Kai ken

The Kai Ken is a medium/small sized dog and is one of the six native Japanese breeds, originating from the mountains of Yamanashi prefecture. The Kai was declared a national monument in 1934, the second Japanese dog to be designated as such, after the Akita-inu. Awareness of this rare breed has increased recently, following television specials that introduced and explained the breed to the general public. Despite this media exposure, however, the Kai still remains one of the least known and understood Japanese dog breeds.  It wasn't until the 1930s that these hunting dogs were revealed to the world. It was thanks to an article written for a magazine specializing in domestic dogs by Mr. Shokichi Kobayashi, a veterinarian from Yamanashi Prefecture and later director of the Kofu Zoo. He had become aware of the Kai-ken in 1924, when he saw a "tiger-haired dog" during a house call in a mountain village. In 1931, Dasuke Adachi, a prosecutor from the city of Kofu, also saw one of these dogs with brindle fur and was greatly impressed by it. After some research he discovered that these dogs could be found in Ashiyasu village. He began efforts with other prominent citizens to locate and preserve this rare type of Nihon Ken. Struck by the wonderful qualities of this dog, Adachi tried to get one, looking everywhere. He eventually purchased a Kai ken kuro-tora  from a hunter in Ashiyasu Village. In the fall of that year the Kai Dog Protection Society was founded, which continues to this day.

The following excerpt, based on the physical appearance and temperament of the dog Kai belonging to Dasuke Adachi, appears in the Kai Ken Aigokai prospectus: “The Kai-ken is completely devoted to a single master for its entire life. Not only does the Kai not readily accept strangers, but he will risk his own life to defend his master from an attacker and is not afraid of dying. The Kai-ken's pricked ears and curled tail give it the appearance of an inu hariko doll. The dog's build and temperament bring to mind the simple, unaltered appearance of an old samurai warrior." The expression “one master for life” is used frequently with all Japanese dog breeds, but this characteristic appears to be particularly strong in the Kai-ken. There have been cases where a Kai dog stopped accepting food and water after the death of its owner, as if it wanted to follow him into death. Other stories tell of occasions when the owner of a Kai-ken had an accident and died in the mountains, and the dog remained with the body for days on end. So far, we have only traced the relatively recent history of the Kai dog, based on its period of cohabitation with humans. However, this breed appears to have originated either from a wild dog that inhabited the mountainous area around the Southern Alps, or perhaps from a cross between a wild dog and a village dog. The story goes that hunters would raise wild dog puppies they found in the mountains, or leave the females in heat tied up in the wild in the hope that a wild dog would mate with them (although some wild dogs will kill a domestic bitch after mating, so this method may have proven impractical in reality). The Kai-ken appears to have inherited the same wild bloodline as the Japanese wolf. To explore their origins, I visited the village of Ashiyasu. This is a village that, when Dasuke Adachi and others founded the protection society, had many beautiful Kai ken. Mr. Kazumi Ii, who runs Kai-Ken no Sato Ashiyasu, said that every family in the village once had at least one Kai ken. However, as the Japanese goat, which was the main prey to be hunted, became a natural monument, the number of Kai dogs in the village gradually decreased. (By a strange coincidence, the Japanese capricorn was designated a natural monument in 1934, the same year as the Kai dog.)

“Since Ashiyasu is the birthplace of the Kai-ken,” Ii san tells us, “it would be sad to see the race disappear here. Thus, around 1985, the Kai-Ken Hozonkai (Kai Dog Preservation Society) was formed in Ashiyasu. The company itself ceased trading in 2003, but I already had my own Kai dogs and was completely fascinated by them, so I continued to breed them, but in an individual capacity.” There are currently eight Kai dogs in Kai-Ken no Sato Ashiyasu. Kai dogs have a strong tendency to be attached to "one owner for life" and are cautious and reluctant to show themselves to people, but can become sociable and friendly depending on how they are raised. Mr. Ii's Kai-ken are worthy of being called Kai ambassadors and most of his dogs are sociable. While Mr. Ii was showing me the dogs, I asked him if he knew much about the Kai-ken of the old days. He told me how the wild dogs that roamed the village sometimes gave birth to puppies in the shelter of people's verandas, and that his uncle had actually adopted one of these puppies. “Even though he was just a puppy, he was so wild that he couldn't tame him. He couldn't even put a collar on his neck. In the end, he had to take him to the vet and have him sedated so he could be collared.” It was spine-tingling to hear how wild these dogs once were and to think that they roamed freely in this region just 80 years ago. It is satisfying to know that the distant descendants of those wild dogs can still be seen in Ashiyasu village, as there was a time when it was feared that the dogs had disappeared forever. At the first exhibition organized by the Nihon Ken Hozonkai (Japanese Dog Preservation Society or NIPPO), the Kai attracted much attention from attendees, which helped lead to the classification of the Kai as a living natural monument by the government of Japan in 1933 When conservation efforts began to gain momentum, the Kai was often said to be too small to be a medium breed, but too large to be a small breed. Although the Kai falls into the medium-sized dog category, it is only slightly larger than the smallest of the six original Japanese dog breeds, the Shiba-inu (also designated a natural monument). In terms of size, the Kai is larger than the Shiba, but slightly smaller than the Shikoku, Kishu, and Hokkaido, giving it a unique place among Japanese breeds. 50 centimeters, but previously they were from 39.5 to 45.5 centimeters.

Kai numbers have increased under the protection of the national and prefectural governments, with the prefectural government granting tax incentives to the owners of these national treasures. Thanks to this, the Kai emerged relatively unscathed from the period during and after World War II. While other Japanese breeds faced harsh conditions and extremely depleted numbers, the Kai remained mostly intact, with many of the dogs kept at local government offices and police departments. The fact that after the war more than half of the dogs registered in Yamanashi Prefecture were Kai shows how effective these measures were.