Over the past 18 months, many of us have welcomed a new four-legged friend into our homes, as the Kennel Club has seen dog ownership increase nearly 8% over 2020.
But with 221 different purebred dog breeds to choose from, there’s a lot of thought to be done before selecting your perfect pup.
Those with an active lifestyle may want to consider a larger dog, while someone with allergies will look for a hypoallergenic dog.
There’s even academic guidance to seek out, with psychologist Stanley Coren’s book “The Intelligence of Dogs” ranking breeds by instinct, obedience and adaptability.
A dog that sometimes appears on people’s canine wishlists is the Shiba Inu – they are one of the most unusual dogs to see in UK parks, but they have a range of positive attributes that make them an excellent pet.
Here are 10 fun and interesting facts about the breed.
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It is believed that the ancestors of the Shiba Inu arrived in Japan with immigrant owners as early as 7000 BC. Archaologists have found remains of dogs sharing Shiba traits at a site inhabited by the Jomon-jin people, who lived from 14,500 BC to 300 AD.
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Dog historians believe that the Shiba Inu is likely the result of crossbreeding between dogs from Jomon-jin and dogs that came to Japan with a new wave of immigration around 300 BC.
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Originally, the Shiba Inu was bred as a hunting dog – hunting and hunting small game like birds and rabbits in the mountainous areas of the Chūbu region of Japan.
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The Doge meme, featuring a photo of a Shiba Inu, became an extremely popular internet meme in 2013. The meme consists of an image of a dog accompanied by multicolored text representing an interior monologue in broken English. This in turn led to the Dogecoin and Shiba Inu cryptocurrencies.
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