Shibas on Dogs 101!

Shibas on Dog 101!!

Join the bandwagon and let them know the superiority of the Inu over all other dogs! The Woman has already written a brief letter; I look forward to hearing what everyone else will say! Also go to Dogster and check out what everyone else is doing to say such wonderful things about us while we shed all over the furniture!

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This was forwarded to me from a friend on the Shiba Network- Masako and Winnie, and she asked for responses.

First and foremost, let me state that both my husband and I watch and enjoy Dogs 101 (and Cats 101).

Second, just the other day, we were watching and the Poodle was featured. Your program stated that these dogs were intelligent and eager to please. I turned to my husband and said, What will they say about the Shiba Inu? Intelligent and not eager to please?

The Shiba will be a difficult dog to summarize in under ten minutes but it will be entertaining. I know of a shiba agility kennel in New Hampshire - http://shibas.nozomifarm.com/ - who are more than helpful in talking about working with such an independent breed that needs to keep busy and is a natural as an active or a couch potato. I have one of their retired agility dogs and she is more of a handful than my other shiba- who happens to be a working therapy dog. The agility dog was trained to think and figure things out, and she does. She knows exactly how far to push every rule in the house and not get into trouble. Shibas don't relish attention- they need to be adored like Gods and then they give themselves to you like a blessing from Buddha himself. For five minutes. And then they go off to do whatever they feel like until they hear a cheese packet open up.

You have to mention the importance of socialization with humans and other dogs. The expression that we use among shibas is that they may not start the fight but they will end it. But all shiba people will tell you- you have to socialize your dog *all*the*time* or else you will have an overly determined dog who is not much fun to take anywhere.

But for human interest stories, almost anyone who owns a shiba can tell you something about how their shiba did something that completely embarrassed them, despite all the years of training and socialization that we give them. Feel free to puruse my blog for some examples, and there are links to other shiba blogs as well- The Misanthropic Shiba being the most famous.

But thank you for giving our breed its day on your show. I truly hope that you mention also that there is a serious shedding issue at least twice a year also. And include a commercial for Dyson vacuum cleaners because all Shiba owners have $500 vacuum cleaners because they are the only thing that works.

Sincerely,

Christine Gilbert
The Blog of the Shiba: http://i-am-shiba.blogspot.com/