Shiba Escape Artists
Posted Thursday, September 21st, 2006 by nycgadgetgirlNon-Shiba people don’t believe me when I tell them how careful you have to be with Shibas. They can’t be off leash - NOT EVEN IN SOME FENCED AREAS. My parents have a regular (4 foot?) chain link fence and when Snicks has visited them he is NOT allowed off leash in their backyard. FOUR FEET? That’d be like no fence at all. He went over a dog run fence once that was almost 5 feet. Anyway… back to the point. If you don’t believe it, check this out. Hee hee!
September 21st, 2006 at 3:41 pm
remember that tri-color shiba whose picture I showed you recently? Did you notice she was off leash in the pictures? I asked the woman about that (she’s VERY familiar with shibas) and she says that altho she knows about the tendency for escape, this shiba has never tried it.
Man…I make Wolf wear TWO collars when we’re out walking a martingale and a prong, cause I’m SO PARANOID about him getting lose!
September 21st, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Snick wears a martingale too. They seem to work really well with Shibas. Matter of fact, ~T~ just got a little purple martingale for when Secret comes!
September 21st, 2006 at 7:08 pm
Not Shiba-related, but I can’t imagine a fence that would keep Drummer in _if_ he wanted to get out. Thankfully, as long as I’m inside the fence, he doesn’t try, so fenced places are cool as long as I don’t expect to leave him there.
My Setter list was just having a discussion about how so many rescues insist that you have a fence before you can adopt. I’ve never understood that, since for many people a fence is just an excuse to leave bored lonely dog in backyard.
Plus, the rescue loses out on all the great dog owners in apartments and condos or even just neighborhoods with covenants that say you can’t build a six-foot stockade fence.
Thankfully, A&B doesn’t insist on fences, or I wouldn’t have been able to foster Ruff, or adopt Quincy or Thunder.
September 21st, 2006 at 9:35 pm
Deb, you’re lucky. I think Retrievers of all sorts are generally more eager to please and stick around. Shibas prey drive is just way more compelling than their “affection” unfortunately. <sigh>
We just had a long discussion on Shiba-L about this actually and even people with champion Obedience and Agility Shibas said that they can’t/won’t trust their dogs off leash outside the ring.
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Semi-related question:
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED to the dog at the bottom of the page, Kishi? I’ve never seen anything like what happened. I read up on all the previous posts, and it’s just heartbreaking. What a tremendous effort by the owner to try and cure her suffering.
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Isn’t that terrible? I’ve been following that for awhile. This post explains it a bit.
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:56 pm
I think I’m going to cry. Dear jeebus, this is so amazingly hard to read about. I can’t even believe that’s a Shiba.