Kouda Bear!
Hi! I signed up here a few months ago and then never really contributed anything. (Whoops!) I love reading the updates on other NihonKen in the States and thought I'd share what Kouda's been up to as well!
My little puppy is now a puppy dog, 5 months old and 15 lbs. He's best friends with a spunky little French Bulldog named Ollie. Ollie likes to run up under Kouda's legs and then run off with Kouda wriggling on top of him. Kouda likes to bite Ollie's neck rolls. My parents' older sheperd mix, Harry, is the Enforcer Dog. He stands over the puppies and barks when Kouda & Ollie play fight and Kouda starts making those bizarre Shiba sounds. Kouda spends most of his time with Harry licking Harry's face.
We hike off leash in the woods waay out of town twice a week and Kouda picks up deer trails and swims in the lakes all the time. He runs with me too and he can run me into the ground. I swear he could run 10 miles every day if we had the time!
Sadly, Kouda lost his kitty brother, Fiyero, last month in a car accident. We miss him very much, but Kouda is as cheery and energetic as ever now! We won't be adopting another cat for a while, but we're looking for the perfect doggie brother at the moment. (We had planned on it before Fiyero's death, and are just now getting back on track. Unfortunately for us but luckily for "Honey Bun", the Basenji that we were considering before the accident found a home before we were ready for her. Yay Honey Bun!)
Kouda has learned come, sit, wait, down, shake, and roll over in English and Japanese (People are really impressed with him, but between you and me, it's really all about the hand signals! haha) I think I'm going to start training him in agility courses!
Here are some recent pictures of Kouda and his "pack" ! :)
My little puppy is now a puppy dog, 5 months old and 15 lbs. He's best friends with a spunky little French Bulldog named Ollie. Ollie likes to run up under Kouda's legs and then run off with Kouda wriggling on top of him. Kouda likes to bite Ollie's neck rolls. My parents' older sheperd mix, Harry, is the Enforcer Dog. He stands over the puppies and barks when Kouda & Ollie play fight and Kouda starts making those bizarre Shiba sounds. Kouda spends most of his time with Harry licking Harry's face.
We hike off leash in the woods waay out of town twice a week and Kouda picks up deer trails and swims in the lakes all the time. He runs with me too and he can run me into the ground. I swear he could run 10 miles every day if we had the time!
Sadly, Kouda lost his kitty brother, Fiyero, last month in a car accident. We miss him very much, but Kouda is as cheery and energetic as ever now! We won't be adopting another cat for a while, but we're looking for the perfect doggie brother at the moment. (We had planned on it before Fiyero's death, and are just now getting back on track. Unfortunately for us but luckily for "Honey Bun", the Basenji that we were considering before the accident found a home before we were ready for her. Yay Honey Bun!)
Kouda has learned come, sit, wait, down, shake, and roll over in English and Japanese (People are really impressed with him, but between you and me, it's really all about the hand signals! haha) I think I'm going to start training him in agility courses!
Here are some recent pictures of Kouda and his "pack" ! :)
Comments
P.S. if you just hit "edit" each time on your original post you can add another picture to that post.
I'm glad you are looking into rescue for a doggy friend! You'll find the perfect mate for Kouda soon enough!
Good luck on your search for a suitable companion.
Also, does anyone have a Shiba and a larger dog in their home? Does that generally work out? How would you manage that? I'm nervous about adopting a dog that will be much larger than Kouda.
One is to use a site like Flickr or Photobucket. If you want to use those, there are step by step instructions, here:
http://www.nihonken.org/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1297
You can also, edit your thread and attach a second, third, etc. photo to your original post.
One note on doing this, if your photo is larger than 1Mb, it will not automatically embed itself to the thread. It will show as an attachment that people will click to open.
I figure I can meet Larry and let Kouda and him meet and see if it's a good pair, ask any last questions I have, see his vet records and everything, and watch him and Kouda play to be sure they'll be good buddies ... If everything seems OK, Larry will come home with us tomorrow. :)
I'm pretty sure the only thing a dog's name is good for is at the vet for his files. :)
I was just thinking it will be funny, poor guy. 2 hours in the back of a car, then he gets out in a new home, with a puppy jumping all over his face, and everyone suddenly calling him " 'Taka". I might feel a little conflicted! :D Larry/Taka will probably be more concerned with dinner.
About names: using a sort of focus routine helps, holding food near your face or even eyes and saying the word you want them to respond to (new name, etc). Its how Hanzo learned his new name, I have no idea how many names he's had in his life, but he wasn't respnding to the one the shelter gave him, so as soon as we started associating the word with him and food and asking him to focus on me, every time I'd say it, he'd look at me and come over.
Rio is skittish, and growls at Kouda now that we're in the house. He wasn't like this (defensive, and skittish) at the adoption center, but because he was pretty aloof, I worked out an adoption-on-trial kind of thing with the foster owner. She seemed to think he would come right out of his shell once he was out of the craziness of the pet store. Unfortunately, he just seems to have gotten worse.
Hopefully, as the week goes by, he'll settle in a bit.
In the meantime, I was hoping someone on here might be able to offer some advice on getting the dogs acclimated. He's fine with me. But he's so nervous, he can't even decide where to poop, poor thing! ^^
http://www.nihonken.org/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=826
(sorry, not good enough with HTML coding to link it!)
My suggestion would be for you to take things slowly. If Rio is nervous, give him space to figure things out. Keep his interactions with Kouda VERY low key. Limit them to walks together with only VERY closely supervised play sessions after a day or two. Make sure Rio has a "safe place" like a crate or a bed in the corner of the room he can go to if he feels overwhelmed. Make sure Kouda doesn't bother him when he's in that space. The article that Casey linked to has some very useful advice as well.
Good luck and keep us posted!
Rio refused the tid-bits of steak I offered him after dinner. :( (If I have to bribe the dog to like me, so be it!!) He did lick my fingers a bit, though!
I'm not too sure of his history, either. No one really knows, but his foster mom pulled him from a local shelter, where he was surrendered by his last family, who apparently neglected him a bit. Not in the food department, though. The dude's a porker! ^^
Time to go supervise his frantic running about the backyard before his first night!
Good things come with time & patience