, Mochi, and a third that I'm having trouble remembering the name (could be confusing this last one with another NK). Maybe there aren't anymore Kai than that on this forum that have actually fled, which would be a good thing!
    Mochi was lost at the airport when he airline crate fell and broke open. She got spooked and ran. She had been shipped from NM to FL, so she was in a totally unknown environment.

    Shakko ran off when he got spooked by some creepers while on a walk with his new owner. He had only been in that home for 1 week and his new owner dropped his leash. He never came back to the new owners home. He was in NorCal when he was lost - he was living with us in Taos before that.

    Taka ran off while in transport from NM to OH. She ran off in a parking lot of a hotel in MO. She got loose because her leash was dropped by a person who was watching her - it was dropped because a CO in a van next to her charged her and frightened her - she went into "Kai panic" and was able to slip the leash out of Erick's hand. Interestingly, Erick now owns a male Kai of his own. Taka was trapped and is living in OH with Marsha as planned.

    Ristu ran off from Cara's house after almost a month of being there. He jumped a farm gate and took off. I *think* he returned, not sure tho. But something happened to him while he was gone and he was not comfortable at Cara's house anymore. He came back to us, then went to live with Ryan, which didn't go well, and now lives with Stacey ( @sjp051993 ) and is doing great.

    Yumi was rehomed to a family in SoCal from here (Flagstaff). She did great until she slipped out of her harness while on a walk. They got her back quickly, and returned her to us. We placed her with a family who owns 3 Kai in IL... She was shipped there and is doing great.

    There's my Kai list...

    In short, these were all extreme situations for the Kai - being rehomed and with unfamiliar people. These were not situations where a Kai just ran away for the hell of it. They were all spooked and fled.

    I think it's very unlikely that a person who raised a Kai from puppy hood would loose their Kai in these types of circumstances. In other words, they will not run like this from their owners - in these cases they were not with their owners (who they perceived as their owner).

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  • There was an instance where Ritsu opened my storm door and let himself out. I was outside with another dog. He popped the door open, ran down the route we take for out walks(down the sidewalk along some warehouses across the street from my house). He ran to go poop and then came right back home. He was quite proud of himself for saving me the trouble of having to take him for a walk.
  • edited February 2013
    Juno would never leave me and - *I* believe - would go thru hell itself to get to me. She went off hunting on a hike one day on a mountain I had never hiked before. I had been talking with Jeff as we climbed and not linked in to her as much. We usually walk alone and with a strong awareness of each other. Now I couldnt hear her, I was logically scared, knowing what my brain knows, stories of lost kai- but I stayed put and I called her- Jeff walked back down the trail to look for her- and all alone, I found that I wasn't actually emotionally scared. I didnt cry, I didnt despair. I *knew* she wasn't 'lost.' I *knew* I wasnt going home without her. I waited and I called her ...and soon I heard her bell and she was happy and tired. I treated her with lots of yummy goodness, and a joyous greeting "YEAH! June! Thats my girl!" leashed her up and we finished the summit and back. She probably was out of touch for 15 or 20 minutes, but it felt like a much longer time. She is free to go choose a wild life at any time when were in the woods, but she does not. In our local woods, she knows hundreds of acres like the back of her paw, and in fact when I have got turned around bushwhacking, I found that following Reilly or now Juno, I get realigned again. We are off leash hiking in the forest daily for at least an hour (workdays) and on weekends longer- Rei, Juno and now Matsu are trained and acculturated to What We Do Together.

    If the party line is No Off Leash Ever, the dogs never receive that training -even taking a Recall class for emergency would be of value. Dogs with that trianing, who are ingrained with those customs, who are connected in their freedom with their owner and are trinaed to seek the owner when a question arises will be ok. All the kai that are lost were with new owners they had not established a strong bond with, All the kai that were lost bolted in panic, and equipment failed. None of them were off leash trained dogs who just felt like leaving. Even in a pinch, Juno seeks me- when she got quilled by a porcupine while we hiked in the backcountry, I didnt see it happen- she came running from wherever this happened to me in pain and scared- To ME- with her chin full of quills.

    I took 3 of my dogs bushwhacking in the ice and snow 2 weekends ago and we had to cross a stream with sketchy ice- the river had been thoroughly frozen, thawed some, swelled, partially refroze again- so it was full of funky layers and air pockets and frozen bubbly lumps. I hiked them off leash along the river looking for a safe place for ALL of us to cross. flyweight Juno would go out onto the surface, and I called her back in, she came every time. No, juno- too far. thats not safe. Matsu is much more conservative but will follow Juno- he recalled every time. Reilly is more than twice as heavy as the kai, and she and I both have to cross. We found a place that I could cross on thick ice, and Juno followed easily. Matsu and Rei didnt like the crossing, so with them on one side of the river and Juno and I on this side, we all walked down stream till we found a place to try to cross the two dogs. Now I had to communicate to them that the ice was safe and YES, you CAN cross. It took a little coaxing, and Juno running back and forth to demonstrate the S path needed to cross, but they did. I am so proud of them. All off leash. A lot is possible with Kai when the connection is optimized and and you share the interests of the breed. It's what a Kai IS. :)
  • I want to clarify what I ment in my earlier off leash statement:

    I am familiar enough with the stories of the lost dogs to comprehend that they weren't lost because they were playing without leashes on. It was spooky accidents and bolting that resulted in dogs that were technically not contained.

