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. Fast forward a few weeks and Ronin and Miko eventually came to some sort of understanding, however, Ronin was not one to back down to Miko, and he was even bold enough to attack her face, unprovoked, on numerous occasions. They were separated quite a bit during this transition period. As we got to know Ronin, we discovered that he was incredibly sweet (that dog loved us harder than any other dog we’ve had!), he was loving, he was funny, and he was protective. He was also very nervous, fearful, his reactions could not be trusted, and he was unsure of anyone outside of our immediate family. Our two other Akitas were as friendly as could be, which I know isn’t always the case with Akitas, however, as a puppy, we expected him to be a little bit less concerned with people. He never got excited or acted like a wild and crazy puppy, he also never chewed on things or did other typical puppy behaviors. I did consult our previous dog trainer and had her come out to work with us early on. When I brought Ronin to his first round of vet appointments (10-12 weeks?), I mentioned my concern about his bowed legs and the protruding bones in his front legs. The vet agreed that they looked odd and suggested an x-ray. We x-rayed them and this would be the first time that I wrote Anthony about a physical/health-related concern regarding Ronin. He seemed interested, but made sure to let me know that he had never had any other problems with any of his other puppies, so he was doubtful that it was anything. His response seemed defensive, but appropriate. The results from the x-ray said Ronin had mild carpal valgus and that we should monitor and follow up with a specialist if need be. I let Anthony know and felt like we might be ok, and it was something he would outgrow. Fast forward to early May. Ronin is now about 14 weeks. He went in for a booster shot. Right before this appointment, I noticed that he had a hugely swollen popliteal lymph node. I pointed it out to the vet and because of his age and the size of it, she was concerned. She did an aspirate on it just to be safe, and sent us home with an antibiotic. She also held off on some of his shots because of this. The next morning, he refused to eat, which was VERY unlike him, and then he started vomiting. I assumed it was from the antibiotic, but I called the vet just to be sure. I can’t remember the time line off the top of my head, but we stopped the meds, brought him in to the vet for a shot to help him with the vomiting, he needed to go to the ER vet later that night. They gave him electrolytes overnight and by morning he was doing a bit better. This went on for a few days. Ronin back to not doing well- vomiting, not eating, lethargic, depressed, vitals not that great, blood tests showing a few problems, then he’d do a little better. (btw, the node aspirate came back fine) I notified Anthony during this time that Ronin was not doing well and we didn’t know what was going on with him. Anthony was concerned and offered to have his vet look at the information. I took him up on that and sent his vet all the medical records I had. Again, not sure of the timeline, but Ronin was back home with us, still not doing well, so I had my neighbor across the street, who is a vet, look at Ronin. By this point he had lost a significant amount of weight, would sleep with us in bed and pee all over himself, and was not eating and still vomiting, and he was barely able to hold himself up or walk. After examining him and looking at his lab results, she had me bring him over to the clinic for electrolytes and further testing; all of his symptoms screamed Addison’s disease to her. They immediately started him on electrolytes, and I opted to have the ACTH stim test done, which is the only way to confirm Addison’s. Because he was so sick, he was pre-emptively treated with the meds that he would get with a positive diagnosis: Percorten and Prednisone. The results came back the next day, positive for Addison’s disease. At this point, I made the decision to switch vets, too. Meanwhile, in the back and forth emails between Anthony, his vet (Dr. Marna) and myself, Dr. Marna commented to Anthony: “didn’t you have a puppy with Addison’s?” (inferring that the symptoms sounded like Addison’s). I received this email at the same time that we were checking for Addison’s in Ronin. After I notified Anthony of Ronin’s diagnosis, he called me. He said how sorry he was that Ronin was sick, asked if we wanted to send him back, was glad/relieved when I said no, and then he said he would honor our contract which stated that we could get a new puppy. I made it clear to him that Ronin was our dog, we loved him, he loved us, and we’d never send him back. Not to mention, he was not healthy enough to go anywhere!! When we were on the phone, I asked him if he had had another puppy with Addison’s before; he said no, then stumbled and said, “I think I’d remember, yes, I’d remember if I had another puppy with Addison’s.” Not that reassuring! I asked him if he had seen Dr. Marna’s email where she mentioned it, he said he didn’t get that email. Ronin eventually started doing better and getting back to his old self. He still needed daily meds and would forever need daily meds and a monthly shot for his Addison’s, but it was manageable. At this point, I don’t recall Anthony checking in. I would periodically send him updates, and he stated that he was talking to his breeder, who said it was impossible for Ronin to have Addison’s because none of his dogs had ever been diagnosed with Addison’s. Anthony started to get defensive at this point and didn’t respond to any medical reports that I sent him. My one request when I spoke to Anthony was that he notify the owners of Ronin’s littermates and siblings that Ronin had been diagnosed with a genetic disease, and that they should know what to look for. Over the next few weeks, additional medical issues came up—he had an infection in his hock joint, he had a skin infection on his leg, his hind end weakness and ataxia became so bad he could barely walk. He had the joint drained by the orthopedic specialist—it came back as staph, so we had to treat that for many weeks. The skin infection on his front leg continued to grow and spread and did not respond to any meds. At this point, his ataxia was the most pressing concern. Orthopedic doc diagnosed meningitis, which meant an increase in his daily pred. This had negative side-effects for Ronin- increased appetite and aggression (especially toward Miko). He didn’t get better with the increase in prednisone, so we then went to a neurological specialist. Neuro doc couldn’t figure out his symptoms either and could only rule things out or diagnose with a MRI or spinal tap. At this point, we had spent