Shiba Inu

Shiba inus are dogs.  Little dogs.  No wait, Little devil dogs.  Our Shiba is a lover, and a fighter.  He loves to chase rabbits.  He has never caught one, but if he did I don't know if he would eat it or try to play with it.
In general he is not aggressive, but he does think he is the alpha dog despite his short stature (about 30 lbs). 

I bought ($500) our Shiba (named Scout) when he was 12 weeks old, and I wish it would have been 8 weeks.  After having him for about a month we noticed that he limped fairly often.  We found out he had hereditary knee problems....so he had an expensive surgery, and it is hard to tell if has made a difference because he still limps.  He barks at our neighbors only sometimes and usually at the first people he sees at the dogpark.  He loves to play, but hates it when new dogs move quickly into his face; this is the only time I have seen him nip at other dogs.  Sometimes other dog introductions don't go that well, but if he has met a dog once he really attached to it the next time he meets it.

If he does not know you he will act very timid at first.  He will try to sniff you out and examine you very closely.  But after an initial meeting he warms right up and shows affection.  Scout is a great hiker and has hiked several 14 thousand foot peaks in Colorado.   

Wikipedia Says: 

The Shiba Inu (??, shiba inu or shiba ken?) is the smallest of the six original and distinct breeds of dog from Japan.

A small, agile dog that copes well with mountainous terrain, the Shiba Inu was originally bred for hunting. It is similar in appearance to the Akita, though much smaller in stature. The Shiba Inu nearly became extinct in the latter phase of World War II, with all subsequent dogs bred from only three surviving bloodlines known as the San'in, Mino, and Shinshu.

Inu is the Japanese word for dog, but the origins of the "Shiba" prefix are less clear. The word shiba usually refers to a type of red shrub. This leads some to believe that the Shiba was named with this in mind, either because the dogs were used to hunt in wild shrubs, or because the most common colour of the Shiba Inu is a red colour similar to that of the shrubs. However, in old Japanese, the word shiba also had the meaning of "small", thus this might be a reference to the dog's small size. The Shiba Inu is sometimes translated as "Little Brushwood Dog".  Courtesy of Wikipedia