    It was a straight up observation on containment, with leash ATTACHED to owner being the most popular method. My dogs are off leash 90% of the time, so I'm familiar with what it takes to get there. It's a lot of work, risking some pricey/valuable dogs, so my point was simply that I can SEE why that blanket statement exists.

    That's all. I wasn't implying people were careless, and we all know there are NK that do work well without containment.
  • I don't necessarily think that the party line being no off-leash ever means no emergency recall training either. Zim will never be off-leash because I fear what might happen to him---not that he won't come home but that something will happen to him before he decides he misses Mom. That said, that fear also means that I'm hoping to take some time this spring and summer to try and give him some sort of recall (The word "come" actually makes him stop moving toward you, his recall is that bad. I have better luck calling his name.). I'm hoping long-line+bacon+emergency word will give him a recall reliable enough to keep him out of the street should the need ever arise. No off-leash ever is partially a scare tactic. If you really fear it, then I feel like it can make you check your equipment and try to train the best recall you can because you genuinely fear what will happen if you don't.
  • Exactly- whether you regularly run them off leash or never take them off, ALL would benefit from recall training, learning the Emergency Down, etc.
  • There's been a couple instances when Conker booked it into the brush and was gone for a while. He will head back to the parking lot if he can't find me after he's done adventuring, so I either need to keep calling him and making a lot of noise or go to the parking lot and wait for him. That's only happened a few times though, and I think he was after a raccoon which is one of the two animals that he's got zero recall with.
    He doesn't run away when spooked. He'll bolt for a few yards but will circle back to me around whatever scared him.

    There is a huge difference between him and my Mom's two dogs when off-leash. Juneau and Sasha were allowed off-leash as pups, but it was more of a "YAY RUN AROUND WHOO!" type of off-leash, and they never really learned how to pay attention like Conker does. Those two will go crashing off into the brush at any moment and will just disappear if I let them. Juneau and Sasha don't "check-in" like Conker does, so I can't just let them wander out of sight. I have to keep calling them back.
    At least their recall is really good.
  • What I worry about with the Kai is the panic mode, and I worry about the dog getting lost or hurt while in that panic mode. While Leo has the best recall of my four (well, the Akita is ok too), I worry about him more, because I've seen him spook, and see his eyes go blank, and even on a leash he has a hard to reorienting to me in these cases. Too much noise/activity/traffic is the thing that might do it, and it's that kind of bolting I'd fear.

    I used to walk with the Shibas off leash in the woods, esp. when we still had our GSD who was fine off leash. They were ok in the woods, mostly because I didn't worry too much about them running away forever. They always checked in. But we stopped for a variety of reasons--one simply because I worried about the female, in particular, either chasing after something and not coming back or getting spooked and not coming back.

    Leo would probably be fine off leash hiking like that. He's not really interested in being away from us. But....I do worry about a panic situation, so I just don't do it much (we've taken him a few times, but each time I notice there is a point when he starts to look a bit overwhelmed, even in the woods, so I put his leash back on).

    I think if you know your dog well, and can read your dog well, then you'll know if offleash is a possiblity or not, with a whole lot of work on getting that reliable recall. But there's plenty of good reasons to say that NKs should not be offleash as a general rule. Not an absolute rule, of course, but in general.
  • I am not pushing back at you Lindsay- Im sorry if it feels that way- I see Montana's hesitation and I dont want MontanaKai (or anyone else) to be *unnecessarily* frightened out of working his kai though by thinking its a default breed thing to go feral unexpectedly.
  • Sometimes I think it is a default breed thing ;) It's hard to know what is scary to a Kai sometimes.
  • I'm so scared of losing ChoCho... Her brain tends to shut off when in hunting mood... Goro has come back when called in parks or while on a long leash, but ChoCho just looks back at me and keeps running to hunt. We have thick wilderness by our apartment filled with critters. If she ever gets loss I fear she'll be a goner. There'll be no way of finding her. Unless us walking her on the same path for over 5 months will help her find her way back. I still hold her leash with my life!
  • edited February 2013
    @lindsayt -Im so used to Sage's unreasonable (sic) alarms that the kai seem refreshingly normal and understandable :) Perhaps I have gone over some dog sensitivity cliff... ;) (ah...good old Reliable Reilly...)
  • Alot if that is knowing your dog. I know my dogs and constantly read their body language. It is vital to expose them to as much as possible while they are young. I work my dogs constantly to re-enforce that If they do get scared and overwhelmed, I am their safe spot. I see it in Ritsu already. When it starts to become too much, he comes to me for help rather than freaking out.
  • I can def tell when Sachi is sliding into feral, so we are trying some made up training ideas to help stop the slide or not forget me while in it. we have for, about 3 (4?)weeks been walking on a 30ft lead to define acceptable wandering distances and also let her run and sniff more for more exercise so now I don't have to take her to a dog run to get her ran.

