Any Shikoku Ken owners in the bay area?

emi802

Hi all!

I'd like to get a shikoku ken, but I've never met one in person. On my introduction thread, many people suggested meeting some before committing to one. I was wondering if there are any owners in the bay area (I live in the south bay, but don't mind traveling a bit) that wouldn't mind letting me meet their dogs.

Thanks!

sukiandluna

@Spitzfever lives around the Sacramento area. I think there are a couple other Shikoku in the bay area but I've not personally met them. If you read up on Kais and they spark your interest, I have 2 Kai girls in South Bay; unfortunately, I do not have a Shikoku.

emi802

Thanks! I'll drop spitzfever a message when I head up towards Tahoe.

Regardless, I'd love to meet your Kai girls to see what they're like. They're also a breed that I just recently found out about. I happen to be dog sitting my friends' shiba inu this weekend if you'd like to meet up. Though he's sometimes a little finicky about who he likes. I'd say he's good with 80% of the strangers he meets and he's usually good with larger/older dogs.

Otherwise, I'm usually free most weekends just dogless.

Oakland

We're in Oakland with a 1 year old shikoku. I think @roninshiba is in the south bay with a young shikoku as well.

emi802

Awesome! We have a 4 ish month old shikoku puppy in south bay

roninshiba

Sorry for the late response, haven't been on the forum for a while. Yes Kiyomi, is in Saratoga in the south bay. She's about 9.5 mos old now.

emi802

@roninshiba Oh! You must be the friend Bekki told me about! I was thinking Kiyomi sounded really familiar and that I'd seen photos somewhere. We have a 5.5 month old shikoku puppy now. We're in the same puppy class as Heimdall!

roninshiba

Hi @emi802! I saw Bekki's pictures on Facebook and was pleasantly surprised to hear there is another Shikoku in the area. We also have Kuma, a 5.5 yr old Shiba Inu. Such a major difference in personalities between the two. We call Kuma the "anti-social" dog and Kiyomi is the "social butterfly". You're lucky to have Pam teaching the Puppy class. I'd almost bet she was surprised to see another Shikoku. She is a fantastic teacher. She was able to get Kiyomi to do whatever she asked. For us, on the other hand, is a different story. Definitely a work in progress. Kiyomi is very fiesty and aggressive, but she's so much fun. What is Katsu's personality like?

jigzzor

To answer @roninshiba. The question about katsu and his personality, he too doesn't like to listen to us but loves to listen to pam! He's very calm is what most people tell me, but with dogs he just can't hold himself back and loves to love them. To us he's the sweetest thing in the world, loves to eat paper, plastic, and anything that he shouldn't! When he wakes up every morning he want's to do the love bug position and get belly rubs. So in short he's a lovable handful.

emi802

Hehe, we've also noticed Katsu's personality is so very different from the shiba inus we know. He's also pretty feisty when he plays with other dogs. He seems pretty relaxed in the house, but will have the once a day, spurt of energy where he wants to play with everything. Sometimes... he'll just sleep in the hallway or any other inconvenient location (right in front of the front door... right in front of the bathroom.. pretty much anywhere someone would have to walk). He listens to commands in the house really well (but most dogs do). We're working on getting him to pay more attention to us outdoors. We were pretty surprised to hear that she'd worked with two other shikoku before Katsu. We just figured most trainers wouldn't have even heard of the breed. He's been mistaken for a large shiba on sooo many occasions because he's quite red. He absolutely loves Pam. Last week, he was giving her puppy kisses during class. She was pretty happy about getting kisses from a japanese dog.

emi802

He can also be quite a rascal when he's excited. He's very curious about things and has... taken to trying to see what's on my desk now that he's big enough. He'll sometimes grab things and run into the living room with his prize.... Working on getting him to stop that. :P I see him looking up on counters too. We've moved our shoe rack on top of a table/counter because we were having problems with him stealing shoes and hiding them in the apartment... He'd then bring them back anywhere from a day to a week later. Pretty funny when I have to leave for work and can only choose from one set of shoes if I don't want to scavenge the apartment for any of my others haha.

roninshiba

@jigzzor and @emi802, Katsu sounds like he has some similar personality traits as Kiyomi. Kiyomi also loves paper. She won't touch magazines, but pieces/sheets of paper are irresistible to her. She's pretty good about almost everything else, including shoes. She loves her toys, especially squeaky toys.

Pam is amazing to watch. She had total control of every puppy in Kiyomi's Puppy II class. We didn't go thru Puppy III with her, but Sarah the other trainer who teaches at FOLT is also very good.

Kiyomi is slowly starting to pay more attention outdoors and her recall is getting better. She is starting to be more "sticky". It's slow but steady improvement so we'll just keep working on it. We're hoping to get her to the point of allowing her off leash. She is okay off leash now in certain situations.

Definitely work on the "drop it" command. It will make it much easier to get something away from Katsu that you dont want him to have. Kiyomi is pretty good about dropping things when I tell her "drop it" and that includes Kuma's bones as well. She tries to run off with Kuma's bones and treats all the time.

Where in the south bay area are you? We'll have to see if we can get the Shikokus together. I just learned this morning there is another Shikoku in the area, but from what I've heard he is not at all social and is dog aggressive.

emi802

@roninshiba We're in Santa Clara. His littermates (dream and aura) are in Saratoga. Unfortunately, dream didn't really like Katsu. (Dream's normally very social, so it was surprising.) We could try to get them all together some time though! Dream might be better in a neutral zone. We'd definitely be interested in meeting kiyomi and kuma (if kuma's into it).

