For some reason people think small dogs can’t bay bears. Admittedly, when I visited a dog show in Abbotsford, B.C., what was strikening to me was how small the Norrbottenspitz were– almost in the vicinity of a standard Shiba Inu [~14" to 17"]. I was more used to being around a Shiba Inu [19"] the size of a Finnish Spitz [~15"-20"]. Anyway, in Sweden and Finland, Norrbottenspitz are used to bay moose, bears, point grouses and martens. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself:
Impressive, no? Actually, a lot of it has to do with gutso to approach, and a bit of intelligence to keep their distance. Who says Shiba Inus are too small to bay? Look at the FCI standards for both Shiba Inu and Norrbottenspitz.
Norrbottenspitz
HEIGHT/WEIGHT : Height at withers: Ideal size for males: 45 cm.
Ideal size for females: 42 cm. Tolerance of +/- 2 cm
Whether or not what if the dog actually have the gull to stand up to a bear is another issue altogether, and that is for another debate. Arguing based on the supposed size of the dog has very little to do with whether or not it would be a good working dog for this particular game.
Shiba Inus are often celebrated by their owners for their wildness, hunting prowess and being hell on backyard vermaints. Often they are hailed as being good bear dogs, talented at baying hogs, stellar at flushing and a damn fine rabbiting sort. It is not unusual for a breeder to claim the Shibas are a good hunting dog. When one of them kills a mouse, it’s often taken in stride like a cat owner being proud of a dead endangered bird. It’s easy to understand why. It’s admirable to see a dog pursue something.
I ran into a rather convoluted post about a traditional foreign hunting breed:
The second and third paragraphs are fine since they are honest, and they reflect reality; but the first oozes with bullshit. Seriously?
“Safety, law, opportunity, cost and location are often prohibitve to pursuing it with valuable breeding dogs, regardless of breed of NK. “
What a cop-out. Oh, sure, there may be Ozarks hicks who sell their pups for less than $500, but that in itself is a reflection of the culture, not of the dog. There are just as many people who buy highbred kennel-registered pups with pricetags running into the couple of thousands. People spend just as much on their real hunting dogs as show breeders spend on their dogs and bitches. The value of the canine does not negate what one chooses to do with their dog.
Don’t be conned by the materialistic desire to have range-finders, camos, fancy scopes and quads on macho weekly warrior excursions. There was once a time Mack’s flannel, jeans, a backpack, a shotgun and a bicycle suffice. It’s just a matter of how badly one wants to go hunting. People still do this; in fact, there are minimalist backpackers and urban locavores getting by with the bare necessity. Hunting is only as complex and expensive as one wants it to be.
It’s easy to concede bear-chasing and boar-baying are dangerous sports. There are many hounds and pitbulls who lose their lives to these large games. However the Shiba Inu is first and foremost a bird dog. They should be tested along the same line as a field spaniel with a tendency to hunt deep.
Shiba Inus are basically spitzy spaniels from Japan! There’s no art to flushing bird. If one wants to complicate it, Anglo-Saxon-style, with holding a point and retrieving, then, by all means, go ahead. But come on, shooting squirrels, flushing birds? Easy-peasy.
As far as working ability/drive, yes, there are Shiba breeders who select for this in some of their lines and encourage their pet owners to participate in performance events with these dogs.
I had many chances to go birding with my Shiba Inu over the years, but never shot these critters over him. It’s one thing to say they have high prey drive, but I had no idea how well he would take to the sports. There is much more at play than the willingness to slaughter things.
How nervous is he? Would he be excited going out for a hunt if he associated the rifle with downed coveys? Is he reactive enough to bite a smoking barrel? Or would he be too gun-shy to condition? Okay, so he can tolerate a rifle or a shotgun; what’s working style? Would he range in close after he learn humans are valuable hunting assets? Or would he constantly hunt deep, ranging out, expecting his master to keep the pace? Would he rather prefer to go feral and disappear– helping himself to the fieldberries and deermice? Is he “wood-wise”? Okay, now we know his style: how stubborn is he? Is he willing to give up his birds, or do I have to train him? Or worse, is his resource guarding so strong, nothing short of beating the crap out of him will do? I have no idea, because his pedigreed parents were never tested for these things! These are things people observe in their own homes, but never tested out in the open field unleashed.
It does take a lot of time, expense and training which are hard to come by for a breeder with a good sized breeding program.
