Scary stuff

digitalscream

Coco, our soft-as-shit Akita, has just killed a bird (well, mostly). First time she's ever shown any kind of prey drive, and I have to say...it was both hugely impressive and scary as all hell. She was just plodding round the garden as usual, and then cleared half the garden in one bound, launched herself five feet upwards, twisted and snatched the poor thing out of the air. I've seen dogs catch birds before, but honestly never anything like this outside of wildlife documentaries.

Even worse, she only did half the job, so I had to finish it off (without going into gruesome details, there was definitely no chance of recovery).

I can certainly see why Akitas were used for hunting. The sheer power and agility they have is mental.

chrispy108

Terrifying, that's a lot of dog to be five foot in the air!

You probably meant to put this in OT though

digitalscream

chrispy108 said:

Terrifying, that's a lot of dog to be five foot in the air!

Ain't it, though? It's a timely reminder not to be complacent, though. She's so soft and loving, and good as gold with people (once she knows them) and other dogs...I guess we'd sort of settled into trusting her. Thing is...you never should completely trust a dog, no matter how good they are. I think we'd forgotten that.

First time I've ever had to kill anything bigger than a wasp, too. Not too keen on repeating the experience.

chrispy108 said:

You probably meant to put this in OT though

Aye, was a little rattled

starwarsnosebleed

Whenever ive killed a bird, i usually bury her under the patio.

Phil_aka_Pip

starwarsnosebleed said:

Whenever ive killed a bird, i usually bury her under the patio.

The Fred West school of patio construction

Myranda

I used to work at a workshop in an employer's home and so we were often accompanied by the family dogs. Star, a collie that had been taught to recognise the word "squirrel" and went nuts looking for the furry prey. Jess a chocolate lab who was enthusiastic about chasing after things but was too old and fat to do so. And finally Amber, a German/Dutch shepherd cross who in the time I worked there I'd only heard her bark once (more on that in a moment) she was the softest friendliest dog I've ever met - no matter how much you seemed like a burgler or stranger she'd still wander over and roll onto her back... 

Then one morning my boss came in from walking the dogs and explained that Amber had leapt at and knocked down a dear (the sort with a complete and large set of antlers) making it play dead - resulting in a terrified boss when he checked it was dead by poking it, only for the dear to stand bolt upright and leap back into the bushes... my boss said he thought he was going to heart attack first from the shock of seeing amber do anything overly aggressive, then from the dear.

On another occasion Amber waited for "at least an hour" below a short young tree. She had ignored calls for food, and ignored any interest from the family... when my bosses wife went to investigate what had the dogs attention she startled the pigeon that was sitting in the tree - and that's when amber pounced... we all found out when the bosses wife covered in feathers asked my boss to clear up the dead pigeon so the kids didn't see the gore.

We finally discovered what Amber thought of all fluffy non-dog animals when they got half a dozen sheep (bosses father owned a farm, and the bosses daughter decided she'd rather see some lambs as pets than chops). Amber went ballistic every time she was in their presence - an electric fence was employed to keep her from the lambs. Then one afternoon while Amber was in the office they moved the sheep. A single lamb broke free from the pack and went a wandering, straying past the patio doors of the office... Amber nearly took the doors off the hinges trying to get out to eat the lamb, barking like an attack dog on the leash... that was the first time I'd heard amber bark.

And conversely - one of my co-workers rented a room from a woman with two wolf-dogs and when she went on holiday the dogs came with him to work... they were so shy and gentle that even the wooden floors scared them and they would tippy toe around the edge of the workshop - they ran and jumped with the other dogs but were very quiet and they showed no interest in the sheep (though the co-worker had said that when walking them, they'd stalk smaller dogs like prey... but I never saw it)...

In short... dogs are funny

Evilmags

At least it wasn't another dog. My brother's Akita was attacked by a Rottie that was off the leash and he had to separate them. Not fun.

digitalscream

Amber sounds very much like our Coco. Coco is a very typical Akita - silent almost all of the time, and the only time she barks is when she perceives a genuine danger.

In fact, she's very much like our Ruby (RIP) in that way - silent, unless something needs killing. That little dog was a pint-sized murder machine.

digitalscream

Evilmags said:

At least it wasn't another dog. My brother's Akita was attacked by a Rottie that was off the leash and he had to separate them. Not fun.

Not at all; Coco will sort of half-stalk when other dogs approach, but as soon as they get within range she's all tongue and bouncing.

CabbageCat

Yeah, you can't completely trust a dog of any breed. Whenever there's an attack and a dog gets put down there's always the "not a bad dog...bad owners" talk which I think is true to an extent because the owners will probably have put too much trust in the dog but sometimes dogs can snap without any obvious stimulus. I grew up with a pair of Irish setters, mother and daughter, which, I'm sure you'll agree, are among the soppiest dogs around. When the daughter was a few years old the pair took a very sudden and intense dislike to one another, they would fight tooth and claw whenever they were together. Luckily my parents separated around that time so they took one pooch each.

lloyd

That's nothing, my sausage dog once chased an infirm pigeon into an oncoming taxi. A mercy killing if you will but he's got the mind of a killer.

starwarsnosebleed

Fred Westaways?

digitalscream

Evilmags said:

At least it wasn't another dog. My brother's Akita was attacked by a Rottie that was off the leash and he had to separate them. Not fun.

