The Shiba Inu is a beautiful Spitz dog. You will get many compliments and turn many heads, while walking next to a Shiba.
A Shiba can get you a lot of attention, and open doors to many social encounters. Get used to hearing, “He looks just like a fox!”.
In fact, it is this foxy look that often gets Shibas into trouble.
Many people fall in love with the ‘Shiba look’, but are not equipped to handle his larger than life personality.
If you like the Spitz look, there are many other breeds that fall into this group, that may better suit your lifestyle.
The Good
1. A dog that is more like a cat
A Shiba Inu is independent and very clean.
My Shiba Sephy, spends a fair amount of time not just grooming himself, but also helping to groom my Siberian Husky.
Their inborn cleanliness make them generally easy to potty train.
Sephy only had potty mistakes on the first day that we brought him home (10 weeks old). After that, he has always let me know when he needs to go outside. In fact, he naturally dislikes soiling his living space, and even prefers not to go in our backyard.
Shiba Inus like having their humans around, in the general vicinity. However, they are aloof like cats, and do not need or want human affection, much of the time.
2. A good watch dog
A Shiba Inu is not a noisy dog. However, when there are strange people or strange noises around the house, Sephy will bark to alert me. Once I go and check things out, he stops barking.
Sephy also has a great memory, and will alert me if anything is out of place around the house, or in a familiar neighborhood. One day, he started barking at the fence, because somebody had put a piece of wood on top of it – amazing!
3. Graceful, agile, and high energy
A Shiba Inu is graceful and agile.
He can leap tall fences in a single bound, and can scale walls like Spiderman. If properly directed, his super powers can be used for good. However, when left on his own, the Shiba will likely turn towards the Dark Side.
Sephy is a great hiking buddy, and is always up for a new challenge. He can easily learn and conquer an agility course, but he will only do it, if I make it worth his while.
A Shiba running is a sight to behold, and a Shiba at play is poetry in motion.
4. A doggy Einstein
A Shiba Inu can learn many dog obedience commands, and he can learn them very quickly. He also thinks that he is much smarter than you, and will only obey you when it suits him.
Sephy can quickly solve complex interactive dog toys and puzzles. I am always trying out new ways to deploy his food in toys, because he figures things out so quickly.
A Shiba will challenge us and keep us sharp and on our toes!
5. A larger than life personality
No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
~~[ Aristotle ]
A Shiba Inu may be small in body, but he has a ginormous personality. If a Shiba were a person, he would either be an extremely successful egomaniac or in prison!
Sephy always surprises me and makes me laugh; at least when he is not making me cry.
He has this one move, where he puts his head down on the ground, with his butt sticking up in the air – it is just too precious.
The Bad
1. Bold, strong willed, and stubborn
A Shiba Inu has a “Never give up, Never surrender” attitude.
He will not back down from a challenge, and will often fight back when he perceives a threat. Because of this, many Shiba owners face aggression issues with their dog, including food aggression, dog to dog aggression, and people aggression.
To successfully live with a Shiba, we must be extremely patient, and have a good sense of humor.
Turn a Shiba’s annoying habits against him.
For example, a Shiba gets bored easily. If we ignore him and give him nothing to react to, he will quickly lose interest, and move on to something else.
Sephy can also be very competitive. If he sees another dog getting praise and rewards, he will want to strut his stuff and show that he is better.
Work with a Shiba’s innate personality, and use it motivate him in the right direction. Passive resistance and reward obedience training, work best with my Shiba.
A Shiba will hand you many lemons, which is good if you like lemonade. Otherwise, just cut one up and squirt it on his muzzle.
~~[ just kidding! ShibaShake ]
2. A sly, rougish intelligence
A Shiba Inu is super intelligent. He will most often use his brain power to “push your buttons“, and get what he wants.
Sephy is always trying to figure out how he can outsmart me, and all the humans around him. A trainer once told me that Sephy was spending the weekends, “Devising new strategies to defeat her”.
In another life, my Shiba was probably a Catholic priest. He can guilt me into doing almost anything for him.
Beware the Shiba look – it is one of his most powerful weapons, and he will use it to great effect, if he senses any weakness in you. Before you know it, your Shiba will have gotten you trained to fetch, stay, and rub tummy.
- Remember that a Shiba will do whatever he wants, if he can get away with it.
- If he cannot get away with it, he will figure out another way to get what he wants.
- When he gets caught with his nose in the cookie jar, he will give you the innocent, “What did I do?” look, and then come over to lick your hand.
As soon as you turn away, he is back in the cookie jar!
3. Like the evil, black Spiderman
A Shiba Inu is capable of great feats of agility. However, if left untrained, he will use his powers to destroy and cause great havoc in the household.
