Ryu is adorable! I agree with Rina, you guys make a very attractive family. As for the biting, saying "ouch!" didn't work for Tojo, so I squirted breath freshener in his mouth any time he'd bite me. That cured him of it really quit - he HATES that stuff! It also worked later as a way to mark things that are forbidden - in my case, baby toys (so he learned the difference between them and his own toys).
Pam: Your boy is absolutely adorable! I love the pictures. I got Lucy a little older (7 months), but I had similar biting issues at first because she hadn't been well socialized. Even today she gets a little too frisky on occasion and bites a little to hard. My approach has always been to make some sort of loud, short noise like "aye" or "no" and stop paying attention to her. It worked like a charm for the most part. She just gets over zealous on occasion.
Tommy: No worries on the geek factor. Brad and I geeked out pretty bad on another thread last week. I get pretty Stoked when I hear that kinda stuff! (I know, I know, vomit inducing cheesiness is my forte)
Tommy - you are in good geek company, no worries. I like the name Sora, I was actually telling Jen how much I like it yesterday.
Pam & Tim - Ryu is really cute, Shiba puppies are so freaking cute! Maui was very mouthy as a pup - really he still is. I think most Japanese breeds tend to be more mouthy than other breeds. BTW: I like Tim's watch. :c)
Romi: That picture was one of about a thousand attempts at a Christmas card photo :-) We tried everything to have Ryu look into the camera - squeaky toys, whistling, laser pointer, everything! We ended up going with another pic but I loved how he had his paw on Tim (like he's saying "mine!")
Rina: Aww shucks thanks for the compliment! To answer your question, Ryu is the only purebred in our family - Tim and I are both mixed breeds I'm half Korean and half Caucasian, Tim is half Filipino, half Caucasian/Native American mix.... our poor kids - let's hope they never have to do a family tree project in school And poor Ryu, sometimes he'll get a "Let's go", "Vamonos", or "Ka-ja!" - we really need to settle on one language
And thank you ALL on the biting suggestions! Here is the outcome of my experience with them:
1) Screaming "ow!" or "ay!" = His head would pop back, ears shoot up, then cock his head to the side like he's thinking "Whoa, what was that?" then a second later, he'd lunge back towards the hand, open mouthed and ready to bite! I guess I'm just supposed to walk away after the "ow!"... wonder why I never thought of that before??
2) Squirting breath freshener in his mouth: this worked like a charm the first day. Once he tasted it, he would back down and curl by my side...the second day and every day thereafter - he'd grab the breath freshener by his mouth and attempt to pry the sprayer off (darn smart puppy)... so we gave up on the breath freshener but we may have to bring it back out again?
3) Giving him something to chew on instead: This kind of works for us because he can still sit with us while we hold the bone/toy as he chews.. but I've heard mixed reviews about that practice. One rejects it because you're giving him a reward for biting?
So far, the best thing that has worked has been getting up to walk away - however, then I miss out on hanging out with the cutie! Everytime I return, he tries the biting thing so I'm constantly walking away :-(
Sorry to ramble but I'm at work now and talking about biting issues is alot more appealing than paperwork :-)
Brad: I'll be sure to tell Tim about the watch :-) Maybe he'll actually pay more attention to it rather than trying to gauge the time by looking at the sun (did I mention that we're from the country haha)
By the way, Tim and I always talk about how GREAT of a puppy Ryu has been! Aside from the biting, he is a champ on the housebreaking and walking rules....now if we can just get him to DROP the ball during fetch :-) Everytime we say "drop it" he looks at us like "But why? You're just going to throw it and then I'm going to have to chase it down, silly!"
Pam, for future pictures, try holding a treat by the camera. That is how we get the dogs at the shelter to make such good faces.
It is amazing how smart shiba puppies are huh? And of course by amazing I mean exhausting and frustrating. Good luck with the mouthy thing. Frozen marrow bones can always distract him and encourage him to mouth something other than you.
Thanks Jessica! I'll have to try the treat thing... but I'll have to snap the picture fast because he hasn't mastered the "wait for it" command LOL.. usually if we wait too long to give him the treat, he'll take it upon himself to jump and get it himself
I looked for marrow bones yesterday at some doggie stores but couldn't find any... should I order them online? Also, anything against rawhides at this point (4 months)?
