When Jenny Marshall got her dog, now called Hoshi, the dog was named Princess Missy Reisell, but when Marshall adopted her from the Bellevue Humane Society a name change was in order. The new name is Japanese, appropriate for a dog of the same origin. Hoshi is an Akita, a Japanese breed. The name means "star."

Hoshi is pedigreed, 3.5 years old and Marshall found her online through the Human Society website. "The owner had her as a puppy and he got her from the breeder. Akita's are only one person owner dogs. He had her for awhile and then got another dog and it was ok for awhile but as they got older, Hoshi became less and less tolerant of the other dog taking her food and they ended up getting into some 'dog arguments' and they felt they had to give her up."

Hoshi eats Innova dog food and "this breed needs a lot of exercise so she gets about a five mile walk every day. I do three different walks and the total is five miles."

"I took her out to exercise her and she's exercised me. I've lost ten pounds now in over two months!"

Hoshi gets meat for snacks from time to time.

The toys Hoshi has get a work out too, Marshall said. "She's a very muscular dog so we're lucky if they last more than a couple of days. The ones that work best with her are rope toys."

Hoshi prefers humans to dog friends but "she's tolerant of other dogs and she's the most tolerant with the chihuahuas that live under us."

"She is an "Alpha Dog" so the biggest thing to learn from her is how to be the "pack leader" which I really had to learn a lot. That means to be able to establish myself as the leader of the home and the leader of the environment so that she feels safe, so she isn't always having to step up to feel like she has to protect me. She has to feel like I can protect her."

Marshall said that Hoshi is "very good" with her young son and is "great with people," plus being a good guard dog with, "a very loud bark. She set off a car alarm. She's got the barrel chest and did set off the neighbors car alarm one morning. So we skeedoodled out the area very quickly."

Hoshi has a calm and playful nature with Marshall. "I can get down on the ground and knock heads with here and she's gentle with me. She understands that I'm the top dog in the house." That playful nature extends to the walks where "anytime we walk by a bush she will stick her head in there, thinking that there's a critter in there that she's going to get. So anything we do at home where I hide something and pull it out she wants to try and find it."

Marshall sums Hoshi up this way, "Faithful, protective, very humorous and funny and loves to play, and she's always by my side."