That's a very common story. The key physical parts of Akitas - the forward-pointing ears, constantly raised tail, the slight forward-lean, the narrow eyes - are all aggression indicators in canine body language, so other dogs often start fights with them even when the Akita is quite happy to plod along; of course, Akitas being amongst the most powerful dogs around, it rarely ends well for the other dog and the Akita gets branded as dangerous when it was only defending itself (usually at a disadvantage, because they're rarely off the lead given people's perceptions with the Daily Mail's campaign against them).

Iamnobody

digitalscream;1053776" said:

Evilmags said:

At least it wasn't another dog. My brother's Akita was attacked by a Rottie that was off the leash and he had to separate them. Not fun.





That's a very common story. The key physical parts of Akitas - the forward-pointing ears, constantly raised tail, the slight forward-lean, the narrow eyes - are all aggression indicators in canine body language, so other dogs often start fights with them even when the Akita is quite happy to plod along; of course, Akitas being amongst the most powerful dogs around, it rarely ends well for the other dog and the Akita gets branded as dangerous when it was only defending itself (usually at a disadvantage, because they're rarely off the lead given people's perceptions with the Daily Mail's campaign against them).

That's interesting - our soft as shit hound used to bark at a couple of white Akitas in our old neighbourhood. I didn't really understand why...

We thought it might have been the colour but the physical/body language things you mentioned above seem more probable.

digitalscream

@Iamnobody - yep, I'd put money on it being the body language. It's just a classic miscommunication, and there's absolutely nothing the poor Akita can do about it.

As a general rule, we tend to give off-leash dogs a really wide berth when we're walking her. The ridiculous thing is that she's not really any danger at all to other dogs; it's our husky-collie cross who's the properly angry one, and he'll go for anything four-legged that looks at him wrong and gets too close. He's become really bad-termpered in his old age (he's 12), probably something to do with the arthritis.

Iamnobody

digitalscream;1053799" said:

@Iamnobody - yep, I'd put money on it being the body language. It's just a classic miscommunication, and there's absolutely nothing the poor Akita can do about it.

As a general rule, we tend to give off-leash dogs a really wide berth when we're walking her. The ridiculous thing is that she's not really any danger at all to other dogs; it's our husky-collie cross who's the properly angry one, and he'll go for anything four-legged that looks at him wrong and gets too close. He's become really bad-termpered in his old age (he's 12), probably something to do with the arthritis.

Thanks @digitalscream

It always puzzled us! As well as the colour we thought the size might be an issue.

I think you might have nailed it because thinking back he doesn't have the same issue with smaller white dogs or other larger dogs.

He's 13 in July so is not bothered about much at all these days - still it will be interesting to see his reaction to the next one he sees...

lloyd

Mine barks at Akitas now but one went for him (off the lead on a busy canal walkway) last month. I shat myself as I thought my arm was a gonner but managed to get him out of harms way before the owner had caught up. Probably looked like one of his toys, but mad to have that dog off the lead in a busy area if that's in him, especially what you say about other dogs going for them.

underdog

The frightening thing for me about Akita's is I've not seen a human yet who's strong to hold one back. I see women getting pulled around beaches by them men dragged around football fields, I often worry about the safety of my own dog around them just because it's one breed I don't fancy trying to fight off should the need arise.

In my experience the most aggressive dogs are usually terriers.

lloyd

I walk passed a guy with a staffy and a spaniel occasionally and they strain to get to my dog-quite aggressively, he pulls them back fine and all is ok. The other week his wife was holding them and he wasn't around-she was literally getting dragged towards us by the dogs and she shouted for help and he came running-this is by the cathedral in Manchester city centre, if you can't control your dogs, whatever breed either by command or force you've no business having them. A schnauzer attacked a sausage dog in castlefield last week which ended in stitches, it's not a breed thing, some dogs become knobheads because knobheads own them, it's just that if a chihuahua becomes a knobheads the damage potential between that and a larger dog is huge. Any dog that snarls or goes for dogs should stay on the lead.

Neil

underdog said:

In my experience the most aggressive dogs are usually terriers.

This is true.

That poor postman.

digitalscream

underdog said:

The frightening thing for me about Akita's is I've not seen a human yet who's strong to hold one back.

The problem is that people tend to let them get away with anything when they look like this:

...and create massive problems for themselves when they look like this 18 months later:

It's usually down to a total lack of understanding of the breed. While a lot of breeds become a part of the family, Akitas bond so completely with their family that they will literally do anything to protect them when there's a perceived threat, so you absolutely have to learn all of your dog's triggers and to read their body language, which isn't the easiest thing in the world if you're used to other dogs' communication.

Often the best way to recall an Akita is to act like you're injured. 90% of the time, they'll come running back to protect you.

As with @lloyd's story, I can hold Coco if she's absolutely going nuts - which happened once when she desperately wanted to play with some sheep - but my wife can't. Therefore...I walk her, and my wife doesn't. You're completely right; a full-grown Akita is perfectly capable of pulling a car (if you can convince them that it's a good idea, which isn't the easiest thing in the world...).