In our part of the world, there were once dual champions for retrievers. In addition, if the Swedes and Finns are required to obtain trial titles for their show dogs to gain the title of “breed champion,” with their Elkhounds, Norrbottenspitzes, Finnish Spitzes and Karelian Bear Dogs, then right there is incentive enough for kennel owners to get off their hineys.Why sit around moaning they don’t have time or effort outside their large kennel programs? Why pass it off onto small-scale breeders and pet owners? Other people found the time. The simple fact is: there is no real-world motivation! If one isn’t interested in hunting, they ain’t. There is a big difference between wanting to do something, and having other priorities.
Shiba Handzimemesite Kohana “Hani” (1,5 years old) meets mechanical bear in Finland: testing the dogs hunting instincts and behaviour.
Result: Very good 61 points and 4th place Diploma.
In fact, “performance sports” carry just as many risks as shooting over a dog. There are so many stories about agility dogs being ran into the ground with ligament tears and other injuries– forever disabled. Everything we do has an element of risks. In addition, to earn titles, even for conformation, one would have to travel great distance to attend events if there is none nearby; no different from a hunting trip.
Realistically, most Shibas depending on breeder are bred for a more mild pet temperament.
“Most [...] are bred for [...] pet temperament” is truth. There is no point whatsoever to sit around masturbating over breed history if the current dogs have devolved into being household pets. After all, in their native homeland, the Shibas are just pets– and that’s fine. Just flat out say they are being bred as show dogs or as pets. Just say “I am not interested in hunting with my dog” instead of some flimsy excuse about access, expenses and safety.
In short, it shouldn’t matter if the dog is working or not, but at least be honest about it and walk the walk. The truth is: hunting is a dying sport in Japan, and a vast majority of hunters in North America who go birding are conditioned to the aristocratic Hunt, Point, Retrieve culture. Also, many pet-owners have other hobbies they are more interested in rather than shooting up stuff. Just the way it is– the dogs themselves reflect the culture they are born into.
It’s hard not to laugh at this artist’s interpretation of the essence of a Shiba Inu. It really does illustrate how subjective the interpretations are:
“Loyalty” is subjective as it can range to being biddable to being xenophobic. The Shiba I grew up with would wait, unmoved, by the window all day, ignoring all distractions, until I came home from school. He wasn’t the most biddable dog, and one would have to negotiate with him. His “guard” instinct wasn’t xenophobic of unacceptable proportion, as says a Fila, as he would only growl if he sees someone approaching the house, yet is fine with them entering the house. He was aloof while on walks, yet friendly around strangers at home. So what is “loyal” to one person differs from how another interprets it as.
Same thing with “courage,” Tod the Shiba minded his own business around other dogs; but if they started acting unruly or were not fastidious, he took it personal. However he finds it hard to back down from large animals, while at the same time is paranoid of hawks and ravens– long story. He also would segregate mentally unstable people from the stable people by going in-between people, he had a natural instinct for this– so it was difficult to explain why he wouldn’t let a mother he never met before go near her children, or why he wouldn’t let an immediate family member with a known disorder approach a sane family friend even though they had known each others for a long time. So it’s subjective.
And for the last one… isn’t that more of an “in the eyes of the beholder”?
Either way, the strip is hilarious; especially if one doesn’t know what to expect of primitive dogs, it certainly seems that way!
Recalling reading about Queensland Heelers being used as bear dogs in the Pacific Northwest, I decided to see why someone would be insane enough to use a herding dog for a bear; so, thus began the adventure of reading up on how heelers were used in their native homeland as catch-dogs for feral pigs. No, get that mental image of Sui, Steve Irwin’s dog, baying a hog out!
Anyway, immediately, I thought about Tod and his wasted potentials; about how Shiba Inus were rumoured to flush birds and bay boars. Unfortunately there is an over-saturation of “cutesy” videos on the Internet, and not enough of either actual sporting or working Shibas being used on anything other than grouses or pheasants. Nevertheless, one can actually find videos of Kishu, Kai and Shikoku being used in Nippon:
Now that being said, I have no use for such dogs here, especially ones with reputations for attempting to bay a game much larger than they could catch. We have no hogs or boars to concern ourselves with. Unleashed dogs chasing deers, moose and sheep are shot. At best, only leashed tracking dogs could be used for hoofed critters. Now if only this is America… where people are not limited to small quarries.
Now this otaku need to get off his behind and actually do something with his own dog.
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