Akita or Old English Sheepdog: Identical Budgets, Opposite Weeks

The Old English Sheepdog's coat is long, profuse and double, and it mats faster than almost anything else on this site.

Maintained long, it needs brushing to the skin in sections — line brushing with a comb — for something in the region of three to four hours a week, split across sessions. Behind the ears, in the armpits, on the trousers and around the collar are where it fails first, and a coat that has matted to the skin cannot be brushed out. It has to be clipped off.

That is why so many pet Old English Sheepdogs are kept in a short trim, which is a completely reasonable choice and reduces the work to something manageable. It costs a professional appointment every six to eight weeks instead.

The hair around the eyes and over the hindquarters needs attention for hygiene as well as appearance, and a wet shaggy dog takes a long time to dry.

The Akita sheds more — 5/5 against 4/5 — and mats not at all. Its whole coat commitment is a weekly brush plus two or three weeks of raking, twice a year, and it never needs a groomer.

The Old English Sheepdog's 5/5 with children is well earned. It is patient, sturdy, tolerant of noise and genuinely fond of family life, and the breed's long association with children in advertising and film was not entirely invented.

The caveats are physical and behavioural. It is a big, bumping dog that does not always know where its back end is, and it retains a drovers' instinct to move things — which can mean leaning on, circling or nudging running children. That is worth interrupting early rather than finding charming.

Trainability is 3/5 and the honest description is independent and a little slow to be convinced. Consistency works; drilling does not.

At 2/5 for solitude it is a closely bonded breed and long absences produce vocalising and destruction. Absence training from the first week is the standard answer.

The Akita's 3/5 for solitude and 2/5 for barking are its two clearest advantages here. It does not need company and it does not comment on the neighbourhood.

Primary ciliary dyskinesia is the item on the Old English Sheepdog's list most people have never heard of and it is worth naming.

Cilia are microscopic hairs lining the airways that beat in a coordinated wave to move mucus and debris out of the lungs. In affected dogs they do not beat properly, so material accumulates and the dog gets recurrent respiratory infections from puppyhood onward — chronic nasal discharge, a persistent moist cough, and repeated pneumonia.

It is inherited, it is present from birth, and a puppy with a runny nose that never quite clears deserves investigation rather than another course of antibiotics. There is a DNA test available in this breed.

Hip dysplasia, cataracts, hypothyroidism and bloat complete the list. Ask for hip scores and eye certification on both parents.

Both breeds are deep-chested enough for gastric dilatation-volvulus to be a genuine emergency risk, and both households should know the signs: unproductive retching, a distending abdomen, restlessness.

The Akita's own burden is autoimmune and endocrine, with hip dysplasia and bloat, and it lives slightly longer at 10 to 13 years against 10 to 12.

$110–$240 a month and $1,700–$3,200 in the first year, for both. That is a genuine coincidence of two similarly sized dogs with similar food and veterinary profiles.

What the identical figures hide is grooming, which neither number includes. If you keep an Old English Sheepdog in full coat and do it yourself, the cost is hours. If you keep it trimmed, the cost is a professional appointment every six to eight weeks for ten to twelve years, and for a dog this size that is not a small line.

The Akita has no equivalent. A rake, a slicker and a garden, and nothing else for the life of the dog.

The expensive veterinary risks are comparable — bloat surgery and hip disease appear on both lists — with the Akita adding autoimmune disease and the Old English Sheepdog adding chronic respiratory management if it is unlucky.

So the honest summary is that the sticker price is the same and the total cost of ownership is not. The difference is entirely the coat, and it is entirely predictable before you buy.