If bored and lonely, he will escape by jumping over or burrowing under your fence. He can squeeze through small holes, bite through leashes, and achieve amazing great escapes, that will make Houdini proud.
If not properly supervised, Sephy will pull down items from counters, and shred them to pieces. He may even eat some of those pieces. Once, I left him unsupervised for about 10 minutes. In that time, he pulled down a phone headset, dismantled it into little pieces, and arranged them in a strategic pattern all over the floor. Luckily, he did not swallow anything.
A young Shiba Inu has a lot of energy.
It takes a lot to keep him occupied, and away from trouble. Supervised play sessions with friendly dogs can help. Another alternative is to put him in dog daycare, or to employ the services of a dog walker.
4. A Drama Queen
My Shiba will whine, mope, and act like it is the end of the world, when he is unhappy about something (e.g. wearing a harness).
Woe be to you if your Shiba gets hurt, or even just thinks that he is hurt.
Sephy acts like he is close to death’s door, even for small things like getting grass stuck between his teeth.
Woe be to you, woe be to your vet, and woe be to anyone who tries to help.
Shibas are extremely touchy when in this state, and may snap or bite at anyone who comes near them.
In addition, Sephy is extremely sensitive to the energy of the people and dogs around him. If I am scared or stressed-out, he picks up on that immediately, and gets that way too – except with a thousand times more gusto!
5. An accomplished singer
A Shiba Inu does not bark much, but he has a wide range of vocal stylings.
The most well known is the Shiba-scream, which is a high pitched, loud scream, that will make your blood curdle. Your neighbors will think you are torturing your poor little ball of fur.
A Shiba will quickly learn to use his Shiba-scream against you, if you let him.
Do not get embarrassed, and do not give him a reaction during a Shiba-scream. I just ignore Sephy and go about my business. He quickly learned that screaming is not very effective at getting him what he wants, and he stopped doing it. Remember that a Shiba can see your outward appearance, as well as sense your inner energy.
6. Dog royalty
A Shiba Inu does not like being touched or handled.
Cutting nails, bathing, or a vet examination, is never fun for any breed of dog. However, with a Shiba, it can be total hell.
After a lot of desensitization work and management, Sephy still protests to some of these activities. He sometimes throws a fit when I pick him up, and he only likes human contact when the mood suits him.
A Shiba is like dog royalty. He wants his subjects close enough to serve him, but not too close as to sully his royal person.
7. Pretends not to understand ‘Obedience’
Obedience? What’s that?
Shibas Inus think that you should be obedient to them and not the other way around. If you want a Shiba to do something for you, you had better make him a good offer. Sometimes, Sephy bargains with me. He will sit there and wait until I have the acceptable number of dog treats in my hand, before going into his crate.
A Shiba can be a good citizen at home, but he must be properly managed.
Shibas are strong willed, independent, and bred to hunt. Aversive training does not work well on them. Shiba owners need to be creative and flexible when interacting with their dog.
A Shiba is not to be trusted off-leash, unless in a fully enclosed area.
8. Nasty, wicked teeth
For a small dog, a Shiba Inu has very large teeth, and he is not afraid to use them.
Shibas can be very mouthy; more so than many other dog breeds. When I first got Sephy at 10 weeks old, his mouth was all over me. Now, it is in control, but his instinct is still to bite.
Shibas are a primitive breed, and they lose control more easily than other more domesticated dog breeds.
The Quirky
A grass connoisseur
Sephy likes grazing, but he is picky about what grass he will eat. Dogs may sometimes graze when their stomachs are upset, to clear their digestive systems. However, my Shiba just enjoys eating grass, provided it is the right kind of grass.
I recently found an article suggesting that there might be something to this grass connoisseur business after all.
“We at Green Foods believe that dogs and many other carnivores, including cats and bears, eat cereal grasses because cereal grasses contain nutrients not found in meat that are essential for the animals’ good health.”
~~[ Green Foods web site ]
Thanks to all the posters at Shibatalk and ShibaInuInfo for their many humorous Shiba stories that inspired this article.
I have another problem with my 6 month old male shiba inu. Most of the time I think that I overreact to every little thing. I want so bad for him to be happy and healthy. For the last week my shiba inu has been sneezing alot and very hard…everything else about his health seems fine…he is eating, drinking, peeing and pooping normally. He doesn’t seem to be lathargic at all. He is just sneezing soooo much. The vet says that it could be allergies, but nothing in the house has changed since he came home at 8 weeks and I’ve never seen him sneeze like this…do you have any suggestions. By the way I very much appreciate your previous advice and it’s worked wonders for him…Thank you so much for all help
signed,
Concerned Shiba Parent
Hi Meg,
I am the same way too. When he got his first tick I rushed him to the emergency room – lol. The nurses there thought I was totally nuts 🙂
As for the sneezing, my Shiba also does that sometimes. I think it is due to the change in seasons, and different types of pollen getting into the air. If it gets bad, I give him some allergy medicine. Your vet should be able to help you with that.
