Hi all, I’m new here. I live with 2 Akitas, Bandit and Katie Mae. Bandit, 20 1/2 months, is named after my rec league ice hockey team and Katie Mae’s name is from a song, she’s 6 1/2 months and currently in heat. They have same mom. Bandit was at emergency vets in middle of the night 12 hours after I picked him up at airport with parvovirus, he barely survived but is healthy now. Breeder paid $500 over what I paid her for him towards vet bill and offered me pick of any litter in future to try and make up for sending me a sick dog.. I insisted she help me pay, she wanted me to put him down. Katie Mae was my pick out of a few litters. These are my 2nd and 3rd Akitas. My first dogs, rocky and sandy were collie x retriever I think, brother and sister, I got from a little girl with a box of puppies in front of a supermarket. My brother gave me my first Akita, Darkstar (also called Hoshi) for free. Bandit is only dog I’ve ever paid for, although I basically paid for Katie Mae because vet bill was much more than what I paid for Bandit. I’ll try and post some pictures
Hi Marc and welcome ! What a shocking start for Bandit, where was the journey too & from, did I understand correctly that you chose him from a breeder that warranted a flight ? Have things settled down now We have a Japanese Akita, Yoji, he is 16 months old, I’m interested how you are getting along with your day to day life with them Philippa
Hi Philippa, I got Bandit from a breeder in Missouri and flown to California. I wasn’t finding any pups that were ready to go in my area when I got him, well one breeder but he had some bad reviews and breed to many dogs and didn’t show any of them, also immediately wanted a 50% deposit. I had recently put down my long time pal, Darkstar, he’d had a bad shoulder for years and his good shoulder gave out, he was an almost 12 year old Akita. It was the first time I’d been without a dog in 24 years and after less than a month I just felt I needed a new puppy immediately. I looked online for 3 days before I talked to breeder who had bandit. As soon as I saw his picture I was in love and had to get him. He is fine now, although he’s small for an American Akita, weighs 81-83 lbs at 20 1/2 months. He only weighed 25 lbs at 4 months. He’s a big baby now as I spoiled him while nursing him back to health. It was a very scary time, expecting a new playful puppy and instead having him at vets for 8 days in an isolation room.. Things have settled down and he just loves his little sister, they get along great and entertain each other so I don’t always need to be his playmate. Now his sister Katie Mae also flew from Missouri and she was supposed to get here on a Friday evening but the airline screwed up and I didn’t get her until Sunday.. I have an ongoing case with them.. I can’t say anything briefly and it’s late here so that’s all for tonight. Katie Mae is growling and huffing at the window, I think just at her reflection and now she’s got bandit up too.
Hi again Philippa, I’ve recently admitted to myself that I can’t handle walking both dogs together in public, I just can’t control both well enough. This was a concern when I added Katie Mae to the mix 2.5 months ago. I love walking Bandit by the beach, it’s a great place to socialize dogs to other dogs and humans too. He is/was (IMHO, but I’m biased) one of the best socialized Akitas I’d ever scene. He was friendly with almost all dogs, male and female alike, except for male Akitas, and unaltered males, although he had a fondness for female golden retriever pups. My previous Akita was poorly socialized, which was my fault. He had spent his first 5.5 months playing with my brothers older male Akita (he was his chew toy) and when I picked him up would be covered in slobber. He also lived with my 2 elderly mutts, who he got along well with. At age of 5.5 months I moved and he had one friend for next 10 years of his life, another male Akita from his litter that a friend of mine had. But all other dogs were the enemy and were chased away or attacked. The ones he attacked belonged to a neighbor who couldn’t keep her dogs at home. On leash he’d smile and wag his tail and lunge at them.. anyhow I digress. Having had the previous experience I was surprised how well bandit did with other dogs. He wanted to play so much with almost every dog we’d see. He’d get down low in a “I want to play mode”, but due to his breed/looks most let them meet but didn’t want their dogs playing with him. Akitas play rough, but he did get to play with a few. So his playfulness is what led me to getting another Akita so he’d have a playmate. This has worked out great and the dogs play and entertain each other. But this has changed my walking habits. I was walking both at same time which I could handle when Katie Mae was younger and smaller. After a bit I was able to link the 2 together and use one main leash with another attached to KM so I could guide her a bit. This was ok for awhile but Bandit has grown protective of her and started lunging at other dogs with no warning that I picked up on. I tried just skirting around other dogs but this only helped so much. There are lots of small dogs where we walk and they tend to bark and growl at my dogs which lead to lots of pulling and lunging, which made my dogs appear aggressive and me look like I couldn’t control them, which I sadly couldn’t. Also the walks I enjoyed so much, watching and listening to the waves and smelling the ocean had turned into work walking both together. I’d be almost done walking and realize that I hadn’t even noticed the ocean.. So I’ve just the other day started leaving one in my truck and walking them one at a time. I can tell bandit likes this (not the waiting in the truck part..), having time with just me. He’s already doing better with the other dogs again and I hope this continues. It also gives me time to work with KM to not pull and hopefully I can get her socialized better with other dogs as up until now her walks were always with bandit so was hard to socialize her. Although I thought the 2 together was cute, I can’t control both at once and was giving strength to Akitas being aggressive dogs.. I’m able to enjoy walking them again, one at a time. I smell the ocean and hear the waves. It takes me 20 + minutes to drive to this walking spot, I might as well enjoy it. There are less crowded places I can walk them together, although those tend to have people who let their dogs walk of leash. I’ve no problem with that if they have control of the dog. Control of the dog doesn’t mean the dog comes back to them after greating my dogs.. stupid dog owners.. what kind of idiot thinks it’s ok for their off leash dog to say high to 2 Akitas on leash. This is a hard situation for me to control, I’ve started yelling at those owners to leash their dog, and as I’m tired of it, I don’t really try and be nice about it. All these places have signs saying please leash your dog.. Anyhow that’s a little look into some of our daily routine and how it’s a work in progress. KM is on day 9 of being in heat and I’m 99% sure I’ll be spaying her before the next heat. There’s plenty of Akita breeders out there, good and bad, I don’t need to join the fray just because I think my girl is cute and a few have asked about pups. I’m not set up to be able to take back a dog if it doesn’t work out for someone and would be beside myself if something bad happened to her while pregnant. Just not worth it.. As I said earlier, I have a hard time being brief... I’ll try and keep adding to this periodically
Marc I enjoyed a look into your life, thank you Your attitude and your walks seem to mirror mine. Walking Akitas can be stressful, we feel responsible owners and we watch Yojis every move. He isn’t brilliant with all dogs, so, we avoided situations when we could, but, we decided that it will have an adverse effect, so, we are slowly going back to basics with a hope that one day we can calmly walk past other dogs, here’s hoping Don’t get me started on owners that let there off lead dogs come nose to nose, it’s so irresponsible, we have hand many negative experiences which I’m sure has contributed to his dog aggression and you are right that once Akita start barking and lunging it’s not a pretty sight, with their strength and weight they do look out of control, I even went through a stage of thinking we should muzzle Yoji in case he got away from me, we talked it over and decided against it My hubby & I usually walk together which gives us time to enjoy our walks, I cannot imagine trying to walk 2 together He is my first Akita and his good traits are unbelievable, his difficult traits are difficult, but, we knew about them before we got him Their traits are so strong and all the research we did told us all the same traits, I wish everyone would do their research before owning an Akita, I can see now why there are so many in rescue centres, they are definitely a “ complex “ breed !
