Haha. I guess we're looking at it from two different perspectives - shedding hairballs all over the house vs. a groomer's perspective for getting all the undercoat out at once. As a groomer of almost 10 years, I stand by my statement. Your statement backs up my statement, though - the long haired Akitas (and shepherds, and huskies, etc) DON'T seem to shed a ton, because all the undercoat just gets stuck in there... but it's all in there, and it does need to come out, so my job is 10x harder. I have a couple long haired Akita clients, and next to my standard coated Akita, they wouldn't be terrible in-house shedders at all. If I don't keep up with his coat, he leaves furballs all over my house. But at least he keeps his hair to himself between coat blows, unlike Labs and the like, that just seem to leave hairy imprints everywhere, every day lol
