Akita
Temperament
by Sherry E. Wallis
Page 4 of 5
 
Trainable
Of course, to accomplish all the foregoing
tasks, an Akita must be trainable. Personally, I think trainability is an
innate characteristic of all dogs and that all dogs are trainable. Puppy
Aptitude Testing helps match people to dogs and dogs to training methods,
which is one reason I strongly advocate its use.
Some combinations of people and dogs just do
not work well together, such as a dominant dog with a shy, timid person.
Likewise, a very dominant person may overwhelm an omega bitch. Occasionally,
you may encounter the people who Ian Dunbar describes perfectly as "dog
dim." A short conversation will tell you that they haven't got a clue as to
why dogs do anything nor do they have a clue about how to get them to do
anything!
If they are otherwise suitable, they can
learn a lot provided they will read or watch videos. Appropriate material,
such as a good training book or video, can provide a basis for understanding
their dog. It's a good idea for you to provide this material for their
review before they pick up their puppy and for you to question them closely
to make sure they understood it. These owners will require a
disproportionate share of mentoring to stay on track. Just as some people
cannot learn a foreign language, a few of these people will never have a
clue about their dog's real personality. Fortunately, dogs are very
adaptable and better at understanding people than we are at understanding
them.
Training Classes
When we discuss training, I caution new
owners that an Akita is not going to sit at your feet with shining eyes that
beg you to tell him what to do. Compared to training a Border Collie,
training an Akita is an uphill climb. Does that mean they are not
trainable? Certainly not!
On the other hand, finding a suitable
training class and utilizing it successfully can be difficult for a
newcomer. As I mentioned earlier, my sales contract contains a clause
requiring the new owners to attend a training class with the dog. I
encourage them to attend puppy classes and give them information on trainers
who are in their area. To sweeten the pot, I rebate $50 of their purchase
price when they give me a copy of their graduation certificate. Although
everyone doesn't graduate, they all do attend class, so at least they have
some foundation for working with the dog.
If you have some grounding in obedience
training, another approach is to offer classes yourself. For extra
incentive, you could rebate part of the class fee for graduation with a
puppy you bred. A trainer with whom you are on good terms might discount her
rates for your puppies in exchange for referrals. However you manage it, the
new owner should leave your house with the clear understanding that his
puppy must be trained and the determination to do so.
Training Akitas
Before I send them off, though, I talk to the
new buyers about training classes and discuss a few problems
they might encounter because they have an Akita and not a Border Collie.
After all, back in the days when dogs actually did work for people, they
performed different jobs which required very different skills. I wouldn't
ask my accountant to wire my house nor would I go to a plumber for brain
surgery.
Herding and gun dogs are the telephone
operators of the dog world. We think of them as "smart" because they learn
behaviors quickly and will repeat them endlessly and eagerly. If you take a
retriever duck hunting, you expect him to go after the last duck just like
he went after the first. What would a shepherd do if his helper suddenly
decided that running back and forth around the sheep was boring?
Although these dogs are capable, indeed must be capable, of independent
decisions, they are not particularly "independent" dogs. They must be what
shepherds describe as "biddable;" that is, when the master gives a command,
the dog should hasten to obey it unless he has a compelling reason not to.
In that case, sooner or later, he will communicate it to the owner.
Looking at the way an obedience trial
championship is obtained, it's hardly a surprise that most of the dogs
achieving it are herders or gun dogs. Even breeds not classed in these
groups such as Papillons and Poodles have that background. Poodles were
originally retrievers and Papillons were bred down from spaniels.
Akitas are shown in the working group, but
where do they fit in the obedience picture in terms of working traits? To
determine this, you have to look at function. The forerunners of the breed
were used to hunt large game in the mountainous territory of Dewa Province
on the Japanese island of Honshu. Accompanied by a hunter, they located,
followed, and held or tackled bear, elk, and boar--activities which make
them a hound.
Evaluating them in terms of appearance, they
obviously derive from "spitz" or "Northern Dog" ancestry. These dogs have
certain common traits: short, erect ears; mesocephalic heads with
oblique-set eyes; double coats; and tails that curl upwards in some
fashion. Representatives are found throughout the Arctic and northern
temperate areas and include the Pomeranian, Keeshond, American Eskimo,
Samoyed, Alaskan Malamute, Greenland Eskimo Dog, Siberian Husky, Norwegian
Elkhound, Norwegian Buhund, the Russian Laika, the Karelian Bear Dog, the
Korean Jendo, as well as all the native Japanese dogs. The working
representatives of this group have served as sled and pack dogs and hunters,
and guards.
