Spirit was a stray wandering in and out of a mixed business/residential neighborhood in Maryland. .  A lady, concerned because Spirit was located so closely to a 4 lane highway contacted rescue to see if we could help.  We contacted one of our volunteers who is located near Baltimore to see if she could assist.  She could and went out to this neighborhood which had fallen on bad times to find Spirit.  Our volunteer drove around and did not see her, pulled into a parking lot to regroup and there she was, in the parking lot. The rescue grapevine started and someone from another rescue group with good luck trapping stray animals volunteered to help.  Within 24 hours, Spirit was captured.  She jumped into the crate in the car and rode well, behaved very well at the vet while getting her shots and was very restrained during her bath when she had to be scrubbed with de-greaser to get all the oil and gunk out of her coat.  She turned out to be a lovely cream color !!!  She is wary or people but learning to trust her current caretakers.  I went to see her and while I was talking to the volunteer, she approached me and let me pet her, but skadiddled away and approached again.  THe volunteer was very encouraged since it had taken some time for her to acclimate to strangers initially.  Spirit touched my heart.  She is beautiful  with the Akita dignity that goes to pot while she is running in circles chasing her tail or playbowing  or chasing her ball.  When she stands, she "stacks" herself as if she were in a show ring. She is also a talker. She will not potty in her run, so we are assuming she is housebroken.  She ignores the dogs when she passes them by and ignored the kitties she was introduced to.

What happened to her that she ended up in such circumstances?  Some nearby apartment dwellers thought she had lived there, but her owner was evicted and left her behind to manage on her own.  Who really knows?  She was on her own long enough to become wary of humans and now we need to show her that we are not so bad after all.

 She was named Spirit becasue all involved in her rescuet felt that she had a special spirit watching over her and having met her , I think it suits her also...because she has the spirit of a survivor and still remained gentle.

Spirit needs someone with Akita experience behind them to win her trust and bring out the social being that is peeking out behind the wary facade. 

The long range picture below shows Spirit before capture, when she kept her distance from all.  There is one of her in the crate, ready to travel to the vet. and the others are from when she was all cleaned up and beautiful.