It doesn’t sound like this is the case here, but I do want to mention that sometimes, sneezing can also be caused by some foreign object in the nose. One time my Shiba got a fox-tail in his nose, and it was really bad. I took him to the emergency room for that because fox-tails are really bad news for dogs. It gets in there and sticks and won’t come out on its own. But when that happened, he was also sneezing out blood. Now I am very careful to keep him away from those things.
Btw. I really like The Well Dog Book
by Terri McGinnis. She is a vet and she writes about all the common health issues with dogs, what symptoms to look out for, and when a vet visit is necessary.
Hugs to your Shiba. Please let me know how it goes.
My shiba will sneeze when commanded to speak. It’s a very superficial sneeze. Although cute, i don’t reward her until she barks.
Hello my name is safa and i just baught a shiba inu for my birthday because he was just too cute but i didnt realize what kind of dog he is and how hyper he is i have a 2 year old maltese that i had since he was two months old and the shiba and the maltese nonstop fight but the maltese sits down and the shiba bites alot and hurts my maltese and makes him scream i always have to keep them seperate and i dont want to give away my shiba and im afraid of the shiba getting older and seriously injuring my maltese do you have any advise on what i should do. if you can email me at [snipped e-mail] thank you so much
Hello Safa,
To keep yourself safe from spam-emails, it is best not to post your e-mail address in the text of comments. For this reason, I have taken out your email in the post above.
As you have probably read from the article and comments above, Shibas are difficult dogs and usually require a fair amount of time, effort, and patience to train. You need to ask yourself if you truly truly have the time to commit to your Shiba.
If so, I would consider getting a professional trainer. Here are two articles that may also be helpful –
Puppy Obedience Training
Shiba Inu training secrets
If you decide that the Shiba is too much to handle at this time, then now is probably a good time to find a different home for him. He is young, so he is probably most adoptable now, and will be able to find a good alternate home.
Females are the alpha of this species, not the males. If there are two pregnant females in the pack, they will fight to the death. I think mine really is a cat in dogs clothing. She’s friendly to every animal. She will swim (while I walk) along the breakwater, gladly. A year ago, she managed to leap from my car window. The window was cracked as usual, but she got some leverage from a blanket up against the door. Broken leg = $4,500 and lesson learned.
Isn’t that the case with everything? 😉
And yeah I definitely agree with you that the female Shibas rule. From the breeders I have met, it seems that this is true with other breeds as well. This would be a great poll to have. Thanks! 🙂
I have a ShibaChi, adopted at ~age 3. We’d had her for about a year… hubby’s pumping gas, Brandy’s IN MY LAP, passenger window is down. She leaps out of the Tundra’s window and lands, like a cat, on all fours! A guy leaving the gas station stopped and said, “She saw something she wanted….”
Mine loves the snow and hates the water! She’ll run along the shore as I float on the river…..
I just got a shiba. She is 6 months old. I am glad to hear all the comments about how active they can be. Thank goodness I like to take walks!! Now, about leash training….any helpful hints. She loves to run ahead and explore, she is interested in EVERYTHING. I don’t want to be one of those people whose dog walks them.
Hi Debra,
The red-light, green-light as well as turn-around techniques both worked very well for me.
red-light, green-light –
Every time the leash gets tight, I stop. As soon as the leash is loose again, I start walking again. In the beginning I had to start and stop a lot but after a while my Shiba learned to stop pulling because pulling gets him nowhere.
turn-around –
Sometimes, my Shiba will keep pulling and pulling because he is excited about something in front of him. He may even keep pulling and choke himself when we are stopped. When Shiba is too excited, I will turn around and walk back where we came. Once he starts walking nicely again, I turn back and see how he does.
I consistently kept repeating these two techniques and Sephy learned that pulling never gets him in the direction that he wants to go. Once that happens, he stopped pulling.
Initially, I used a harness while walking my Shiba so that he won’t choke himself while pulling.
Here is more on leash training –
Leash Training my Shiba Inu
my shiba hits each of these characteristics on the nose. She is wild, crazy, and out of control most of the time, while also having a sensitive, sweet, lovable side. once i had her, i knew she’d stick with me for a long time. they are such a hyper energy level breed you wouldn’t believe. i recommend this dog for someone who is also very active and likes to keep running. not someone who doesn’t have the patience.
Great advice. Shibas have to be exercised every day. In addition, they *will* challenge you – more so in the beginning but they will probably do it for their entire life. Patience is key for any dog, but especially for a Shiba 🙂
You talk about Shibas being smart. My Shiba, Jiji, is very good at sneaking out the house…most of the time. If my husband or I leave the door open, even a crack, he will find any chance he can to sneak out. But if my kids open the door and leave it wide open he will just sit inside. The kids are ages 2 & 4 and somehow Jiji knows that they are not responsible enough to shut the door and he won’t leave. He will sit inside with the door wide open and not go anywhere. Too smart.