Obviously, the Akita fits nicely with this
group of dogs. Like the Elkhound and Karelian, he is a hunting or hound/spitz
type dog. Characteristics which suit them for their jobs do not necessarily
produce a stellar obedience performer. Hounds must be flexible in their
responses. After all, the prey sets the pace and determines the course, and
the hunter must be adaptable, ready to abandon one strategy in favor of
another.
In common with the northern/hound types, he
is physically tough with a high pain threshold which was probably increased
through selective breeding when he was used as a fighting dog. From both his
function as a hound and his heritage as a northern dog, he has a core of
independence that makes him unable to always do what you want. This doesn't
mean he won't do it, just that he might not.
Boredom: How do these idiosyncrasies
translate to training? Akitas, like many hounds, have a very low tolerance
for repetition. Once boredom sets in, and it does so quickly, the dog
looses interest, which means repetition is not the key to successful
training. The problem is that dogs learn by repetition, so as a trainer, you
have to balance the two by mixing a variety of exercises, using short
training times, and by keeping training a manageable challenge.
Therefore, in class, when your Akita has done
two great figure eights, instead of doing three more, praise him and go on a
couple of other exercises regardless of what the rest of the class is doing.
Of course, you need to discuss this with your trainer first so she doesn't
think you're being uncooperative.
Even as early as seven weeks on the PAT,
Akita puppies show little persistence. They often attack the mop but abandon
the attack after a few seconds, while Rottweiler puppies in the same
situation may have to be pulled off of it. The Akitas will chase a ball that
rolls in front of them but quickly loose interest in favor of some other
activity.
Variable behavior : They also tend to vary
their behavior rather than stereotyping it quickly. When we test puppies,
one of the things we do is put them on a box, stand in front of them, and
call them. In most herding and sporting breeds, done a second time, the
puppy tends to repeat what he did the first, even if it is falling off the
box backwards! Akita puppies may jump off towards the tester once and to the
side the second time. They might jump off once and refuse a second time;
jump off to the side and explore their surroundings the first time, and go
right to the tester the second.
One of the characteristics we consider
"smart" in a breed is the ability to consistently repeat a learned behavior.
Dogs that stereotype quickly are easy to train. A resistance to
stereotypical behavior does not make a dog dumb; it makes it more flexible.
Akitas tend to try more than one approach to any problem; just because they
did it one way first does not mean they will do it the same way next time.
For the obedience trainer, these traits
present a real challenge. You have to work harder to reinforce correct
responses and learn to shrug off those times when your dog adds a new
wrinkle.
Generalization: Another problem is the
Akita's slowness in generalizing from a specific learned behavior. For
instance, when you begin teaching the sit, your dog may be beside you in the
heel position. Then you teach him sit in front, then sit when he is away
from you. A German Shepherd will quickly learn to sit anywhere because he
generalizes well. He is able to make the connection that the same action is
called for regardless of where he is spatially. He will seem to understand
the concept of "sit," so to speak.
Akitas, on the other hand, take much longer
to go from the specific to the general. Instead of expecting the dog to
grasp the concept, you may have to break the exercise into many component
parts and teach each as a separate step and then, chain them together. Some
Akitas seem to have an "Aha!" experience and suddenly get the point, while
others never have a clue.
They may have more trouble with some
exercises than others. In discussing this subject with a friend who is
training an Akita in Open, she said she thought it applied to the problem
she had with teaching the quarter turn. In this exercise, the dog and
handler stand in a heel position with the dog sitting. The handler then
shifts her position, in place, a quarter turn to the left. The dog must get
up and reseat itself in the proper heel position.
All the class Goldens learned to scoot into
position without ever really getting up, while Teresa was still trying to
teach her dog that when Teresa moved, the dog had to move too. Obviously,
they need to try a different training method that takes into account a
slower ability to generalize.
Independence: Sooner or later, everyone
runs up against the Akita's independent steak. Hound independence is
expressed in passive resistance. The dog won't openly defy you, he just
won't cooperate. He may lag while heeling or move a foot on the stand. If
you're in the conformation ring, maybe he continually moves while you are
trying to set him up even though he's not unbalanced or swings his rear out
away from you when you stop. You can put a stop to this by introducing some
variety and perhaps some levity into your training routine. Sometimes,
passive resistance is the end result of boredom, so shorter training
sessions will help.
