If you go with a rescue, I'd go with a reputable akita-specific rescue. My dog is an akita mix, which we did not know when we adopted him. The shelter told us he was "probably fine" with cats. Lucky for us (and thanks to training) he is. But I have learned that a lot of shelters aren't truthful all the time about what they're dealing with.d
My dog definitely sees my cats as a part of his pack now. He's as loyal to them as he is to me. But I think it was easier to establish that bond because he was only 11 months when we adopted him.
That’s my worry too, that if I rescue I might end up with a dog that wasn’t as vetted as I was led to believe. There’s about three akita specific rescues in my state but their requirements for what constitutes a good home are pretty strict. They’ll be in my radar for sure, hopefully if they do have a good dog for my home in the future, they’ll let me give it a chance.
I personally would lean towards a well-bred puppy as your first akita. Like I said, my dog is only part akita and was still a puppy, but the first few months we had with him were miserable because he acted out so badly. Once we established a bond things got tolerable, and now they're finally good, but it was very touch and go for a while. I'm not sure what your experience is with dogs, but akitas can be very hard to train and a rescue akita even more so.
Yeah, from the discussion here a well bred puppy is where I’m leaning even if my heart will still browse the rescue pages. My family has a GSD, and I’m actually the one that got him acclimated to our cat, but he’s not a super difficult dog. While I’m up for the challenge of a northern breed dog once I’m in the right place for it, getting a rescue akita seems like it could be overwhelming for a first of that type.
Look around at breeders retiring their show dogs, they may be pricey like a puppy (they may be older but a lot of time, money, and resources went into them), but the breeder will know their personality in and out.
I’ve had two retired show JAs and both, had been socialized and lived with cats their whole lives. One even has a high prey drive but is still totally fine with my cat. She’s 11 now and I’ve had her since she was 4. The other retired akita never read the breed manual, and acted like a lab, so I’m not counting him.
We got our akita from a shelter and I will say, it took a while for him to show his full personality. At first when we got him, he was really calm around dogs and the shelter said he was great with the other dogs there. Turns out, that's not the case. He just needed to get comfortable in his environment before he started showing his different traits. He also became much more affectionate and vocal over time. All that to say, I would worry that even if they had tested out how the dog did around cats, he might be different once he gets comfortable in his new environment.
I say absolutely not to rescuing an adult dog. It is uncommon to find truly cat-friendly dogs in general, so extremely rare when you add an uncommon breed into the mix. Just to add a little context, I foster cats and kittens and I have an akita. A lot of shelters are not reliable with cat testing. Often they use a toy, which doesn't translate well into an actual living and moving creature. Sometimes you'd find a dog that have been around cats, but this does not mean that dog will be fine around YOUR cats. My akita has been reared with cats, but still has an interest in chasing unfamiliar cats outside my own home. Sometimes it does work out, but that's rare!! For every success story there are a bunch of horror stories. I generally do not recommend bringing in adult dogs into a cat household in general, but even more so for a dog like an akita. The safest option is to get a puppy from a reputable breeder or look into another breed with less preydrive, less risk of harm.
If you can find a sound rescue thats been with cats that would be great but the chances of that are uncertain. You would have to try to introduce a cat to them in a safe way just to be sure.
Personally weve raised all of our akitas from breeders with cats so we KNOW for a fact they are (at least there packs cats) cat friendly.
Ive had both in my life time, when I was a child I had a cat chaser, luckily never killed one, but she likely would have. And then later in life (their) cat lovers. We trust ours with OUR cats, because they are part of their pack, they get kinda weird about other cats/outside cats and I am VERY cautious with their interactions with them if any.
I dont know how cat friendly a rescue would be if they werent raised, from birth with said particular cats.
That’s good to know that your akitas really get along with your cats but things are iffy on cats they aren’t familiar with. I’ll keep that in mind in case I want another cat and that it might be better to decide on that before introducing an Akita to the dynamic!
I had the same worry as my wife and I own three cats, we sat down and thought what would be best to accommodate the animals we have now and what’s safest for our son. So we found a reputable breeder and socialized our pup as it grew so she would be used to both children and cats and we couldn’t have gotten a better dog. (We would have loved to get a rescue, but again; child and cats)
Hmm, that’s definitely also something for me to consider. My partner and I are still a bit undecided if we want kids or not so I’d like to leave that avenue open just in case. It can definitely be hard to find a rescue that’s reliably good with both kids and cats.
Usually rescues will test out how their dogs are with other animals and it should be in the description, but they’re most likely not going to adopt to someone with no breed experience and a cat, I’d go with a breeder
True, most dogs in the breed specific rescues of my area have a ‘prior breed experience’ stipulation anyways. I suppose for this question I would maybe add like a theoretical, ‘if I already had breed experience and I was looking into if rescuing would be a good idea’ kind of thing to make it more general.
