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Akita People

"Akita World" talks with

Loren and Cristina Egland,
Antioch, California

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This interview was conducted at the home of Loren and Cristina Egland in November, 2001 by Kristin Fairbanks.

How long have you been in this breed, and how did you get started?

   Loren:
When I was a kid, I always liked dogs, and I read about all the different kinds of breeds. I lived in Iowa, and at that time Akitas were pretty scarce. Most of them were in California, and a few on the East Coast. In 1961, I was in school, and there was a publication that came out that kids get all the time. I was in seventh grade, and it had a picture in it of Akitas from Japan. I clipped that out, although I could never find any information on them. I was always interested in dogs, and I was looking at a Dog World magazine when I found a subscription to Northern Dog News magazine. I liked the Northern breeds, but no one breed stood out. Then in 1964 a Northern Dog News article was written by Liz Harrell and Sonya Dorman and it was all about Akitas. It had pictures and everything, and it kind of snapped. That was the breed I was looking for. Before, I liked several breeds but just couldn't decide on which one.

   Also in 1964 I subscribed to Akita News from the American Akita Breeders, Inc. Living in Iowa on a farm, I didn't see my first Akita until about 1969; after I moved to Minnesota, and found a guy about 150 miles away who had Akitas in Wisconsin. I went there and saw his Akitas, actually I went several times just to look, but I was in an apartment and didn't have room for dogs. So later in the `70s, after I bought a house, I went to California and looked around at some breeders there. I had been subscribing to Akita Journals, so I knew where some were, and I had written letters and talked to people. I looked around and finally came back with a dog. He was a brindle and he became a champion, but he wasn't really that good a dog. So I never really used him for breeding purposes. From there, it just kind of grew. You start looking for that special bitch. Actually, at first, I had four deposits on bitches, so my plans were way, way too big. (laughter) But only two of them came about, and that turned out to be Ch. Eastwind Glacier Fox Of Northland. She was Best in Sweeps at the 1982 National. The other one was Ch. O'BJ's Wild Alaska Of Northland, who was a Sachmo daughter and a Sachmo great-granddaughter. She had quite a bit of Sachmo in her. She finished at ten months, completely owner handled, an old Working Group winner at nine months. So they worked out pretty good, and were a couple of really nice bitches.

   One of my deposits was for a pup out of a red, white-faced Japanese import named Megami, but Sheryl Langan never had any more pups out of Megami. It took a long time getting them because I had deposits on them, and I wanted the pick of the litter; I was looking for something that was tightly bred who had good, quality parents. So that kind of worked out. From there I kept showing and breeding. I was back in Minnesota at that time.

    Cristina:
He was into it before I met him. I met him and it was like a package deal. In fact, when I met him, I thought it was a pick-up line, because he asked if I wanted to come see his dogs! (laughter) That was the first time I had ever heard something like that! I said yes, and I looked at them; I was shocked. I had never seen an Akita before; they were big. I was sitting in his living room, and there was one dog who wouldn't let me move. Loren said they didn't bite or anything like that, and he walked into the other room. Well, this big dog, a brindle, scary-looking dog was sitting there by me. I thought he was going to attack me or something!

    Loren
He was a pussycat.

   Cristina:
But he was scary! So I got quite a feel for the dogs then, and to be very frank, at first I was excited, but yet I didn't know anything about it. Then he started taking me to dog shows.

    Loren
I won Best of Breed one time when she was with me, and we couldn't stick around for the Group. We had to go to the Renaissance Fair.

    Cristina
I didn't want to stay, I wanted to go to the Renaissance Fair and we did. I don't know why. Why did you do that?

    Loren
I was single. (laughter)

    Cristina
But that is the way it started, and then it was more his thing than mine. Then I fell in love with the dogs. I had a little Poodle, and the Akita almost ate my Poodle. He went after the big dog's food, and that is not right. All of the sudden I saw my little Poodle on the ground and thought, "Oh, my gosh!" We can't have that, so I ended up taking a real liking to the Kites. They are nice, big dogs. I got stuck with the Toy Poodle after my daughter left, but she was a cute little dog. I did manage to sell her to a nice home. But then I got right into the Akitas.

How many litters have you bred ?

    Loren
Not a lot. We always wanted something out of Glacier, and she was five years old before we got any puppies out of her. She only had nine or ten puppies in her lifetime, and four of them became champions. Up until 1994, we had problems with some health things, so some were given away. We probably only sold about twenty puppies for money up until then. From 1994 on, after the imports from Japan came in, things started cooking and we started having a few more litters, all from completely new stock. Generally we had a litter or two a year since then. Sometimes you'd like to have more but it doesn't always work out. We only have five dogs total; that is our maximum. Some of them are getting older.

    Cristina
We are breeding to get a beautiful akita. We are not worrying about how many litters we are going to get out there or whatever. A lot of people want what we are going to give them, so we want to put just the right Akitas together to make that beautiful Akita. This is where different types of Akitas come into mind. There is a type of Akita called the American Akita, which is a beautiful Akita and is structurally sound and lovely. There is also the Japanese Akita, which is just gorgeous, more aesthetic to the eye, I guess. They have a beautiful face, headpiece and so on. We like to actually breed the two together to make the most beautiful Akita. They closed the doors to letting in the Japanese import for about ten years or so.

