Everything you need to know about living with your Japanese Akitainu

The Japanese Akitainu is a unique, caring and loyal breed ready to defend its family and be the perfect companion.

Training

The Japanese Akitainu is a highly intelligent dog and somewhat stubborn, in order to live a good life with your Japanese Akita you need to work on your leadership skills because it will most certainly challenge you and your household rules. If you don't want your dog on your couch or on your bed or jumping on you, or your visitors you should start its basic training early on as a puppy. Everything that you want your dog to learn or do should be taught in a young age with patience and love.

Socialization

Early socialization is extremely necessary in order to avoid aggression towards other dogs or other people. As they make perfect guardians, they tend to be aloof with strangers so is very important to acclimate your dog with other animals, people, places and noises.

Grooming

Japanese Akitas are double-coated dogs and with all that beautiful shinny coat comes a downside, they are also heavy shedders, they shed twice a year, normally in the spring and fall when their coats are changing for the seasons. For first time owners who have never had a double-coated dog the shedding season can be difficult to get used to. During the shedding season its necessary to brush them every day, we recommend using a slicker brush and an undercoat rake.
Their double-coat protect them from the heat and the cold so shaving them is completely out of question! They are also self-cleaning dogs, so they don't need baths very often.

Exercises

The lazy dog,

Japanese Akitainus are not highly energetic dogs if you like to practice sports it will follow you, but it will mostly prefer to spend its time laying somewhere around the house, like every dog they do need to go on daily walks, for how long it will depend on your dog's personal energy levels and daily routine, but twice a day around 20 minutes should be good enough for your companion.

Diet

Akita Inu can be very picky eaters they can even sometimes go on a hunger strike; they tend to eat less during the summer as they do not need a lot of food during the hot days.

You can choose between feeding your Akita Inu a high-quality kibble, a BARF diet, a Raw Diet or even a mix of both.

For Raw and BARF diet we highly recommend you follow instructions of a good veterinarian and dog nutritionist to better assist you in this transition.

For Kibble we suggest that you carefully inspect the ingredients in the back of its package, the first ingredients are the ones with higher content in the kibble's formula. Chicken and peas tend to be high allergens among Akita Inus