Our boy just had his 6th birthday when things started to go south very quickly. Overnight he started vomiting and couldn’t get up for his walks. . . . Read Full Story
We purchased our Akita puppy, Ronin, from Alaska Akitas in March of 2016. Both his parents were from Royalty Akitas in Lincoln, CA. He was one of 11 (10 surviving) of his litter. I would eventually find out that his litter was the third consecutive litter for his young mother. Alaska is on the other side of the country from us, so we were not able to visit the puppies or meet the breeder ahead of time. The transaction went smoothly and Anthony Lively, the owner of Alaska Akitas, at first seemed knowledgeable and dedicated to breeding healthy and superior dogs. When I selected our puppy, we were told that he and one other pup had a small skin infection on their backs, but it was treated and he said they both responded well to the antibiotic shampoo. However, because of this, Anthony said these two pups would have limited AKC registration and could not be bred. This was fine with us, as we didn’t plan on breeding or showing. I felt reassured that the skin problem was taken care of and nothing to worry about. He also told us, that if it turned out to be a problem, “no big deal” because we would be covered under his health guarantee, which would give us a new puppy. We picked Ronin up from the airport—he flew from Alaska, to Seattle, and then to Orlando, FL. It was a long trip for him. He was very vocal—I could hear him on the phone when the airport attendant called to tell me he had arrived, clearly he was ready to be done with traveling. We were very excited to meet our new puppy. As soon as I took Ronin out of his crate we were instantly in love and captivated by his cute puppy-ness. However, I did notice immediately that his front legs looked odd. He almost looked dwarf-like to me, and the bones looked bowed and bulging. Ronin was my third Akita puppy, and neither of my other two looked like he did. I figured it was just a weird stage for him and tried not to be concerned about it. Once we got home, the introduction between Ronin and my female Akita, Miko, did not go so well. As to be expected, Miko was not thrilled with Ronin, and he didn’t seem to notice her dislike of him. . . . Read Full Story
