Barking

Shibas don’t belong in an outdoor kennel all day and night; nor do they belong in the backyard, barking their head off. Shibas can be highly reactive if they are not secured in a low-stimulation environment. Your Shiba belongs in a safe, secure location where he is not entertaining the neighbours with his rendition of “Moon River”.

Every neighbourhood has some selfish jerk who keeps their dog outside to annoy everyone else with its barking. They aren’t bothered by the dog barking, so why should anyone else be?

Don’t be one of these people. Put the dog inside! Distract it! Do everything in your power NOT to cause problems for other people! Companion dogs are a privilege of human society, not a sanctioned vehicle to push your slovenly habits onto others.

Nuisance barking is often nipped in the bud by removing the Shiba from the situation and providing something more appropriate. If your dog is barking outside, take it inside. Give it a chew toy or a treat to shut it up.

Discourage barking in the house by immediately going and disciplining the puppy instead of offering a half-hearted, “Now, Pookie, be quiet Pookie, I’m not going to say it again Pookie…” Go to Pookie and give him to understand that continuing a behaviour that has been discouraged is not in his best interests. I have found that a firm scruff shake often improved Shassi’s attitude and a complete change of scene or activity was enough to make her forget all about vocalizing her opinions.

Digging

Shibas appear to miss their country of origin and many make it their life’s mission to tunnel back to Japan.

You can discourage this every time the dog starts it and it may work. My solution was just not to let Shassi run around in the yard unsupervised. Thus I could stop digging before it started.

Another method I used was taking the dogs out to the ice rink and letting them go to town on the piles of shaved ice dumped outside. If you have an area where you don’t mind your dog digging, keep bringing it to that spot whenever it starts to dig and hopefully Pookie will get the idea. Or not.

Chewing

Chewing… yes, Shibas chew. And chew. And chew. Give them plenty of safe chew toys and don’t let them alone anywhere where there’s anything you want to preserve. And don’t think that “just a minute” matters when it comes to this breed. You could go out for five minutes to listen to your friend Mindy’s tragic tale of her latest perfidious ex and return to find that your remote is nowhere to be found and that the channel changes every time your Shiba blinks his eyes.

Here’s a little story to illustrate the folly of those who put their trust in chewing puppies. October 8th, 2007, my boyfriend had to go to the hospital due to acute peritonitis. Backstory: Boyfriend is on dialysis. A week before, Tierce had chewed on his dialysis line. We had been letting our adorable, growing, constantly chewing puppy sleep on the bed with us. Despite knowing that he was still chewing and still did not have a good concept of “Kong toy = good, all other objects = bad”, we still didn’t crate him.,/p>

Boyfriend was in the hospital for five days. Tierce’s fault? No. Our stupidity fault? Yes. Tierce did make history though – apparently he’s the first dog on Vancouver Island that has chewed through a dialysis line.

Moral of the story: don’t give your puppy the opportunity to do something like this. It could have been an electrical cord that Tierce got to and we could have woken up to a dead puppy. As it was, peritonitis is not a fun way to win a free ride in an ambulance and sleeping on the emergency room floor from the hours of 1-9AM didn’t improve my Thanksgiving any.

Convincing a Shiba puppy that some things are not to be chewed on takes a while and is best simplified by putting your stuff where the puppy can’t get it or the puppy where it can’t get to the stuff. Since Shibas have been known to jump from floor to counter to shelf, this can get more complicated as Puppy grows. This is where the crate and the exercise pen come in oh, so handy.