AA & JA fear stages.

T_Dog

Does anyone know about the fear stages of an akita this link says 4th month is a fear stage.http://crbeagles.com/misc/puppy_characteristics.htm but others that I read say 5th month. I cant seem to find one on the akita. my AA is 5months old today and so far has had no experience that has changed his personality. I am considering that this month may be his fear stage. but I must say he doesnt act fearful of anything at this point.also I found this. www.paws-shelter.com/.../pup-dev.pdf I am sure glad I took extra caution in the 4th month.

MapleTwinkie

Being a first time dog owner myself i was anxiously prepping for these 'fear stages'. Saigo is almost 9 months and his personality has been pretty consistent. He didn't go through a fear stage - but I think it could be because we've exposed him to so much nothing fazes him ( i.e. fireworks, vacuum cleaners, loud noises, thunder, jackhammers, the vet lol). Consider yourself lucky as I heard these fear stages are pretty difficult to go through!

PoetikDragon

I haven't had a male go through it, but all of my females have -- some pretty bad. But they get over it eventually. Just don't do something silly like move to another country during the middle of it (which I did with Mosura) or let your dog get deathly ill at the start and need surgery (which happened to Angirasu) or it will be much, much worse. Note, I only have one male, but the male pup from my first litter also hasn't shown any of the signs which his sisters did.

As for when it happens... all dogs are different. Just like human girls who start their periods anywhere from 12 to 16 years old. Dogs certainly don't look at a calendar and go, "I am 5 months old today, time to be afraid of everything." It starts progressively -- usually with grumbling, then barking, dropping tail, avoidance behaviors. It's slow to ramp up and slow to taper off as well. It doesn't just turn on and off.

T_Dog

I am unsure of the signs of fear... My guess is crouching and legs shaking or flat out running away. it is a bit hard to tell if he is being submisive or fearfull. I think maybe when his tail down and ears back he is submitting. like when new ppl aproach him. his tail is down ears back head down. he rubs against them like a cat. his body wiggles he seems happy and excited enough to tinkle. when he meets new dog it not as submissive but still tail down ears down and he stands there and lets the dogs sniff him he moves slow and sniffs back. after he has determined the dog is friendly he pounces around and invites play. it seems the breeder did a good job at raising him up his first 12 weeks. he seems really calm. I should take a video of his next meeting with a new dog. I can tell he is confident when his tail comes back up. I am thinking as he gets older and more confident his tail will be up much more during encounters. but Idk.. I dont see fear..

venus

We didn't have it with our AA bitch at all and as our male JA had serious fear issues from a puppy we had no stage with him because he was fearful all his life.
Athena didn't have hers as a puppy but after her first season she was a year old at that point and this was when she started been ill. She was pretty bad at times she couldn't walk through a door at one point without panicking. Funnily enough a few weeks after her spay all her anxiety stopped.
We are waiting for Eris to have hers now 5 and half months, she is the only puppy at ringcraft who hasn't gone through it yet. We where discussin it on Monday.

cdenney

Before you have flat out signs of fear you have indicators that can help you determine if a situation makes them uneasy before you get a full response. Dogs stretch when loosening up their muscles after rest but they also stretch to release tension from their bodies after a situation or if procrastinating from a command. Same with yawning and lip licking.http://info.drsophiayin.com/fearful-body-language/

Simple but accurate

PoetikDragon

My oldest to start her fear stage was just over a year old after her second heat. My youngest was about 5 months old.

T_Dog

http://www.k9puppydogs.com/html/submissive_dog_behaviour.htm this article seems to point out some of the same behavior as submissive behavior. Then seems to say submissiveness is fear. Now idk what to think here. My JA was never submissive. But still is dog aggressive. Now my AA is submissive. And this points to fear. Hmmm. It is believed that my JA attacks other dogs out of fear. I thought I was supposed to encourage submissive behavior. This article says not to. So what do you guys think?

PoetikDragon

Yes, both "submissiveness" (anxiety) and aggression stem from a lack of confidence, just different ways the dog handles its fear.

shibamistress

The whole thing about "submissive" behavior is overplayed. If you want a better sense of what is going on with dogs and behavior, it's best to not worry too much about "submissiveness" or "dominance" and instead think it terms of calming signals (to other dogs, such as not making direct eye contact, sniffing, yawning), and signs of stress, which can include similar things (yawning, but also licking the lips, etc). There are way better articles out there that one.