We're also working on recall, drop/leave it, and loose leash walking. It all works indoors but only occassionally outside. Do share any tips you might come across . We'd love for him to be an off leash dog but don't want to get our hopes too high up. He's good off leash so long as there's another dog around. He won't go anyyyywhere. We're planning to practice at the park with a long rope soon.

As for shoes... You guys are lucky! We've found he finds my old, super smelly climbing shoes comforting when I'm gone. They smell the most like me I guess. He'll just stick his entire snout in one of the shoes haha.

roninshiba

We're all just minutes away from one another. We definitely have to try to get them all together. Kuma is pretty mellow, he'll just hang with the crowd. I'm sure @Bootz would like to join us, as well. She's been wanting to meet some Shikoku. Kiyomi is also okay off leash when she has other dogs to play with. She is not very good with smaller dogs tho'. There is a small Keeshond at the dog park that Kiyomi terrorizes. He hasn't done anything that I can remember, she just doesn't like him. Have to keep an eye on her if the Keeshond is there.

Funny that Katsu and Dream don't get along. We met up with Kiyomi's brother in SoCal last year, when they were both just a few days shy of 3 mos. We were hoping that they would enjoy playing with each other. Didn't happen. Kiyomi acted like she wanted to tear him apart. We had to keep them separated.

I've given up on loose leash walking for now. Kiyomi is always looking for something and sniffing everywhere. If there are squirrels or birds then forget it.

We went thru the shoe problems with Kuma. He liked chewing on my wife's heeled shoes. He destroyed a few pairs, some of which she didn't even get a chance to wear.
This time around, we make sure there are plenty of things for Kiyomi to chew on so luckily she's never gone after any shoes. If Katsu is not chewing on your shoes then finding them around the house isn't too bad. Finding destroyed shoes is bad.

CrimsonO2

Welcome to the world of Shikoku puppy ownership:) Where "yes" means "yes", silence means "yes", and "no" means "not right now". Though I venture to say that goes for all NK pups.

I'm so glad to read of a budding Shikoku community up in the bay area. It's very encouraging to see!

Jesse

emi802

Haha that sounds about right. 'yes' if you're not around.

We should definitely meet up!

Buuut yeaaaa... Katsu's a little socially oblivious. Sometimes, when a dog is aggressive towards him, he mistakes it for play and may keep trying to get the dog to play. We always grab him before he annoys the dog too much and gets attacked... but then he focuses on the dog. He's super stubborn so he keeps trying, so eventually we just drag him off elsewhere. I hope he gets along with Kiyomi. Dream did the same thing as Kiyomi. He wanted to kill Katsu immediately... but Katsu initially thought he was playing. Hah. Fortunately, he's only destroyed a pair of flip flops so far.

Crispy

You say "Katsu" and I feel like you mean "85% of Shikoku".

TK, my 8 year old Shikoku (brother to Peggy's Suki), is actually rather "good" with other dogs. He can play in a way that is not rude enough to chase playmates away, but even he's pretty similar. It's like the more a dog becomes annoyed with him, the better the game becomes.

emi802

Bahaha. Well, that's a relief to hear. I'm just worried about the dogs that start in extremely aggressive I actually want to kill you mode. He thinks they're just rough housing and tries to jump right in there to play x.x....

CrimsonO2

Yeah @emi802. If you look at some of my previous threads, Shikoku have an extra level of intensity in between play and prey. It's when they get in that in-between level that really gets misunderstood by other dogs and pisses them off because to Shikoku, they are still in that "play" mode...just really intense, and really "hard".

Jesse

Crispy

When TK is on the leash, he bounces around like a lunatic if I let him and looks like he might murder another dog. It's all about his frustration level. Agreeing with Jesse - TK has a hard time swapping from one mode to the other and a lot of the signals get mixed up, which makes him act like the OTHER dog is being messed up.

TK has additional behavior issues that he came to me with, tho, so I thought his behavior was kind of extreme - maybe not so much in regard to how he is with other dogs, tho.

emi802

@CrimsonO2 Yea, that completely makes sense.

Sometimes, it's before he's even interacted with the other dog and and they already want to kill him. Some dogs are just don't like other dogs. I have a friend with a dog-aggressive dog (especially towards puppies, apparently) which was when I first saw this happen. Katsu walked up to him to sniff (not in excited, bouncy mode yet) anddddd the other dog went crazy. We both pulled them back, but Katsu thought the other dog was playing. So, he kept trying to run at the dog to play. Also happened with a sick, old, grumpy boston terrier in our complex. It sounds like maybe he just thinks they're similar to him and that they're in between play and prey when they actually want to murder him. Shikoku are so interesting haha.

WhoBitMe

My Hokkaido is actually like this, where he thinks my elderly grumpy BC is trying to play when really he's just finally pestered her enough she's like "Forget good manners. I'm gonna rip your fur off because you won't friggin' leave an old girl alone!" He just dances around and bounces away from her nips and always looks so happy. Eventually he clues in, though, and I can see something change in his eyes and he gets this look like "Oh, poop. She isn't playing!" lol, I have my hands full keeping him from pestering her (he loves her, bless his little heart) because she really isn't into playing anymore (she hurts too much and has basically no balance or tolerance for Meitou's rough play....though sometimes sh seems happy to chase him....on the days she is feeling particularly good).

emi802

Oof, poor girl. I hope Katsu gets to the point where he eventually figures out they're not playing! It's always fun to watch him though. Glad to know he's not the only clueless one. :P