I took Castle, the shiba inu, Drummer, our sheltie, and a brand new 6 month old Newf pup who is in for a month's training.
Shar had Ryder, Cathy had Mozart, her Croatian Mt. Dog pup, and Deb brought Beckett, the shiba inu.
We worked spirals and fronts and recalls and focused heeling.... and added distractions with thought given to how each dog would handle them. Drummer was a nut, trying to keep everything in his sight. The Newf pup was a breeze. He wanted his treats and wasn't interested much in the other dogs or people.
But Castle was amazing. This is a shiba inu..... an independent "you are not the boss of me" kind of dog.
I asked the girls to throw every distraction they could at him within a 15 feet radius of my heeling. They took their mission seriously with Cathy playing a hard-ball game of tug with Mozart, Deb doing conformation up's and back's and stack's parallel to us, and Sharlet playing ball, YES, playing ball
with Ryder. And Castle stayed focused and precise during the entire circus. Just like his bear dog roots would indicate, once this breed has something in its head that it has decided to do, it's hard to divert its attention to anything else. So, those of you training shiba inus need to make focused heeling the 'thing' while the dog is very young, rewarding it for ignoring everything else.
I am seriously considering NOT selling this dog, but, instead, co-owning him with his breeders. Which
brings me to eight dogs. Idiot amounts of dogs. Doesn't anybody want to buy this beast??? If not, I may have to actually enter the Hat show. Pressure. PRessure. PREssure. PRESSure. PRESSURE for sure.
Oh, my. Decisions, decisions.
