Camping And Training With A Pup

Koki is a shiba inu dog and had completed basic, puppy obedience training and finished her puppy shots when we started the spring camping season. She was four months old and just beginning to teeth.

Some background, Koki wants her owners to come when called, fetch when she wants food, stay off the furniture that she wants for a nap, and to speak whenever someone wants to talk about Shibas. As owners, John and I believe we should be able to make a few polite requests of Koki. However, there has been a small power struggle with this. Koki, like a teenager, has very selective hearing. She can totally ignore commands to come, but will be there in a shot if she hears the lid on the cookie jar. She may do what we want when on leash but never look back when off leash. Koki isn't stupid. She knows just what we want her to do and often debates us about whether she can get away without doing it. Everything is a negotiation with this dog. This is typical for the shiba inu breed.

With her intrepid boldness, squinty-eyed cuteness, and calm poise, Koki believes she is a queen deserving all of life’s finer pleasures. When calm, she is composed with a dignity secured from the knowledge that she is the sun of her own universe. When excited, the dog loses her mind becoming a fiery furball from hell.

Her spring camping adventures began at four months of age until she was six months and the Texas sun became too hot for being outdoors continuously. Some things we learned:

• Koki loves being outside and HATES bugs. She did much better when we took steps to reduce the mosquitos/flies that buzzed around her.
• Koki teethed and sampled the world through her mouth. We adjusted by putting down a tarp for when we were by the camper and had many chew toys and “chewies” available for her. We also got very good at reinforcing the commands “leave it” and “drop it.”
• Koki loves to leave her mark. This spring, with the teething, she was too interested in converting books into Koki-fetti, lighting up her life with electrical wiring, and rounding the corners off any nearby cabinet to leave her unattended.
• Koki loves her kennel. We set up the raindrop’s couch as a “bench” and set her kennel onto it. When tired, she would go to the camper door, wait for us to open it, and then scramble into her kennel for the night. When we would take short trips away from the camper without her, she stayed in the kennel with no difficulties. In the fall, when she is done teething and not into chewing/sampling everything, we will start working on sleeping outside of the kennel (loose in the camper) during camping trips.
• Koki loves the feel of dirt and sand between her toes (not a normal shiba inu trait) and will jump onto these substrates and literally hug them to her body making her a MUD puppy. We now carry dog shampoo and extra towels with us to clean the dog after an outing, which brings us to the “shiba scream.” Koki does not believe she should be subjected to water and shampoo. Instead of whining like a normal dog, she SCREAMS loudly with blood-curdling force and ups the character and nature of her screams when she has an audience of others who come running to see what abuse we are inflicting on “the poor little puppy.” Seriously, this dog could give Al Pacino acting lessons.
• Koki loves people and believes all people are put on this earth to meet and adore her. This dog loves, LOVES people (usually, shibas are aloof with other people and dogs). Camping was great socialization for her to meet people who did want to interact and who didn’t want to interact with her. She learned to go up and sit in front of strangers in anticipation of them reaching down to pet her, instead of her initially trying to get their attention by jumping on them. We saw her little doggy-heart break multiple times as one of us stated “Not this time” when the person she wanted to meet didn’t want to interact with her. Moping shiba, drama shiba.
• Koki loves all dogs. Koki is “friendly” or “reactive” when she sees another dog. In Koki’s world, other dogs are her play toys. This is great when that other dog was interested and not so good when the other dog did not want to put up with a rude, squirmy little puppy that really wanted to play RIGHT NOW! We got good at reinforcing “leave it” and “off” and “not this time” with her. Another great socialization aspect of camping with Koki.
• Koki loves to hike and explore. She is adventurous and fearless on the hiking trails and wandering through parks. Koki learned to slide at the kiddy-parks and would sit and wait for us to push her on the merry-go-rounds. The world obviously exists for her pleasure.
• Koki is a very quiet dog unless there is an armadillo in near by. Whether day or night, when Koki heard/saw/smelled armadillo, she alerted and barked at it until it went away. We live and camp in central Texas; armadillo sightings are part of every trip.
• Koki loves to relax on picnic tables. We taught Koki to hang out on picnic tables when we needed a little space to do things without Koki help.

Koki romped through seven camping trips this spring stealing hearts and accepting all adoration as her rightful due. Camping was a great classroom for all of us. It gave us many opportunities to reinforce the commands she learned at puppy school, observe where her learning needs were, where we (people) needed to adapt, and how to decide what was and was not important. The camping experiences provided occasions for the two of us to talk out what we expected from Koki now and what we wanted from her in the future so we could start shaping her behavior. We also caught glimpses of what Koki will be like as she matures into a confident, bold, good-natured shiba inu. We also are hopeful that she will continue liking other people and dogs.

 

Beautiful dog and nice setup.