Might be tougher in Hawaii. But go to the butcher and just ask for knuckle bone or I give them a shin segment. I go for beef or lamb bones. Raw is ideal. Less likely to splinter. And after Ryu cleans it out (which will be FAST) you can freeze the bone and smear a little peanut butter inside.
Lol don't worry about it Pam. Apparently a lot of people here are first time dog owners and within the next year I'll be a first time dog owner on my own. Childhood dogs not counting. It's a learning experience that everyone here are wonderful at helping you with. I've learned so much in the short time I've been on the forum. It gets me more excited for my shiba and I can't wait.
Our trainer stated if you want rawhide get the compressed rawhide bones. We used to do pigs ears but Sasha was VERY aggressive with them and we decided to just subtract them from the equation.
I swear by these! They are amazing for our aggressive chewers. The little one is a waste compared to the big ones but still lasted over a year. We just tossed it because it was small for Sasha and I was worried about her "special" self swallowing it.
I'm resurrecting this thread b/c I was about to start a new one:
Tsuki's full name is Tsuki no Hikari which we understand to mean "moon beam", although her name was going to be Yuki (snow?) but when we met her, we changed it to Tsuki on the 3 hour ride home.
Kitsune's former name was Fox Trot for the first year of his life, rescue called him Trotter, and we changed to Kitsune because he really really looks like a fox!
Sometimes we get to name fosters and we use origin and personality to choose. What about all the other pups not on this thread??
The first dog we had in my current family (hubby, me, two kids) was found wandering on the lawn of a casino (5 lb. puppy). I thought he should be called Blackjack, and my husband thought Bingo was a great name! Our daughter, who was 7 or 8, got all the neighbor kids in the act of thinking of names and were to take a vote to decide it. Finally, after a week or so of all this our son, then 14 or 15, declared "... the dog needs a short simple name easy for him to respond to... We're naming him Joe." I guess all the younger kids including his sister had that level of respect you might expect... So he was Joe.
The second dog arrived in our life much the same way, as a lost stray puppy beside the road. A few years earlier an exchange student we had with us from Moldova was fond of referring to Joe as Josephine, merely as a joke. When my husband picked up the new puppy and told me her gender I said "... now we have Josephine"... No one was fond of the name, but no other names were suggested by (now adult) kids or hubby. Soon I said "... her name is Josephine on her medical records, so we can't change..."
I almost named Jake "Sly" because he struted and had the attitude of a thorbred stallion -- Sylvester Stallone "Sly" and the foxy looked contributed. But, since I didn't like how it sounded when I called him, I waited patiently for a couple of days for a name to come to me. Guess it was Jake and the Fat Woman :-P and I like the way it sounded when I called him. I've got to keep it to one syllable.
Mashi - old form of Monkey in Japanese. Full name Mashigura which means "at full speed". Fits him well. Saphira - named by the breeder but with my influence. Saphira is the name of the dragon in Eragon and she is a dragon at heart. Haiku - He is a calm, sweet, stable dog (at home at least) so it just fit. His full name is "Poetry in Motion". He is also a dog of few words when he is trying to get his point across. Tracker - never takes her nose off the ground.
Comments
LMAO Pam you're killing me! *pouts*
BTW Pam you are gorgeous. Are you pure Korean or are you mixed? Either way your husband is lucky.
And Ryu is so cute! I am coming to Hawaii :P
Pam: Your boy is absolutely adorable! I love the pictures. I got Lucy a little older (7 months), but I had similar biting issues at first because she hadn't been well socialized. Even today she gets a little too frisky on occasion and bites a little to hard. My approach has always been to make some sort of loud, short noise like "aye" or "no" and stop paying attention to her. It worked like a charm for the most part. She just gets over zealous on occasion.
Tommy: No worries on the geek factor. Brad and I geeked out pretty bad on another thread last week. I get pretty Stoked
Tommy - you are in good geek company, no worries. I like the name Sora, I was actually telling Jen how much I like it yesterday.
Pam & Tim - Ryu is really cute, Shiba puppies are so freaking cute! Maui was very mouthy as a pup - really he still is. I think most Japanese breeds tend to be more mouthy than other breeds. BTW: I like Tim's watch. :c)
Thanks Guys!