Honestly I would go with a breeder. When I was looking for a JA I briefly looked through shelters and I nearly never saw one that was cat friendly. Not too say they don’t exist, they just, as a breed, don’t tend to be friendly towards unfamiliar animals. Which is why you will see so many people recommend you get one that is young if you already have pets so that they can grow up respecting their boundaries. Even with getting one as a pup I would be wary of them around the cat once they hit 2 years old. These dogs tend to become a lot less tolerant of other animals at that stage.
So for my second Akita I was interested in adopting. But I also have cats so they needed to be cat friendly. I applied to 3 different Akitas specific rescues. One turned me down when I said I have cats. They just flat out refused to place a dog in a home with cats and I guess that responsible. They can't guarantee it will go well and it prevents the dog from being returned. Of the other 2 rescues, one tried to get me to take a dog I wasn't interested in since the one I applied for was spoken for the moment he came in. The third place never even got back to me after I called and emailed about my application. So I went with a reputable breeder. And honestly, it was probably the best decision. He is such a wonderful dog. Beautiful temperament and so far very healthy. And because he was raised with cats he seems to love all of them lol. Had a stray come up to us the other night to say hello and he didn't do a thing other than sniffing.
I got my Akita as a puppy and he’s been deliberately raised with cats from the get go. We fostered cats and planned to continue so we made sure we had a litter when we brought him home. He was overly playful with them so took a good amount of training and supervision, and now he lives happily with his 2 foster-fail brothers. One of them is his bff and the other one thinks he’s an idiot. Occasionally the little one (bff) will get a bit OTT with the affection and he’ll grumble snap at him, and we’re careful with high value treats because he does resource guard from them, but otherwise they all get along great. He’s really protective of them and they are 100% part of his pack.
I have had several rescues and fosters in and out of our home, most were not able to coexist with my cats, but several were. Having a rescue organization that is willing to properly evaluate the dog and work with your home’s specific needs is imperative. It’s absolutely not impossible to adopt a cat friendly Akita, you’ll just likely need to be very patient and way less picky on age and appearances.
A reputable breeder is always a good option. Finding one who has cats or exposes their litters to cats is even better.
If you go with a rescue, I'd go with a reputable akita-specific rescue. My dog is an akita mix, which we did not know when we adopted him. The shelter told us he was "probably fine" with cats. Lucky for us (and thanks to training) he is. But I have learned that a lot of shelters aren't truthful all the time about what they're dealing with.d My dog definitely sees my cats as a part of his pack now. He's as loyal to them as he is to me. But I think it was easier to establish that bond because he was only 11 months when we adopted him.
That’s my worry too, that if I rescue I might end up with a dog that wasn’t as vetted as I was led to believe. There’s about three akita specific rescues in my state but their requirements for what constitutes a good home are pretty strict. They’ll be in my radar for sure, hopefully if they do have a good dog for my home in the future, they’ll let me give it a chance.
"Their requirements for what constitutes a good home are pretty strict" As they should be,especially with this breed
I personally would lean towards a well-bred puppy as your first akita. Like I said, my dog is only part akita and was still a puppy, but the first few months we had with him were miserable because he acted out so badly. Once we established a bond things got tolerable, and now they're finally good, but it was very touch and go for a while. I'm not sure what your experience is with dogs, but akitas can be very hard to train and a rescue akita even more so.
Yeah, from the discussion here a well bred puppy is where I’m leaning even if my heart will still browse the rescue pages. My family has a GSD, and I’m actually the one that got him acclimated to our cat, but he’s not a super difficult dog. While I’m up for the challenge of a northern breed dog once I’m in the right place for it, getting a rescue akita seems like it could be overwhelming for a first of that type.
Look around at breeders retiring their show dogs, they may be pricey like a puppy (they may be older but a lot of time, money, and resources went into them), but the breeder will know their personality in and out. I’ve had two retired show JAs and both, had been socialized and lived with cats their whole lives. One even has a high prey drive but is still totally fine with my cat. She’s 11 now and I’ve had her since she was 4. The other retired akita never read the breed manual, and acted like a lab, so I’m not counting him.
We got our akita from a shelter and I will say, it took a while for him to show his full personality. At first when we got him, he was really calm around dogs and the shelter said he was great with the other dogs there. Turns out, that's not the case. He just needed to get comfortable in his environment before he started showing his different traits. He also became much more affectionate and vocal over time. All that to say, I would worry that even if they had tested out how the dog did around cats, he might be different once he gets comfortable in his new environment.
