But akita don't live by tracking alone!

For us, the quality of time spent with our Akitas is the most important thing, because as we all know, a dog won't walk itself—or at least it shouldn't. Since high temperatures don't favor long walks, we had to find other activities that would also help us cool down. And since we're fortunate to have a small water reservoir, it naturally led to water fun!

Whenever the weather allows, we bring out the boards and life jackets to start our water adventures. We've managed to build positive associations with water for all our Akitas, so they all eagerly go in to cool their paws. And when they don't feel like exerting themselves by swimming, they jump on the boards with us. The dogs quickly noticed that the board allows them to move across the water effortlessly, observe ducks and vegetation from a different perspective, making it surprisingly easy to get them accustomed to it.

Denji has a particular love for any kind of water; he won't miss a single puddle, and when the thermometer hits 18 degrees, he'll even dip into the shallowest ditch.

As the saying goes, "what's learned in youth is ingrained in age," we've decided to get our spring/summer litters accustomed to water play, with very positive results as confirmed by the puppies' handlers.