Boar, Boar, More Boar

Finally had a day without much scheduled, figured I'd be able to play catch up... got home late last night from work in Tokyo, walked the dogs, answered some mail, crashed at 2am. First phone call came in at 7am. Boar in trap. Shot it, bled it.

Got home, thought maybe I could squeeze in a nap somewhere today, but no go. All in all had to deal with 5 boar today. Didn't get much done other than that. Well, did take Karen with me to take a peek at some trapped boar. She's been out with me and Baron a few times, and I know she hunts, but just needs as much experience as I can get her. Here she is seeing trapped boar for the first time today.

Boar, boar everywhere today. Karen seeing her first trapped boar. #kishu #japan #dog #wildboar #trapping #boarproblems #huntingdog

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)がシェアした投稿 - 2017 2月 23 2:14午前 PST

Nice to see that I've got a second gen hunter coming up to take Baron's place when he retires. In other news, bred Baron today to another hunter's female. Hopefully we'll have a litter in a couple months. All you hunters out there waiting for Baron pups, fingers crossed!

NIPPO Member's Magazine

NIPPO member's magazine just arrived a few minutes ago with all the pictures from the Grand National last November.

Masamine Go (Futomi Sou) in 2nd Place

And Kuromasa x Chacha pup, Houki no Shikou Go (Awa Yamainu Sou) in 3rd Place

Two Little Shiba Pups

So I've been asked to find homes for these two little ewoks. These Shiba pups were born on the 3rd of December. They'll be on the small side, especially the red female. She looks like she'll be a very mini Shiba. The temperament on these girls is fantastic, they've cleared their health check and had their first vaccination.

Two little ewoks getting into tiny amounts of mischief #Shiba #puppy #puppies #japan #dog #ewok got to start looking for homes for them I guess

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)がシェアした投稿 - 2017 2月 19 3:15午後 PST

Anyone interested please send me an email at kato.the.walrus@gmail.com
Send me any questions you have, and I'll let you know the total costs.

Slacking and Lacking Sleep

Slacking in the post department again. Lots to post about, maybe more time tomorrow. For starters, another off my instagram. Baron, nanny dog the great.

Lets torment Baron #puppy #puppies #japan #shiba #kishu #shikoku #cabin

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)がシェアした投稿 - 2017 1月 20 6:10午後 PST

And for fun, I guess if pups were kids, this one would be my grandkid. Kuromasa x Chacha pup Kaori had a litter with Chouhou. This is the lone male from the litter, Koto.

Koto, a Chouhou x Kaori pup #shikoku #puppy #dog #japan bit of a redhead

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)がシェアした投稿 - 2017 2月 13 9:25午後 PST

More Instagram

Just grabbing a bit of my Instagram since I missed posting yesterday, and darn near missed today too. Cutting back on sleep to get things done means blogging is a mean feat.

Masa's in better coat condition and has more bulk than he did at the national. Spring show season kicks off on the 26th.

Masa this morning pre-walk. Going to have to start getting him ready for the spring show season. All that means is we go hunting more #wildboar #shikoku #japan #dog #shikokuken

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)がシェアした投稿 - 2017 1月 16 8:06午後 PST

Here's the big girls a while back getting a bit of play in. That's Sakura (Tosa) and Shura (Tosa/Pit/Mastiff/Cane Corso).

The big dogs be wrestlin this morning #molosser #tosa #japan #dog #cabin Rain just let up

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)がシェアした投稿 - 2017 1月 19 5:16午後 PST

 In addition to the Shikoku pups that still don't have homes, I've got 6 Shiba pups available as well. 2 females will be here at my place the day after tomorrow, a red and a white. They're both on the small side, with the red one being the cutest tiny Shiba out there. Anyway, I'll probably post video of the other 4 Shiba pups tomorrow.

Shikoku Puppies

So there are quite a few pups available for sale over at a friend's kennel. If you want more information about the kennel, pedigree, costs etc, shoot me a mail over at kato.the.walrus@gmail.com.

To start with, these extremely roly poly black and tan boys were born on the 5th of December. Black and tan's not that common in the breed, but we do keep black and tan females every so often for breeding. It's tougher to keep a black and tan male since you probably won't be using him for stud very much. Breedings where one of the parents is black and tan usually throw a good number of black and tan pups, so trying to keep the colors in balance can be tricky (don't want to breed out the reds and sesames).

We've also got a male available, and while his color could be better, I reckon he's got some show potential. This guy is already 5 months old. DOB August 31st

Lastly, there's this litter born on December 31st. There were 6 pups, so the pictures are split into four boys first.

The black sesame pup on the far right in the picture below has a home lined up.

The female from the litter is a bit on the small side at the moment, and so her and the little male runt from the litter are being raised separately for extra care.

And shoot, I forgot to post for two days in a row... I think puppy pictures make up for that.

Paying Your NIPPO Dues

So it's that time of year where we all need to pay our NIPPO yearly membership fee of 5,000JPY.
Members have until the end of March to pay them. If it lapses, you have to pay the registration fee of 3,000JPY on top of that.

This is a pretty simple deal if you are in Japan.
The admission form is posted below, and at the bottom of that is NIPPO's street address, and also their postal account for receiving payments.

Here in Japan we just waltz down to the post office and send payment. For overseas members things get a bit trickier. Payment must be received in yen. To get this to NIPPO you can send payment in yen via an International Postal Money Order (if your country's post office offers this service) or send yen in cash through some sort of registered mail to NIPPO. Your other option is to have a friend in Japan handle the transfer for you.