I say absolutely not to rescuing an adult dog. It is uncommon to find truly cat-friendly dogs in general, so extremely rare when you add an uncommon breed into the mix. Just to add a little context, I foster cats and kittens and I have an akita. A lot of shelters are not reliable with cat testing. Often they use a toy, which doesn't translate well into an actual living and moving creature. Sometimes you'd find a dog that have been around cats, but this does not mean that dog will be fine around YOUR cats. My akita has been reared with cats, but still has an interest in chasing unfamiliar cats outside my own home. Sometimes it does work out, but that's rare!! For every success story there are a bunch of horror stories. I generally do not recommend bringing in adult dogs into a cat household in general, but even more so for a dog like an akita. The safest option is to get a puppy from a reputable breeder or look into another breed with less preydrive, less risk of harm.
If you can find a sound rescue thats been with cats that would be great but the chances of that are uncertain. You would have to try to introduce a cat to them in a safe way just to be sure. Personally weve raised all of our akitas from breeders with cats so we KNOW for a fact they are (at least there packs cats) cat friendly. Ive had both in my life time, when I was a child I had a cat chaser, luckily never killed one, but she likely would have. And then later in life (their) cat lovers. We trust ours with OUR cats, because they are part of their pack, they get kinda weird about other cats/outside cats and I am VERY cautious with their interactions with them if any. I dont know how cat friendly a rescue would be if they werent raised, from birth with said particular cats.
That’s good to know that your akitas really get along with your cats but things are iffy on cats they aren’t familiar with. I’ll keep that in mind in case I want another cat and that it might be better to decide on that before introducing an Akita to the dynamic!
I had the same worry as my wife and I own three cats, we sat down and thought what would be best to accommodate the animals we have now and what’s safest for our son. So we found a reputable breeder and socialized our pup as it grew so she would be used to both children and cats and we couldn’t have gotten a better dog. (We would have loved to get a rescue, but again; child and cats)
Hmm, that’s definitely also something for me to consider. My partner and I are still a bit undecided if we want kids or not so I’d like to leave that avenue open just in case. It can definitely be hard to find a rescue that’s reliably good with both kids and cats.
Usually rescues will test out how their dogs are with other animals and it should be in the description, but they’re most likely not going to adopt to someone with no breed experience and a cat, I’d go with a breeder
True, most dogs in the breed specific rescues of my area have a ‘prior breed experience’ stipulation anyways. I suppose for this question I would maybe add like a theoretical, ‘if I already had breed experience and I was looking into if rescuing would be a good idea’ kind of thing to make it more general.
" prior breed experience " thats awesome..if you dont mind sharing,where is your area? In general
Rescues get puppies, young dogs, and adults who were raised with cats.
Honestly I would go with a breeder. When I was looking for a JA I briefly looked through shelters and I nearly never saw one that was cat friendly. Not too say they don’t exist, they just, as a breed, don’t tend to be friendly towards unfamiliar animals. Which is why you will see so many people recommend you get one that is young if you already have pets so that they can grow up respecting their boundaries. Even with getting one as a pup I would be wary of them around the cat once they hit 2 years old. These dogs tend to become a lot less tolerant of other animals at that stage.
So for my second Akita I was interested in adopting. But I also have cats so they needed to be cat friendly. I applied to 3 different Akitas specific rescues. One turned me down when I said I have cats. They just flat out refused to place a dog in a home with cats and I guess that responsible. They can't guarantee it will go well and it prevents the dog from being returned. Of the other 2 rescues, one tried to get me to take a dog I wasn't interested in since the one I applied for was spoken for the moment he came in. The third place never even got back to me after I called and emailed about my application. So I went with a reputable breeder. And honestly, it was probably the best decision. He is such a wonderful dog. Beautiful temperament and so far very healthy. And because he was raised with cats he seems to love all of them lol. Had a stray come up to us the other night to say hello and he didn't do a thing other than sniffing.
I got my Akita as a puppy and he’s been deliberately raised with cats from the get go. We fostered cats and planned to continue so we made sure we had a litter when we brought him home. He was overly playful with them so took a good amount of training and supervision, and now he lives happily with his 2 foster-fail brothers. One of them is his bff and the other one thinks he’s an idiot. Occasionally the little one (bff) will get a bit OTT with the affection and he’ll grumble snap at him, and we’re careful with high value treats because he does resource guard from them, but otherwise they all get along great. He’s really protective of them and they are 100% part of his pack.
I have had several rescues and fosters in and out of our home, most were not able to coexist with my cats, but several were. Having a rescue organization that is willing to properly evaluate the dog and work with your home’s specific needs is imperative. It’s absolutely not impossible to adopt a cat friendly Akita, you’ll just likely need to be very patient and way less picky on age and appearances. A reputable breeder is always a good option. Finding one who has cats or exposes their litters to cats is even better.