Exercise is very important in a dog – dog owner relationship. Being your dogs owner by law or by payment does not mean your dog will acknowledge that fact. You have to deserve being the alpha, the guy or woman in charge!
According to Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, you should maintain a healthy relationship with your dear Akita via this formula: 50% physical exercise, 25% discipline and 25% affection. Exercise, including playing with your dog, establishes and confirms your and his position every time.
In order to be able to enjoy exercising your Akita and take him out often for long walks, he (or she!) should learn to behave well on the lead. This also implies YOU should learn how to use the leash well. Too many dogs are just being dragged around on a leash. Think about elephants or horses being taught tricks. By no means a man can force an elephant to do something he doesnt want. There is no aggression or force involved. Only gentle instructions and motivational rewards, and a lot of patience.
Remember this when you train your puppy. No matter how small the animal to be trained: dont use force! It will damage your relationship and work counterproductive. If you feel the urge to do so, then bang your head to the nearest tree and start over.
Teaching an Akita, or any dog for that matter, to walk gently besides you on a leash requires patience too. From my own experience with Kensho I can tell you it requires a lot of patience but it really pays off!
When my Akita was about 9 months old he would pull the leash to make me go faster. Of course I would not let him have his success. So every time he pulled the leash, I would just stop. And I would wait
. and wait
and wait until he stopped pulling. Only then I continued walking. This way I could take 30 minutes to walk 50 meters. So then I changed my method. Every time Kensho would pull the leash I would walk in the other direction. This must have looked very strange to people on the street but this worked. Kensho noticed he did not succeed when he kept pulling the leash. And every time he walked besides me on a loose leash, I would praise him heavily. Good dog! 
Another method I used was substituting his dog collar for a halti. A halti looks like a muzzle but your dog can still bark, bite, eat, drink and lick. A halti can work miracles but only when you use this tool correctly. You can NEVER apply any pressure for this can cause severe neck injury. My experience is that because a halti looks like a muzzle, people would assume I was walking an aggressive Akita. Since I cannot control peoples thoughts I just continued using the halti until Kensho was ready to walk with his regular dog collar again. Hes a fast learner so we could make the switch within a couple of weeks.
Back using the dog collar he sometimes relapsed and then 5 minutes with the Halti (which was always in my pocket at that time) he remembered the lessons and behaved like a very nicely educated Akita again.
You can search the internet looking to buy a halti online or you can ask for it at the nearest pet shop.
For guidance as how to train your Akita you can subscribe to the free six day dog training course.
More information about dog dominance is also covered in the three free e-books that you can download from Best Dog Food Guide. The only thing you have to do to get your hand on these is subscribe to the ezine HoundBytes, receive your password and then go to the Members Only section of this website.
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