Romi: That picture was one of about a thousand attempts at a Christmas card photo :-) We tried everything to have Ryu look into the camera - squeaky toys, whistling, laser pointer, everything! We ended up going with another pic but I loved how he had his paw on Tim (like he's saying "mine!")
Rina: Aww shucks
And thank you ALL on the biting suggestions! Here is the outcome of my experience with them:
1) Screaming "ow!" or "ay!" = His head would pop back, ears shoot up, then cock his head to the side like he's thinking "Whoa, what was that?" then a second later, he'd lunge back towards the hand, open mouthed and ready to bite!
2) Squirting breath freshener in his mouth: this worked like a charm the first day. Once he tasted it, he would back down and curl by my side...the second day and every day thereafter - he'd grab the breath freshener by his mouth and attempt to pry the sprayer off (darn smart puppy)... so we gave up on the breath freshener but we may have to bring it back out again?
3) Giving him something to chew on instead: This kind of works for us because he can still sit with us while we hold the bone/toy as he chews.. but I've heard mixed reviews about that practice. One rejects it because you're giving him a reward for biting?
So far, the best thing that has worked has been getting up to walk away - however, then I miss out on hanging out with the cutie! Everytime I return, he tries the biting thing so I'm constantly walking away :-(
Sorry to ramble but I'm at work now and talking about biting issues is alot more appealing than paperwork :-)
Brad: I'll be sure to tell Tim about the watch :-) Maybe he'll actually pay more attention to it rather than trying to gauge the time by looking at the sun (did I mention that we're from the country haha)
By the way, Tim and I always talk about how GREAT of a puppy Ryu has been! Aside from the biting, he is a champ on the housebreaking and walking rules....now if we can just get him to DROP the ball during fetch :-) Everytime we say "drop it" he looks at us like "But why? You're just going to throw it and then I'm going to have to chase it down, silly!"
Pam, for future pictures, try holding a treat by the camera. That is how we get the dogs at the shelter to make such good faces.
It is amazing how smart shiba puppies are huh? And of course by amazing I mean exhausting and frustrating. Good luck with the mouthy thing. Frozen marrow bones can always distract him and encourage him to mouth something other than you.
Thanks Jessica! I'll have to try the treat thing... but I'll have to snap the picture fast because he hasn't mastered the "wait for it" command LOL.. usually if we wait too long to give him the treat, he'll take it upon himself to jump and get it himself
I looked for marrow bones yesterday at some doggie stores but couldn't find any... should I order them online? Also, anything against rawhides at this point (4 months)?
HAHAHAHA ok, I feel like a nut now :-) Can you tell that I'm a first-time doggie owner?
Thanks Jessica! I'm sure that he will love those...
Our trainer stated if you want rawhide get the compressed rawhide bones. We used to do pigs ears but Sasha was VERY aggressive with them and we decided to just subtract them from the equation.
http://www.nylabone.com/products/non-edible/I swear by these! They are amazing for our aggressive chewers. The little one is a waste compared to the big ones but still lasted over a year. We just tossed it because it was small for Sasha and I was worried about her "special" self swallowing it.
Tsuki's full name is Tsuki no Hikari which we understand to mean "moon beam", although her name was going to be Yuki (snow?) but when we met her, we changed it to Tsuki on the 3 hour ride home.
Kitsune's former name was Fox Trot for the first year of his life, rescue called him Trotter, and we changed to Kitsune because he really really looks like a fox!
Sometimes we get to name fosters and we use origin and personality to choose.
What about all the other pups not on this thread??
The second dog arrived in our life much the same way, as a lost stray puppy beside the road. A few years earlier an exchange student we had with us from Moldova was fond of referring to Joe as Josephine, merely as a joke. When my husband picked up the new puppy and told me her gender I said "... now we have Josephine"... No one was fond of the name, but no other names were suggested by (now adult) kids or hubby. Soon I said "... her name is Josephine on her medical records, so we can't change..."
So there you have it... not so imaginative!
Saphira - named by the breeder but with my influence. Saphira is the name of the dragon in Eragon and she is a dragon at heart.
Haiku - He is a calm, sweet, stable dog (at home at least) so it just fit. His full name is "Poetry in Motion". He is also a dog of few words when he is trying to get his point across.
Tracker - never takes her nose off the ground.