Shiba inu is one of the ancient Japanese Dog breed and is very popular in Asia due to its compact size and good looking apperance, in recent years there are more owners in the US interested in getting a Shiba Inu. As a Shiba inu owner myself, I’d like to share some realistic facts about this charming yet somewhat difficult dog breed.
Life Expectancy
Shiba Inu’s average life expectancy is between 12 to 15 years. Exercise, especially daily walks or hikes, is very important for this breed to live a long and healthy life. Male Shiba inu typically weight between 25-30 pounds where female is a few pounds lighter than male.
Temperament
You probably already heard of that Shiba Inu is one of the most stubborn breed. They are extremely intelligent and self served. Which makes it very challenging to train if you are a first time dog owner. The first year is the most critical period for training and if able to , spend as much time to building the bound with your dog, exercise him and train him during the critical first year, and you will thank yourself later. In order to make a stubbern breed like Shiba Inu to listen to your commend, owner needs to be very assertive and consistent. Shiba Inu is extremely intelligent and most of the time they understand your commend but they just choose to ignore you if it doesn’t serve them. Praise him dramatically if he follows your commend or give him his favorite treats to encourage your dog to follow your commend more often.
Eye Contact
Eye contact with your Shiba Inu is a concept that rarely mentioned in other training videos or articles. However, I see eye contact extremely important especially for Shiba Inu breed due to their stubborn and self served nature. You can train more frequent eye contact with your dog by praise him whenever he looked at you or when you play fetch with him, make sure he looked at your eyes before you through the ball. Eye contact will also assue your Shiba Inu that you are in charge, not him.
Socializing a Shiba Inu
Shiba Inu doesn’t necessarily get along well with other dogs so it is up to the owner to socialize this unique breed as early as it is safe to do so. Normally when finished all puppy first round vaccines that’s when to srat initial socialization. I used to go to Pet Smart once a week for their free puppy play time and Pet Smart trainer offers free training during that half an hour play time. We did not pay anything for professional dog training for our dog. Expose your young puppy to as much other dogs as possible will prep him to be confident and learn how to react with other dogs appropriately. Sometime other dogs is the best trainer when it comes to socialization. If you have a dog park around , take your Shiba Inu to the park at least once a week to make sure he is used to and comfortable when around other dogs to prevent later on dog aggression.
Care for a Shiba Inu
Shiba inu is typically a vry healthy and also clean breed. While Shiba Inu does not require regular grooming, they do shed during season changes, during their shedding season it is recommend owner brush off excessive fur regularly to assist the fur changing process. Also, a good vacumen cleaner is definitely recommended if you like to keep your space clean.
Activity level
Although Shiba Inu is not a large breed, it does need a lot of room for regular exercise so it is strongly recommend that you have a fenced yard to let your dog roam around throughout the day. If your dog doesn’t get enough exercise it needs during the day, it will find its own project for its own … which typically involving destructive behavior like biting sofas, curtains, chair legs … or really anything he can get his mouth on. Shiba inu was originally bred as a hunting dog and they still posess the hunting instinct up till today. If there are rabbit, bird or other small animals around your house, they certainly will try to hunt them down.
Daily walk 2- 3 times is strongly recommended, if possible , take your shIBA inU to a close by trial, it is great workout for both the dog and the owner and also a great way to enhance bounding with your dog.
Intelligence
We mentioned that Shiba Inu is extremely intelligent so that means it needs to receive some sort of mental stimulation daily. It could be something as simple as exploring your neighborhood during a walk, or training a new commend, or mental stimulation game, or just playing fetch with your dog. Shiba inu needs to receive enough mental and physical stimulation daily or else it might become destructive.
Ok … I hope those facts don’t scare you away. It might sounds more daunting than it actually is. The fact is yes it is definitely a lot of work if you want the best for your Shiba Inu, but if you put in the effort especially for the first year you will see it is all worth it once your dog maturing into a good looking fellow. After all, who can say no to this handsome face.
Leave a commend below and let me know if there is anything else you’d like to know about. Thanks for watching.