    I let her hunt but right before or after the hunt I (she doesnt have recall really) call her back to me for cheese and a down then she can go right back to the hunt. If I know she has tunneled visioned herself to her prey I will gently touch her hindquarters which if she has feraled out will startle her back to her surroundings but now over time she is starting to not tunnel out so badly, she knows im there and aware of what im doing before I touch her.

    while dog parking it she wont wander more than about 30 ft away from me (so to meet new dogs i will walk the perimeter so she can explore) or if in play gets pushed further I can see her take a moment to look around find me then go back to it. if dogs gang on her she will find me and use me as a human shield.

    all of that being said, I think she is quite taken with me and I am with her but if she were to go feral I know at this point there is no way in hell she would come back until at least several minutes later and however far she ran in that distance and would be cagey for a while afterwards.

    what are the best recall 'come' training methods?
  • Well, I take my dogs off-leash quite regularly. I don't worry that they'll run away (except for momentarily to chase something, but then they come back). I don't take Rakka off-leash as much because she's unpredictable around other dogs and any place I'm out with off-leash dogs, there could be other off-leash dogs.

    Sosuke's a good off-leash dog. Tojo (shiba) was also really good.

    I really don't think my dogs would ever run away in the sense of really just booking it off into the distance with no intention of ever coming back. Even the times when Rakka has gotten loose in the city, as soon as I find her, she's like, "Oh, hey! It's you!" and jumps in the car. In fact, there was a time when I was driving and spotted her off across a busy street, and she immediately made a beeline toward me and was almost hit by two cars.

    Interesting about the story with the laiki going home, too. When I lived in the country and I would walk the dogs off-leash, if one of them broke away from the group, they'd always be waiting at home for me when I got back.

    Recall training is good, but it doesn't do much when the problem is spooked/panicked dogs who have gone feral. At that point, it doesn't matter what they've been trained. The whole problem is that they seem to forget that they were ever someone's pet. I don't know what the solution is to dogs who seem to release themselves into the wild with no intention of going back. Seems the common thread is dogs in strange situations or with new owners or... something off.
  • Thanks so much @tjbart and @brada1878, and everyone else, for taking time to explain the situations in which Kai have fled. It sounds like the common circumstance, as hondru mentioned, was something new...either a new environment or new people. I can understand that. I guess where I was going with my question was, "have Kai run off while simply walking or hiking off leash with their owner?", and it appears the answer is no.

    I've noticed with Orry that new situations should be handled with care, and was prepared for this by Brad and the forum as a whole. This is obviously true of all dogs, but with Kai it's a little different...in my opinion. For example, Orry is an awesome hiker, however, if we take a new trail, he moves much slower around blind corners and sometimes he'll just sit there and "think" for a moment. I actually like this about him, and his puppy class trainer said that a "thinker" is a good thing, and much more preferable than a dog that acts out in some other way. The next time we take that same trail, he doesn't seem to have an issue, and is back in rally mode. Again, it seems to be the "new" element that makes the difference.

    The cautious thinking is way different than panic mode though in my mind. The few times I've seen him really spooked, he started barking and ran right back to my feet. Perhaps if I hadn't raised him his response would've been different, but so far so good!

    Orry's only 4.5 months though, so from what I understand he's in the development period in which flight instincts are elevated. That's why I'm paying especially close attention to this thread.



  • Yes, that was what I was trying to point out, @MontanaKai...

    If a Kai is with their person (the person they are bonded to), then when spooked, they should run back to that person. That's been my experience. It's when they are *not* with their person that the risk of them running off is a concern.

    This is actually very typical of pariah-type dogs in zoo environments. The animal bonds very strongly to one person, and it's through that bond that the animal is able to venture into new environments and such (as their handler is always there - their handler is the "grounding" thing they are bonded to).

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  • Hana's (a Kai) recall inside or outside the house is pretty much non-existent, unless she knows you're going to give her cheese (only works inside the house tho), but that may improve over time (or not) with consistency. Interestingly and fortunately, when my husband slipped on black ice and and Hana flipped out and houdinied out of her webmaster, she ran back to the door of our townhouse, which was a block away.
    This may be due to the fact that:
    a - she's afraid of going outside/being outside
    b - she feels safe inside our house
    c - she has started to bond with me

    Needless to say, we now make triple sure the webmaster is on REALLY snug every time before we go out. I am also relieved that she knows where our house is, and that she recognizes it as a safe place.

  • This reminds me of something. I was once visiting my in-laws and brought Tojo with me. My brother-in-law wanted to take Tojo for a (leashed) walk, and I said sure. While they were out, I went to the store for something. On their walk, BIL decided to let Tojo off-leash at a park to play fetch. Tojo played for a bit, then suddenly just took off with no warning whatsoever. He went back to the house, but I wasn't there. Everyone at the house saw him and was trying to catch him, but he wouldn't let them near him. He stayed in the yard, but wouldn't let anyone touch him.

    I pulled up and saw him in the front yard. He immediately ran over to me, no fuss no muss. Then we had to go find BIL, who was still looking for Tojo, lol.
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