I have spoken to NIPPO about setting up a PayPal account for things like this, but at the moment that is not in the works.

Some Pictures and a Kitchen

Just some pictures of some of the pups I've had here at my house for a while before sending them off to their new homes.

Fuu-chan #Shiba #puppy #japan #dog She's a sprite little one

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)が投稿した写真 - 2017 1月 2 4:10午前 PST

Fuurin Go. She was a cute little ball of energy. She's over in Sweden now.

Two seconds of serious face for the camera #shikoku #puppy #japan

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)が投稿した写真 - 2017 1月 11 2:49午前 PST

This is Taro. He'll be going over to Canada soon.

I've been doing a bit of work remodeling the kitchen in the cabin. Built a counter top out of a plank I rescued.

Single slab kitchen counter almost ready for the install #kitchen #cabin #wood #recycledwood #reclaimedwood

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)が投稿した写真 - 2017 1月 4 7:48午後 PST

It's turning out quite nicely if I may say so.

The cabinets are still unfinished, but after the better part of a year I have a functional kitchen again. Thanks to some pro help from @aikikato @josh_tanaka #cabin #kitchen #reclaimedwood

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)が投稿した写真 - 2017 1月 15 5:19午前 PST

And from the front #cabin #kitchen #reclaimedwood #bluuuue #toomuch?

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)が投稿した写真 - 2017 2月 1 9:52午後 PST

Not quite done yet, but getting there. Still have a spice rack to conjure up, and need to finish framing the cabinet.

Instagrammed

Just realized there's quite a bit on Instagram that I've left off the blog, some nice pup pictures and stuff. Scrolling back I also noticed that I missed posting this pic of the first boar of the year.

New Year's Day 2017. Every year my youngest brother and I go out for a hunt on the 1st of January. Happy New Year everyone #Kishu #wildboar #japan #hunt This one was 81kg

Shigeru Katoさん(@katothewalrus)が投稿した写真 - 2017 1月 1 2:08午前 PST

My brother and I go out for a hunt every 1st of January. This year we took another friend out with us, and bustled Baron and Karen into the car for the afternoon jaunt. We hunted a small mound of a mountain around 5 minutes from my house. The boar seem to like sleeping in this tiny hill for some reason, and today they were in the bamboo as usual. We tried to sandwich the boar, which sort of worked I guess. Of course the boar went the direction of my brother and friend, neither of whom had a firearm. I saw video they took of a good size boar trotting past them less than 5 meters away. Baron gave chase, but once boar run like that, the likelihood of us catching up to them in the dense cover is virtually nil.

We hunted the next mountain over, rustled up a herd pretty quickly, but they were runners too. It had been a couple hours, so we decided to head home. Walking on the mountain road past the first hill we hunted, Baron slowly moved off the asphalt and uphill. I told the lads they didn't have to come with, but that there was a good chance something was still up there. 50 meters up and I saw Baron at attention, focused, tail high and wagging. When Baron's tail wags, boar are within 10 meters. We were on a pretty steep slope, and I couldn't pick out the boar, but Baron was carefully moving right and left with me right behind him. Finally I saw that the boar was still sleeping, and a pretty good size one at that. All I could see was its back though, and the head was behind some underbrush.

At this point Baron and I were less than 5 meters from it, and things happened rather quickly. Baron moved to the left and a meter in front of me, barked, the boar's ear popped up, and I fired my first shot as it started getting up. It was a good hit, but a big boar takes a lot to go down. The boar started rumbling downhill to my right, and as I took the second shot Baron dove around two meters from above and to my left, practically on top of the boar. In a flash they were tearing downhill with Baron grabbing the left ear, and Karen who was below us catching up just then to grab the right. The boar dragged them further down and through some more bamboo and small trees as I flew downhill after them.

Boars will often try to brush off dogs that are hanging on by knocking them against trees, and this boar ran into a little thicket just as I caught up and popped the third shot in its head. The boar was an 81kg male, some great meat, and a great experience for Karen. Being 50 meters from the road was a plus, and getting the boar into the van and home was easy. This was basically my first hunt of the season since my MCl and meniscus injury put a stop to any ideas of mountaineering. We've been out a couple times since, and taken a few more boar.

Anyway, 1am and time for sleep. Baron's as solid as ever, and Karen has potential.

Choshun Line Shikoku

Posting some pictures of Choshun, one of the founding studs of the Shikoku breed, and some of the dogs from his line. He was a hunting dog from Hongawa village. Rumor has it he may have been dognapped from his original owner.

Kishu Book Part 7

This is the last of the Kishu Book. It finishes describing care of puppies, and moves onto owning/maintaining adult dogs, all the way down to how to build a kennel.

 Then it talks about exhibitions, NIPPO shows etc

 ...pedigrees and kennel registration

 And then lastly a section about common canine ailments (heart worm etc).

Kishu Book Part 6

And moving right along with discussion of the standard.

 And then on to how to take care of pups.

Kishu Book Part 5

Moving right along here, and only posting the pages with pictures...

 The following section is about the Kishu as a hunting dog

 And here comes a breakdown of the standard

Yes, I believe I already missed a day of posting haha. 

Kishu Book Part 4

Here we're just getting into the pedigrees of some of these foundation dogs.