Northern-dog independence, however, runs more
to outright defiance if the dog is determined enough. Again, all of us have
seen this with Akitas. Has your dog ever slipped out the door and headed
off? He'll come home when he is ready or when he's enticed by something more
fun than cruising the neighborhood.
I had one Akita who liked certain crates. He
didn't just escape from crates he didn't like, he demolished them, just to
make his point. I never could discern what characteristics made an
acceptable crate, so I have a varied collection of broken ones, courtesy of
Max. However, if he liked a crate, he never made any attempt to leave it.
One was so flimsy, if he'd inhaled it would have broken apart, but he stayed
in it peaceful and content. This is Northern-dog independence--my way or the
highway!
Training Methods
The next question that arises is "what kind
of training should I do?" When I first started, mumble, mumble, years ago,
everyone used the same basic methods for training. Over the ensuing years,
learning research has supplied additional tools for working with dogs.
Plenty of books on dog training are available, and most areas have more than
one type of training classes available. To a certain extent, how you train
will depend on the methodology of your trainer.
The method I first learned has now garnered
the rather unappealing name "force training or jerk and pull (j/p)." Here,
you put the dog on a lead and choke collar (we didn't even have pinch
collars when I started) and gave a command. If he did it, you gave him lots
of praise. If he didn't, you gave him a quick jerk with the leash to get him
to do whatever you were working on and as soon as he did it or was in
position, gave him lots of praise.
Back in the dark ages, no one even considered
training a dog until it was six months old. This, of course, made the dog
harder to train, both because he'd been learning on his own all along and
because he was that much bigger than a puppy. So, maybe part of the "force"
was because the dog was just harder to work with.
Finally, some enlightened people, Dr. Ian
Dunbar among them, advocated working with puppies. The age to start formal
training then halved to three months. This type of training goes by the more
attractive terms of "lure" or "food training." It is grounded in the surety
that puppies will do almost anything for a food treat or a favorite toy.
Using natural actions, the puppy is persuaded
through use of the lure to perform. For instance, if the lure is held
slightly behind and above his head, he will have to look up and sit to get
it. Likewise, held between his feet, he will tend to go down to get it. The
lure, coupled with a command and praise teach the dog. When the command and
action are firmly associated, food rewards are decreased and eventually
ceased.
Bill Boborow one of our most successful
obedience trainers cautions that older dogs may not work all that well for
food rewards unless they are encouraged to do so as puppies. This applies
also to baiting dogs in the conformation ring. He also points out that food
rewards may not be enough with Akitas and that sooner or later you will have
to resort to some type of physical correction.
His comments reminded me of a young male I
was working on the down-stay. As his hormones have kicked in, he's become
increasingly reluctant to down in the presence of adult males. A few nights
before at class, I had given him a down command along with one of his
favorite goodies. He started to go down, taking the treat in his mouth. Then
he stopped, pointedly looked at the adult male next to us, looked right at
me, spit out the food, and sat up. I got his message. There and then, I
decided it was time for a different training technique.
Much to my surprise, I found an even newer
technique which uses food too but couples it with what psychologists call an
event marker. The first people to introduce this training method to the
world of dogs came from dolphin training at marine exhibitions. While they
use whistles with the sea mammals, with dogs most use a clicker (those toys
we used to call "crickets").
The seminal book for this training method is
Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor. In it, she discusses the basic
principles governing what is now commonly referred to as "click training
(c/t)." While it shares many aspects of lure training, it relies on the
dog's figuring out what you want him to do rather than your forcing him to
do them. Thus, he becomes an active participant in his own training. One
of the reasons I think this method is so successful with Akitas is that it
challenges them--no boredom here! Because of this participation on his part,
the dog isn't resentful or sullen because you are making him do something.
Instead, he's figuring out what to do which is made easier for him because
correct behaviors are marked with a click at the instant it occurs. He
keeps working because he is given a reward which can be food, play, or
verbal praise and a pat.
Almost everything you'd like to know about
this training method can be found on the internet. I've got several
excellent sites linked on my web page. Vendors at most shows carry video
tapes and other equipment, and seminars are held all over the country by
Karen Pryor, Gary Wilkes and other excellent trainers.
