some questions about the new guy
Sorry I could not figure out how to post puppy spam in my other thread, but the rescue dog is now probably right around six months old. He's a Kai - Kishu mix and we still have Tomoe our Kishu, but don't have experience with Kai Ken so we are not sure what to expect. Couple things:
We know he was born in August 2019 but not exactly when, so we figure he is around six months but not sure exactly. He is mostly done teething but he isn't lifting his leg yet, and his feet are still huge. So we assume he is still growing but not sure? It seems Tomoe was mostly done growing up and out at six months and just got more muscular over the next year or so. What do you guys think? Still growing?
His fur is super soft, entirely different than Tomoe's which is coarser. Is this still his puppy coat? Or do Kais have super soft, satiny fur?
Is he gonna brindle? When does that happen? He has a little brindling on his paws it's so cute.
Is it okay to get him neutered next month at about 6 1/2ish months? I am anxious about the timing of that.
Thanks!
We know he was born in August 2019 but not exactly when, so we figure he is around six months but not sure exactly. He is mostly done teething but he isn't lifting his leg yet, and his feet are still huge. So we assume he is still growing but not sure? It seems Tomoe was mostly done growing up and out at six months and just got more muscular over the next year or so. What do you guys think? Still growing?
His fur is super soft, entirely different than Tomoe's which is coarser. Is this still his puppy coat? Or do Kais have super soft, satiny fur?
Is he gonna brindle? When does that happen? He has a little brindling on his paws it's so cute.
Is it okay to get him neutered next month at about 6 1/2ish months? I am anxious about the timing of that.
Thanks!
Comments
He is probably still growing at 6 months. Especially if his paws still look clunky.
How confident are you that this is truly the mix- Kai x Kishu?
His coat is still a puppy coat. It might not get coarse till he sheds it all out again and the guard hairs take prominence.
Some Kai are brindle already when born, but lots and lots of them are quite black and brindle more are they grow up and shed out a few times. But a mostly black one at 6 months isn't going to become dramatically brindled.
When to neuter has a lot of factors at play and vary with each situation. Ideally you want to wait till he has finished growing up and his long bone growth plates have fully closed, more like a year of age. But you also want to protect your dog-dog dynamic between the boys, and behavior, etc- so you will have to modify based on what you see happening.
6 months is certainly better than 3 months, though. Go as long as you feel comfortable for his health. But lots of dogs are neutered earlier than this, and while there are some risks, most are fine- look at the big picture
I am actually surprised the rescue let you take an un-neutered dog home!
ETA: Brindle itself is the black stripes on top of whatever base pattern the dog has (for Kai and Akita, this base is always red/sable, but it might be more or less rich based on other genes). So when you see red appearing in the black, that's not the brindling that's the background color.
His sister was almost totally white, except for a bit of creaminess around her face, and both of them have huge ears. The sister also really put off a Kishu vibe.
And as apparently, the typical deal around here is, they give the pups a five-way vaccination and if you adopt them, you pay for that, and make a 10,000 yen deposit that they give back to you once you show them the papers for neuter/spay.
I was thinking a Kishu- Kai mix in the states seems crazy unlikely!