The Mame Shiba – Here to Stay

This is an opinion piece. Basically my thoughts and musing on the subject, which is going to piss off a lot of people. This is by no means fact, just my observations and my opinions based off of these observations.

Ask any reputable preservation breeder of the Shiba Inu about the Mame Shiba and I’m sure you’ll see them cringe and blurt out that the Mame is not a real Shiba but an off-shoot bastardization of the Shiba. Think along the lines of a teacup poodle or yorkie, just a bullshit marketing term to make people shell out more money for an unhealthy dog. I admit, I despise the whole Mame Shiba thing because I see a darker side of the Mame Shiba that people may or may not realize.

Mame Shiba are gaining popularity in Japan, practically any Shiba I met during my last trip was a Mame. Some were slightly smaller than a ‘regular’ Shiba but I saw some that were legit purse dogs, which makes me wonder what they could have been crossed with as they looked more like a Shiba mix than a smaller version of Shiba. I originally thought the smaller size of the Mame was what propelled it to this insta fame. Japanese living spaces are small, especially in metropolitan areas such as Tokyo. A small dog is more appropriate for apartment living, which, I know, a Shiba is already a small dog. So, for the life of me I couldn’t understand why someone decided the Shiba needed to be smaller.

It was on my trips that finally allowed me to understand why the Mame Shiba have become “the Shiba of choice”. There’s famous Mame Shiba Instagram accounts, merchandise being sold, and lots of Mame Shiba cafes where not only are the Japanese but foreigners are being exposed to them! But before I deep dive into this theory, I want to quickly explain a Shiba first.

A Shiba is a small hunting dog from Japan. The breed can suffer from same sex aggression (SSA), resource guarding, high prey drive, and honestly just be little shits if not selected for temperament or socialized/trained.

Shiba are not and should not be a dog for everyone. I liken them to feral little coyotes*. The Shiba is a dog that is for a dedicated owner who understands breed traits and works with the dog and not against it. I hate to admit it, but the average pet owner is not equipped to deal with cunning, borderline feral** dog. They’re use to the western perspective of a dog – which is stereotypically obey because the owner says to.

But who doesn’t want a cute little dog that is almost foxy in appearance?*** The Shiba’s good looks but potentially difficult personality leads to many irresponsibly bred Shiba being purchased and then in turn dumped into rescues or shelters. But what if, hear me out, there’s a smaller, more docile version out there? They would be a novice dog owner’s dream – the looks and an easy-going temperament in an even smaller package?! They’d sell like hot cakes!

A friend of mine surprised me on my 2019 trip to Japan taking me to a Mame Shiba café. These guys were pretty dang cute, they were slightly smaller than my smallest Shiba (who is 14 inches at the shoulder) and looked pretty well proportioned, as compared to some of the Mame I’ve seen (although the structure – the way a dog’s skeleton is put together – left a lot to be desired. BUT I feel like a lot of breeders have not the slightest inkling of what good structure is). Many foreigners in my time block complained at the lack of ‘friendliness’ of the Shiba, something that if anyone looked up breed characteristics of the Shiba they would see they are aloof by nature. These Mame did a great job driving that point home. But at that time, I wasn’t really understanding the significance of the café having 10 Shiba in a small room together with no fights, all them peacefully getting along, and playing.  My three Shiba get along and don’t fight, so that didn’t really stand out to me at that time.

This last trip I was in Japan for 88 days, so I got to experience the country in a more in-depth way than my previous 2-week adventures. Almost every Shiba I saw ‘out in the wild’ – meaning a pet person owned it and it was not at a dog show – was a Mame. Even the pet stores that sold dogs only had Mame Shiba, no ‘regular’ Shiba. These Shiba I saw on the street were chill and friendlier than I expected, which lead me to believe that they were probably well socialized. I came across a Mame Shiba account where there are multiple reels showing her getting pampered and is just so relaxed through anything her owners do to her – even clipping nails. I watch those videos with awe and slight jealousy as I know mine would not put up with half of what that Mame Shiba does. (I hate to admit, she is really cute.) Then a friend showed me a video at Mame Shiba kennel. This kennel had at least 30 Shiba just chilling in a kennel yard with each other, even with levels of high excitement, these dogs were not getting into spats (as far as I could tell from the videos). Honestly, I think I would struggle to keep 30 Shiba even keel where there are no spats, and I know of some breeders who can’t trust/run their dogs together, yet this kennel was doing it, and it seemed with ease. I watched other videos to see if it was a fluke, it wasn’t.

Which got me thinking, are Mame being selected for easier temperaments? Or is selecting for a smaller dog, inadvertently creating a friendly Shiba? I’m pretty sure I’ve read in my college Biology textbook or some other scholarly text that seemingly unrelated genes can be linked, specifically breeding for one trait leads to some other trait also being expressed as a ‘by-product’. It’s been a while so don’t quote me, I need to find a link.

But I get it, a watered-down dog makes for an easy keeper. I don’t want my Shiba to be similar to a lab or a Golden in temperament while on the flipside I don’t want a dog that requires a master’s degree in dog management to coexist with. I’ve heard breeders (in several different breeds, not just Shiba) brag about how difficult one (or more) of their dogs are. How they have to do XYZ to make it cooperate/bearable to live with. That same dog (or dogs) will most likely be used to make puppies potentially passing along its difficult temperament. Where do the puppies go? To the general public, where the majority cannot handle a ‘strong’ temperament. If a dog person struggles with this type of dog, how could the average pet owner be successful? That’s when a breeder needs to step back and assess their breeding program but that’s a rant for another day. Preservation breeders should strive for a nice middle ground, a small hunting dog that’s not going to terrorize its household but still embodies its ancestors’ spirit. Although is that only what we (preservation breeders) want, while pet owners are wanting the Labrador in Shiba clothing?

The Mame is here to stay, regardless of if we like it or not. I do fear that the Mame will surpass the Shiba in being THE Shiba in the next ten years. If that is the case then our Shiba as we know it will most likely be facing declining numbers, maybe extinction, a fate that the medium sized Nihon Ken are facing right now. Money talks, and with pet owners wanting a smaller, easier dog that resembles just the Shiba in shape, our breed is in serious trouble. I don’t know what the answer is to stop this, as I think there is no stopping it. Education only goes so far, and you can’t educate if no one is willing to listen and understand. The Nihon Ken Hozonkai aka NIPPO actively discourages Mame as it is a deviation of the Shiba Inu (as seen here), as NIPPO was created to preserve to native Japanese breeds as they originally were… but the Mame Shiba already has a registry (nail one in the coffin). I’m not even sure if breeding for generic easy temperament would be able to save the Shiba, even though that is not what I personally want. Which again leads to another discussion of should we breed dogs to fit in with how our society wants them to or do we breed with the goal of preserving the originality of said breed?

*I know coyotes are wild animals and using the word feral to describe them makes no sense, but Shiba can act feral and/or like cunning little coyotes, too smart for their own good. Better now?

**Meaning wild like, not domestic animal turned into the wild to fend for itself. Don’t @ me because descriptive language is my thing, not technicalities. I have a writer’s soul, what a poor scientist I would be…

***I hate it when people say they look like little foxes, I understand the AKC standard even mentions a fox like appearance in reds but have any of y’all actually seen a fox?