Busy

I haven't been posting since I'm busy as hell with work, and probably will be until the end of the summer.

I'll be running a beach house project, plus there are all the summer music festivals to organize.

Completely random, but there was some information from the KKA office trip that I hadn't put out there.

1. 1994 was the peak for KKA registrations with 1120 pups
2. The present average Kai litter size seems to be around 4.3

Cool, got that down somewhere before I lost the info. Now back to work. I may post sporadically over the summer, who knows.

KKA HQ

Dropped by KKA headquarters in Yamanashi today with Ogawa-san from Gotenyama Kennel. Afterwards we headed over to Rokka So and met up with Okabe-san from Tenro Kennel.

We pulled out the oldest pedigrees for a look...

Here's KKA pedigree number 1!

We had a great day talking dogs, dog history and the like.

Fixing the Standards for the Japanese Breeds

So, fixing the standards for the Nihon Ken is now turning into a much larger project. I mentioned the lack of 'urajiro' in the standard, the briefness of the standards for the breeds, coat color issues etc etc to the JKC. They agreed that some of these are issues that they have been aware of for some time. It looks like now that they see that even the sizes are wrong, these issues need to be addressed properly.

If the JKC contacts the FCI and asks them to correct the standard, it is not just a 'correction' but for all purposes becomes a 'change' in the standard for all the clubs worldwide that base off of the FCI standard. This is a pretty big deal.

So it looks like the JKC is going to put together proper standards for the Japanese before the end of the fiscal year. They will flesh out the standards, and fix the mistakes in the current FCI standards. After this the standards will be sent to the JKC's committee on standards for review. Once they have been approved, they will be sent to the FCI where they will be adopted as the new standards for the breeds.

The ship is in motion, change is coming.

Japanese Dog Breed Standards

We have a problem at the moment with the standards as set down by the FCI for the Japanese breeds. According to the PDF's on their website, they've got the sizes wrong for 4 of the 6 Nihon Ken. http://www.fci.be/nomenclature.aspx

If nothing else, the FCI's standards should reflect the standards for these breeds as set forth by the FCI recognized club in their country of origin. Here are the JKC standards http://www.jkc.or.jp/modules/worlddogs/category.php?categoryID=5

FCI standard sizes

Kai: Males 53cm Females 48cm (this makes the Kai the biggest of the NK. NUTS!)

Kishu: Males 52cm Females 46cm

Shikoku: Males 52cm Females 46cm

Shiba: Males 40cm Females 37cm

JKC standard sizes

Kai: Males 50cm Females 45cm

Kishu: Males 52cm Females 49cm

Shikoku: Males 52cm Females 49cm

Shiba: Males 39.5cm Females 36.5cm

I mentioned this in a Facebook post, and a friend over in Europe contacted the FCI about the issue. They directed him to contact the JKC about it, so I just had a conversation with the JKC today. They're looking into it. Obviously if the information in the PDF's on the FCI website is the up to date standards for the breeds, they need to be corrected. The JKC was rather surprised to hear about the size discrepancies.

JKC Registrations 2011

JKC registration numbers for the Japanese Dog breeds in 2011:

Shiba came in 6th on the list with 12,095 registrations

Akita 42nd with 282

Kai 56th with 144

Hokkaido 112th with 6

Shikoku 118th with 3

No Kishu registrations last year. I think the Shikoku registrations were pretty much all me as usual.

Yesterday

Beautiful scorcher of a day yesterday. I drove up to Saitama for the All Kanto NIPPO show where I was to show one of Nidai Iwahori So's females, the same one I took first place in class with at the Chiba regional.

A lot of factors combined into a less than stellar placing, 6th, but it was still fun and a learning experience. We actually managed the particulars of showing much better this time, so that was good.

I got to hang out with a lot of friends and meet some interesting new characters as well. It was a grand, satisfying day.

I pulled this pic off FB. There are photogs everywhere! I'm sure there will be more pics to come.

A 'buchi-ge' (pinto) yushoku Kishu pup from Wakayama lines.

Japanese Dog Names: Sumo Wrestlers

A list of names of famous sumo wrestlers can be found here http://japanesedognames.blogspot.jp/2012/03/w.html

Again, these are names for male dogs, and are great for pedigree names when registering your dog with a Japanese registry.


I grew up in an era when the sibling Yokozunas (grand champion) Takanohana and Wakanohana, and the Hawaiian Yokozuna Akebono, were in their prime. I still remember the last, and 22nd, tournament Takanohana won. He tore up his knee in a defeat, and probably should have quit the tournament, but Takanohana in his usual stoic and unyielding manner showed up and brought down the house. I even managed to find a clip of the tournament on Youtube.

Oh, Canada

I just got back from a roughly week long trip to Vancouver where I dropped off Shogun and Dai at Akashima Kennel. It's naturally easier to just ship the pups over, or have someone else take them, but since both of those options were trumped by high costs and lack of bodies, I took the trip myself. 

Here I look obviously overjoyed to be done with the interrogation at the airline counter where I checked the dogs in. It seems airline staff are not that used to checking in dogs, understandably I guess, and there's always some drama at the counter. This time they hassled me for having dishes with water in them instead of water bottles. I find this amusing since most American airlines will now not allow me to put water bottles on cages.

All the jumping around between islands on the BC ferries was very enjoyable. I think the last time I was on a ferry was when I was twelve, between Niigata and Hokkaido.

Walking over a log jam at Lake Shoen. The temperature fluctuations and variations were very interesting. Warm, but still snow right nearby. The weather was terrific during my visit.

George at Akashima took a moose last season, so I was treated to moose shepherd's pie, and on this night, moose roast. Both were absolutely terrific.

They have some pretty big mountains and trees over tharr. Seeing wide open spaces again really reminded me of Australia, though of course the scenery is entirely dissimilar.

All you can eat ribs! Absolutely unnecessary! Next time I'll just stick with a large. The ribs were amazing by the way.

I hightailed it back to Japan since I have a lot going on this weekend. I landed in Narita, and went directly to help a friend plant his rice field. It was over fairly quickly, and just as we finished, there was a beautiful sunset.

I've got quite a bit of fun and fun work (so I should just say fun) in store over the weekend. Tomorrow I head to Saitama for the NIPPO All Kanto regional show.

Dai

This is Dai, a 4 year old Shikoku male. He's from Shimane prefecture, and has flown over with me to Canada. I quite like this guy, good conformation all around other than a bit of white on his neck, and has a pretty good temperament. There is one problem with rehoming adult NK that have been raised in Japan, and that is that they often are not very socialized. Worst case scenario they have been kenneled their entire lives, and are wary of strangers, and dog aggressive.

I don't believe the Japanese breeds are inherently dog aggressive, my dogs have turned out just fine, they are breeds with a lot of energy and drive, and if they don't learn how to channel it properly through socialization/experience, their drive can quickly lead them to the wrong side of dog behavior.

Dai was raised indoors in a home with an older couple, so he's confident, great with people etc but he was not socialized with other dogs so has no idea how to communicate with them. It is unfortunate because at his core I think he has a very solid base temperament. I really hope that he is successfully used as a stud here, as I'd like to see more Shikoku with this type of temperament.

Shogun

Two new videos of Shogun (Cho-un-go). He's been over at Gotenyama Kennel for the past week or so since I was out of town on a business trip. I'll see him again tomorrow.