Hey guys, this is a long one...
I'm new here, my name's Dallas, me and my wife Rachel own a 10 month old intact male akita named Obie. We also have a 2 month old son. We purchased Obie from a reputable, AKC registered breeder in Vermont at 8 weeks old. He gets at least one long walk everyday, uses a prong collar, and has been in obedience class since 14 weeks. The games he likes to play are tug and keep away, which I'm trying to get away from. He's shown no aggression towards other dogs unless dogs show aggression towards him first. He's an exceptional dog (and I'm truly not just saying that and fooling myself), very smart, extremely friendly and loving with us and people he knows, super playful, gentle and careful with the baby, but he does have a few issues.
One is that he can be bratty and try to test me, mouthing and nipping, jumping at me, disobeying my commands, stuff like that. This happens when he gets over excited, doesn't want to do the training exercise I want him to do, or just has too much energy and feels like trying to push me. Physical corrections usually just excite him, although if he's not too worked up a leash pop will shut him down. The best thing I've found to stop him is to simply move forward at him telling him no and he stops within about 5 seconds, although he's starting to protest this more, and it has not stopped the behavior overall though.
He's also started to show some aggression over the past few months. He's very cautious with most strangers, especially women, and when they enter the house he barks pretty heavily, and if they try to approach him and talk to him sometimes he will growl. No snarl or baring teeth, but a low growl. After a few minutes of checking them out he becomes very friendly. A few times when women have approached us on the street, he's done the same growl when they don't leave him alone. Sometimes though, he's totally calm with people on the street and has no problem meeting them. I know some might recommend that he doesn't meet people on the street, but it's hard to avoid and I want him to be friendly and not so insecure. Last night at puppy training class he showed his worst aggression yet, and snarled at the trainer. he was being stubborn and bratty with me, trying not to sit and stay. I was handling it, just calmly riding it out and putting him back into the sit over and over, popping the leash some. She told me to cuff him under the chin, which stopped him for a sec, but then he kept going and it escalated, she told me to cuff him again and it only made things crazier, so she came over and took the leash, and tried to get real firm with him, but he just got angry and gave her a nasty growl, baring teeth and everything, I jabbed him in the side to break his focus and said NO, and then she hung him up as I grabbed his scruff and growled NO. He was showing his teeth still for a sec but between me and the hanging he calmed down quick. He gets very excited around other dogs, and with all the physical corrections I was giving him, he got more and more agitated, then she came over all frustrated, and he doesn't like strange women (she's not our usual trainer) to begin with, so he lost it. Not good.
The last issue is that he doesn't listen off leash when other dogs are around, zero recall etc, which I'm sure is pretty common.
Also, as i mentioned in a previous post, our trainers told us to wait to neuter him until he is around 18 months and mentally and physically mature, and that it will cause less problems with him if we wait until then. My aunt who trains detection dogs told us to wait until about 12 months or he could have joint problems in the future. There's so many conflicting opinions about neutering I don't know what to think. I'm not worried about birth control as we live in an apartment and he's always supervised outside. After your responses to my last post, I'm pretty tempted to snip him.
Overall I feel the need to stay very positive with him, the leash popping and stuff like that doesn't seem to do anything but annoy him. Our trainer said my leash pops are good so I know I'm doing that right and not just nagging him. I'm doing something wrong in working with him though, and it's creating conflict between me and him. Yes he's a sweet fun loving guy, but he's also an akita and he doesn't like to be pushed around at all. I think I need to play off his good side and eliminate his insecurities and excess energy to get rid of any aggression, because he really is a sweetheart. I know I need to be a better leader. I've worked hard to be the pack leader, but I must be doing something wrong. If he really respected me 100%, these issues would be gone, right? Any advice?