There are plenty of threads here debunking the dominance/submission ideas. This thread has several of them linked (it was just the first I found, but there are others): http://www.nihonken.org/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/154792#Comment_154792

You're not supposed to "encourage submissive" behavior, because it is often a sign of anxiety or nervousness in dogs (which is probably often what it should be labeled). It's more something to observe, so you're aware of when your dog feels anxious, and then you decide what to do depending on the dog. It might be important to take some dogs out of a situation that makes them anxious (if they tend to be reactive to other dogs because of it), or they may a task to distract them and comfort them, or it may just be something you observe. (I note, for example, some anxiousness in my Shiba and Kai when I get them together. Some yawning, lots of looking away, etc. But I observe it and keep them together because they are just getting used to interacting with one another. I'm just watching for too much stress in my older Shiba, because he does tend to be reactive, and if I see he's too stressed, I'll remove him from the situation because I want all their interactions to be good).

It would probably be useful for you to read some of the books in the books thread that talk about more up to date dog behavior. If you want to know about calming signs in dogs (yawning, licking, etc), Turid Ragaas book about this is very good. Also, if you're having aggression issues, and it sounds like from fear, then you need to do a lot of work on that. Part of it is learning to read your dog and your dog's response to other dogs. A good behavioralist can help with that.

T_Dog

@poeticdragon So submissiveness is the better way to to deal with its fear... I guess.. because my JA deals with his fear with aggression by attacking. I can only hope that with age my AA will become more confident and stop fearing things. Hmmm. Here I was thinking he was not afraid but he was being nice and respectful. I am gonna record the next new person he meets. So you guys can see how submissive he is. I did read some of the treads linked. But I am not trying to dominate him. He gets lots of praise from everyone he meets so he is getting lots of positive reinforcement to keep acting as I described above. But it seems that I should be ignoring this submission instead of praising it. So then what shall I do everytime he meets new ppl? Maybe I am overthinking this? I thought encouraging submissive behavoir was a good thing and that I didn't hafta worry about my akita being to nice. @shibamistress you have given me good advise as to what I can do about it. I supose that I can tell when my puppy is overly stressed. I am quick to get him out of bad situations. I am just second guessing my ability to see the signs. I believe he has a healthy amount of submissiveness. I don't allow other dogs to bully him or scare him. I am not sure as to what age I would be able to let him handle the "aggressive" "players" on his own. But Kenji was the biggest and most confident puppy in the litter. His tail was always up and he climbed all over his brothers. I figured all I really needed to do is make sure nothing tramatizing happened to him during the first 6 months. So now I have mistakenly trained him to be submissive. I suppose it won't take much to reverse that. So when I get home from work I am gonna not give him attention while he is being submissive.

cdenney

I think there is a line about rewarding wanted behaviors and encouraging submissiveness. With my dog who is very nervous of NEW especially when out of context its a fine line. For example If Sachi takes interest in a stranger and is polite, perhaps just a hand sniff of strangers I give her a treat.. If shes backing out of the room every time a stranger comes in she needs to associate strangers with Yay! I Treat her when shes chilling with a stranger in vicinity and not showing reactions (fear panting, big eyes, yawning, bunching her muscles to flee)as a stranger approaches or becomes more animated I ramp up my treating so she associates "they're coming near/doing something different...Oooh BIG treat." Over the 10 months I've had her we've moved from she wouldn't really leave my bedroom except for walks (it was her safe place door was open treats on just the other side shed rather look out from my room) to if anyone is over she is by my feet/ next to my side or directly behind me wherever we are no matter how many people are there. She still doesnt want strangers touching her but she does want to smell their hand even if they are facing her straight on and obviously trying to get her attention, before shed cower or run to the far end of her leash and pace with a whine. So her not wanting to be touched is her being "submissive" or just fearful as submissive doesnt apply but if I ignore her everytime she does that we wouldn't interact. If I give the person shes sniffing a treat to give her then I give her one and praise after we work through it.


IMO if your pup is just being polite reinforce those behaviors so when his adult personality comes out he knows expectations.
If your pup is acting out of fear you want to give him directions how to act so he doesnt become afraid in said context. Ignoring submissive behavior only works in some situations, he wont know how to overcome if you dont let him know what dofferent expecations are.

Just a thought

T_Dog

here is Kenji at 5m 1week old in a very public setting. I have not been able to capture his most submissive moments. He really only does the highly submissive stuff if someone gets really excited and oh look at the puppy high pitched voice lots of praise. Ppl don't like to do that on camera. Lol. I took a video in the pet store where he usually gets tons of attention. But ppl are camera shy. I will upload it later.

cdenney

He looked like a normal pup in the whole video. st the end you can tell he is thinking/unsure of the water but is figuring it out for himself. You've got yourself an intellectual