I have some training issues with my shiba…he gets good exercise everyday and I try to give him alot of attention and play with him alot…however, more recently he is whining alot…I will take him outside and then when we come back into the house he will whine within 15minutes of being in the house…any suggestions?
Hi Meg,
Yeah, don’t give in to the whining. Shibas will often use that to get what they want. Is your Shiba already potty trained? If so, just ignore the whining and only let him out when the whining stops. Don’t give him anything when he is whining, as that will only reinforce that behavior.
As soon as he stops whining, wait a short bit more for some quiet, mark him (good boy), then let him out. Then, slowly increase the quiet time on subsequent sessions. You can also ask for an obedience command before you let him out. My Shiba always has to sit before I open the door for him.
You have to try and really ignore him though – which means no giving in, and no feeling bad, irritated, stressed, etc. Shibas are very sensitive to human energy, and as long as they get a reaction from you, even just an internal reaction, they will keep going.
You can also try a time-out, but I find that ignoring is usually sufficient with my Shiba.
Also, the NILIF program is a very good idea for Shibas. Don’t do anything for Shiba unless he does something for you first – he sits before he goes out, he lies down before he gets toys, etc.
Of course, if Shiba is sick, then you want to let him out etc. whenever he needs to.
Thank you very much, I tried what you said and it worked in one day. I have another question…when I first brought my shiba home I made the mistake of leaving his food out for him all the time…Now I am trying to get him on a schedule but nothing I’ve tried has worked he still won’t eat very much…do you have any suggestions on an eating routine…He is a six month old shiba
Glad to hear that it worked out. As for the food, just do the same thing. Shibas can get extremely picky about their food if you let them. I give Sephy his food on my schedule, and I also make him work for it by using interactive food toys. If he doesn’t want to eat it, that is fine. I take it away after a bit. At the next scheduled time, I try again. Sephy will eat when he is hungry.
Sometimes my Shiba won’t eat for a whole day, then the next day he makes up for it. To get my Shiba to work for me, and do grooming tasks, I usually use high priority food.
I have to agree with you on almost your entire website. But i think Shiba’s can be home all day and not destroy your house if you manage them right. I have a 3 year old male named Omi and he stays home Monday-Friday from 7am- 5pm with out destroying my house, the kids toys or misbehaving. After work the kids and I come home and we either take him on a 3-5 mile walk or we play “Shiba Soccer” in the backyard to help him get rid of the pent up Shiba Crazy Energy that builds all day while we are gone. It took about 6 months to be able to leave him uncrated during the day, but he does great! By the time we get home he has emptied his bucket of toys and hidden them all over the house and we spend half the night finding his toys and putting them back in his toy box so he can hide them again the next day.
On the puddles, Omi will literally stop walking and wait for me to carry him over the puddles. Getting his feet wet is not an option.
I think you are right – but the key words are “if you manage them right” 🙂 As you describe, they still require a lot of exercise, play time, and attention. 3-5 mile walk and Shiba Soccer sound great! Lucky Shiba!
Love the toy hide-and-seek. My Shiba does that too, but only on toys that he ‘thinks’ he is not supposed to have. He likes going for the toys on shelves and such. Or he will try to open the closed toy-box. Sometimes I will challenge him by putting toys in hard to get places – lol.
You couldn’t be more right about shibas! My Salem is a cream male that is such a goofball. He puts his head on the ground with his butt in the air and digs sideways. He hates water but loves to play in the rain and has a ball in the mud. I’d love to get another but our pug is content being the baby in the family! lol
LOL! That sounds like a Shiba! Mine does the sideways walk thing when I scratch him on his hind legs. Shibas really are clowns. They are always coming up with new stand-up routines. 🙂
That is exactly like my Shiba – lol. I should really include this in the article. My Shiba walks to avoid puddles of water on the sidewalk, but likes playing in the mud pools at the park 😀
Shibas really make life interesting …
i am looking at a shiba at a rescue and it was kinda hyper, in its own world, definatly her personality described evrything u said, but she has been in there for a month and is about 1-2 yrs old, is a stray. do u think she has hope? for training? thanks!
Thanks for dropping by JNew, and it is really great that you are considering adopting a dog.
All healthy dogs can be retrained and managed. Some dogs however will take more time, and patience. Shibas tend to be more difficult to train because they are naturally stubborn and dominant.
It all depends on what you want from a dog, how much time you have, and how much patience you have 🙂 Shibas will never be totally obedient, but if properly trained and managed, they can be a lot of fun and a great joy to live with.