thousands of dollars on medical bills for Ronin and we were not in a position to pay for either of these tests. We added some more meds to his daily regimen and went from there. It was clear that he was not a happy puppy and that he was in some degree of pain. Because Ronin could not be boarded, we took him on our summer vacation up to Maine. He rode with us in the car and we called it his “bucket list” trip. It was a happy time and he seemed to do better in the cool Maine air. Once we got home from Maine his ataxia was a lot better, his temperament was better and he and Miko had a good, playful relationship. Not sure if it was just time or the meds (or both), but it seemed like he was headed in the right direction. His Addison’s seemed stable too. He still had the infection on his front leg and the shape/growth of this legs was still a concern. I also should add that he was much smaller than he should have been by his age. Right around this time is when we wrote Anthony a letter explaining our situation, Ronin’s health problems and our financial limitations—we were now at around $6000 spent on vet bills. We asked him if he could refund our purchase price so that we could put it towards Ronin’s medical care/bills. We also asked that he help to pay for additional medical intervention. He wrote us back- said he wouldn’t give us money, was shocked we’d even ask, we could send Ronin back to him if we wanted to, and we should be happy that he even offered to give us a new puppy. The end. We never responded to his response, but I continued to send him periodic emails with health updates and medical records. Fast forward to mid-September. Ronin was “healthy enough” that we scheduled his neutering. It was also our plan to get a number of x-rays done during this time, and some skin biopsies on the ever-increasing areas of infection. He hated going to the vet and he wouldn’t let them do anything to him. The only way to get x-rays done was while he was under anesthesia. The surgery and recovery from the neuter went well. The x-rays showed that he had mild hip dysplasia and his front leg was mal-formed. He also had enamel hypoplasia and the skin lesions on his body came back with multiple infections. He left the office the next day with 3 antibiotics and pain meds. It was at this point, that I decided to ‘out’ our breeder on the internet. I knew from speaking to Ronin’s siblings’ owners (I was able to search some and tracked them down), that Anthony had not informed anyone of the Addison’s diagnosis, and I have every reason to believe that there was a puppy from another litter that had already been diagnosed with Addison’s. I made a post on various Akita Facebook pages saying that I was looking for littermates or siblings of Ronin and I explained why. I held off on naming the breeder up until that point. Anthony saw these posts and tried to defend himself. His comments, basically accused me of not taking proper care of Ronin, and that it was my fault that there was something wrong with him. He also stated that perhaps Ronin could have had a better life if he had gone to someone else. In addition to the personal insults and attacks, he acknowledged that he had bred Ronin’s mom too many times, too close together—and had recently learned that it wasn’t the best way to breed. He also stated that he had decided to not breed both of his females anymore, but that he did not believe that Ronin had Addison’s disease. In my few months of research, I had come to learn that Anthony was not the reputable breeder that he claimed to be, that he didn’t do any health testing on his dogs, and his dogs come from one of the biggest backyard breeders in CA, that are also not health tested—but their puppies are all “guaranteed” to pass. There have been various negative reports over the years, and they are both on the radar of the Akita Club of America. Ronin recovered ok from the procedure, but about a week afterwards he started to act funny. I thought he just felt off because of all the meds—he was having diarrhea, sleeping a lot, curled up in a ball like he did with his first Addison’s crisis. His hind end was also starting to get bad again. The ataxia was back, and in addition, his front leg started to bend in at a 45 degree angle. He was clearly hurting and not feeling well. I spoke with the vet a number of times over the next few days. We tweaked his prednisone dose a bit, thinking it was an Addison’s thing, but that only seemed to make it worse. Our vet worked so hard to find out what was going on with Ronin, but there were so many different problems, with so many differentials. Over the next few days Ronin deteriorated, he could barely walk. His front leg got a little bit better, but his back legs continued to get worse. He was sleeping most of the time and could only go out with assistance from us. He still loved to eat though!!! By the end of the week, with no way of knowing how or what to treat him for, we knew we were getting close to having to make a difficult decision. That Friday night I could hear him in the family room whining and unable to settle. I went out to him and slept beside him on the floor. He continued to whine through the night—he was suffering. Saturday afternoon we knew we couldn’t let him suffer anymore. We brought him in to our vet and she was finally, for once, able to help ease his pain. He was 8 ½ months old. A few days after Ronin passed, I posted a message on my Facebook page and the various Akita Facebook pages I was a member of—Anthony was also a member on some of these pages. He sent me a private message, this is what it said: I would of gladly taken care of Ronin and you knew this. He could of lived a long and happy life with me. I disgust you??? What you have done is truly disgusting, he will never forgive you for this and neither will I! He had an option of life but you denied him that option! I hope you never get a good night’s sleep knowing you murdered him!!!! This was his one and only response to me after we had to put Ronin down. At the end, we had spent over $10,000 in medical care, in 6 months. We loved that dog and spent 6 months sad, stressed and frustrated over his many health problems. We did all that we could to help him, and I know we went above and beyond what many others would have done. Sending Ronin back to Alaska was never an option—for emotional reasons and for health reasons. Originally, when Ronin was first diagnosed I thought that we might consider getting a replacement puppy from Anthony, depending on what happened to Ronin. However, as time went on and Ronin got sicker, Anthony’s true colors came out, and his incompetence and ignorance when it came to breeding were glaringly obvious. There was no way I was going to take a chance with the Alaska Akita’s gene pool ever again!