Akita trainers I've consulted and my own
experiences lead me to think that while clickers, food rewards and lure
training are effective tools when they work, expecting them alone to carry
you through a complete obedience course may be unrealistic. Therefore, when
you pick a trainer, look for someone who is willing to combine methods.
Above all, try to find someone who understands that not all dogs have the
same temperaments, abilities, or tendencies, someone who recognizes that one
training technique may not work all the time with every dog and who has more
than one to offer.
Unfortunately, not every area has enough
trainers for you to pick and choose, in which case, you will have to get
additional help. Through the dog training books at your local library, you
have access to some of the finest trainers in the world and a plethora of
training methods. The internet offers information on web pages as well as
many e-mail lists dealing with training. Don't ignore these resources. Don't
forget to talk to other Akita people who have trained their dogs in
obedience. They've already been down this road and can offer you
constructive advice.
Un-trainable Akitas?
With humor, understanding, and persistence,
you can train almost any Akita in basic obedience. For every person who
thinks that Akitas are not trainable, I'd point to my house dog. She has
never had an obedience lesson, came to us at the age of three from life in a
kennel run, and moved seamlessly into our household. My kids and I talked
about this today and we can think of three unacceptable things she's done in
all that time. She stole a steak off the counter--once and she's run out the
door twice.
Like scores of other Akitas, her training has
been so effortless, that we can easily say, she's had none. She's trained
herself by observing our responses to her actions and carefully fitting her
behavior into an acceptable mode with little or no formal instruction from
us. Even though she has no CD, she is a very trainable and well trained dog!
I think this is very typical of Akitas and one reason they are so easy to
live with in a house.
Fearful Akitas
Although Akitas are naturally careful and
cautious, few fall into the fearful category which may be the one exception
to trainability. Fearfulness may be the result of an inherited temperament
and/or severe and early abuse.
Very fearful adults are very hard to deal
with. To train them, you must first gain their trust. They become dependent
on your judgment and rely on you for cues about their environment. While
they may be confident with you, with someone else they may revert to their
previous behavior until that person also establishes a bond with the dog. A
few dogs may extend their trust to people generally, but most will not.
Noise Stable
A dog that is not afraid of noise is more
pleasant to own. To some extent, noise shyness is an inherited
characteristic. Steadiness to shot is of primary importance in the
temperament of gun and guard dog breeds. If you attend a Schutzhund or field
trial, you'll find the dogs impervious to the guns going off all around.
They are also fairly staunch in the face of all noise.
Historically, I suppose Akitas have little
reason to be unaffected by noise, and many seem unsettled to some degree by
loud noises. I had a female who hated the sound of generators. Believe me,
getting into a show site without passing a generator can be difficult
depending on the parking. If we walked by one, I might just as well have
turned around and gone home as take her in the ring. Somehow, she seemed to
think they were mobile and any minute, one would make an appearance.
Most dogs aren't so neurotic, but you never
know what will happen. We've all seen dogs react poorly to loudspeaker
announcements, falling chairs, or other unexpected sounds at a show. Years
ago, while the groups were going on at the dog show site on one side of a
river, the city set off fireworks on the other for some sort of
celebration. We spent hours trying to catch a Sheltie that had gotten away
from its handler. A multi-group winning dog, it was so traumatized by the
experience, it was never shown again.
Noise shyness is a trait you can breed away
from, although it is of considerably less importance than many others. If
you think you might have a problem, the time to start working with your
puppies is while they are in the whelping box. Make sure they are in a noisy
environment, although it should not be at such a level it makes them unduly
nervous.
Play a radio on rap, hard rock, and talk
stations. I have a satellite dish and one of the channels we get has nothing
but war movies. My last few litters listened to bombardments, machine guns,
and bombs every night.
I took two of them out to a Schutzhund German
Shepherd Specialty when they were six-months old and was very pleased by
their response to the guns fired off in the ring right in front of us. The
male, who was asleep, looked around, then curled back up and went back to
sleep. The female was unconcerned initially, but after about ten shots, she
turned around and looked at me for reassurance. I continued talking to my
friend and after a few seconds, my puppy began playing with her toy. Her
mother, on the other hand, would have bolted out of there at the first shot,
so I think early exposure has helped.
Desensitizing puppies to noise is also
important if you live in an area with frequent thunderstorms. Since these
never go away, the dog's fear tends to escalate. In the worst cases, the
dogs engage in escape behavior which means destruction of their confinement
area. This may be a crate or your windows and doors.
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