    Loren
It was about eighteen years, actually. It was February, 1974, when they closed the doors to registering imports from Japan. Then in April, 1992 they opened them back up again. So for eighteen years, you couldn't register an Akita from Japan. Japan was in an Akita restoration phase, but after the war there weren't that many Akitas left. A few of them came over here to the United States, but the majority of them were a little different type from what they were actually trying to breed over there. American breeders went in different directions, majority-wise, but the standards were basically the same. The Akita Club of America standard is pretty much based on the Akiho standard, which is a club in Japan that deals strictly with the Akita breed. So even though the standards are pretty much the same, the look is often different. But then they have different types over there, too, within that group, and we have a lot of different types over here as well. Sometimes, some of the types don't always match the standard as well as they could. The ideal dog would be the standard type.

    Cristina
So that is what we try to breed for, the standard type.

    Loren
It doesn't really matter whether you breed all Japanese or all American or something in between, it is just the individual dogs you are matching up in order to produce a quality dog. That is what becomes important, selection of the breeding pair.

   Cristina
You take dogs that are compatible, that complement each other. If you find one dog lacks something, you try to breed it with another dog that has what the other dog lacks. This is what our goal has been. If you have two good specimens that you want to breed together, sometimes one might not have exactly everything you want, and the other one might have more. Then if you try to breed in a way where your physical compensation is good, you get a good Akita that will match the standard. That is what we want to do.

   Loren
Our philosophy is that we want to keep in mind the best of a quality that we have ever seen, and then try to strive for that. Sometimes you don't realize, maybe a specific feature of a dog, the eyes, ears, coat quality, or whatever, just how good it can be until you have actually laid eyes on such an animal. You don't know if it is genetically possible. So once you see that, that should be your goal; to breed dogs that have that kind of quality. Not just mediocre or barely meeting the standard, but excelling in all those features.

How did you come up with your kennel name ?

   Loren
Well, I guess I lived in Minnesota, for one thing. I always liked Northern breeds, so it just seemed like a good name to describe a lot of my first dogs, and probably even some now. We have Northland names, like our first one, who was Cee Jay's Yukon. We had Eastwind Glacier Fox Of Northland, and Gaylee's Arctic Fury Of Northland. We had a couple of Tundras. We had O'BJ's Wild Alaska Of Northland, and her son was Northland's Call Of The Wild, after Jack London's book. We called him Buck for short. Some of our dog's names now have kind of wandered off, with more natural type names. We have some named after wildlife art prints, like Embers At Dawn, Out Of The Shadows, Shades of Sunset, and things like that. Other names were Snow Drift, Snow Crystal, Mackenzie River. and High Sierra.

   Cristina
We like the dark red Akitas, or brindles. We like white, too. Those are the colors we really like to breed for. But if you get a really pretty nice black and white one, a real dark black. they are good, too.

   Loren
As long as you don't have all those little speckles and spots. Freckles and ticking and stuff. The white is not clear anymore if you have that. Clear color is something that is in the standard; when you are talking about the standard, you really consider every detail of the standard and to have even better quality than just meeting it. Some breeders try to weaken the standard to excuse undesirable qualities of their dogs. You can't be kennel blind.

Do you think the standard is a good one?

   Loren
It is a pretty good standard, but there are areas where compromises were made in the beginning. Things like free of wrinkles when at ease, rather than just plain free of wrinkles. They are describing the skin on the forehead, the points to remember section does emphasize that "Most Akitas have no loose skin on their heads at any time. Under conditions of excitement, a slight wrinkle on the forehead is acceptable but not desirable." That is one area.

   There are different things that are in the standard that they have softened in order to get them to look more like the old dogs, so the AKC would recognize them. I would prefer to see some of those things tightened up a little bit, and some things to be clarified. Like nose color; exactly what is a butterfly nose? What is total lack of pigmentation? I am not sure I have ever seen a dog that had total lack of pigmentation, even though they can get pretty rosy and pink. It would almost have to be an albino to be that way. Some judges are confused by that.

    There are a lot of things that are missing, like full cheeks, which was in most of the standards but is not mentioned in our standard. Thick ears, not something that is mentioned, but it is something all the original standards had. Most breeders like thick ears, and agree that is a better look, but it is not mentioned in the standard. Eyes, it mentions that they are triangular, and some people say they can be almond-shaped, but that is not really correct. Ever since the beginning standard in 1934, in Japan, it always had the raised outer corner of the triangle as being part of the standard. Well, when our standard was made, the upward slant was eliminated, but it still is what we really should be striving for. You get a triangle that slants down the other way, it kind of drags the whole face and expression down. Things like that.

    Color is another thing. The standard that the ACA had in the beginning had changed a few times. For awhile, it didn't accept whites, and then it did again. In a 1960 version of the ACA standard, it says, "No more than one-third of the coat may be white and the white may appear only on the muzzle as a blaze, on the chest or forelegs, as a collar, or on the hind paws and tip of tail." The committee that formulated the standard accepted in 1972 considered making mismarked pintos a disqualification, so that the pintos didn't become so outrageously ridiculous in the way they looked. When they are undermarked or poorly marked, or lack balance, they detract from the dignity of the breed, and they look like a clown.

    The introduction to the standard says, "If it were necessary to describe the Akita in one word, DIGNITY would suffice. For it is this concept that the breed embodies. Whether in proud stance or no-nonsense movement, the head dignified presence is its most distinct quality·. Each element described in the standard is designed to contribute to this impression." There are a lot of things that could be improved on and added to, but overall, you should be able to read the standard and understand somewhat what the dogs should look like.

    Cristina
A lot of head's are losing the look they should have. That is why we have gone to Japan and looked at the dogs there. I think what is happening is a lot of them don't have the nice, triangular eye; they have more of a round eye and some of the dogs don't have the breadth of skull they should have. Or the cheeks, for that matter. Then they have long ears, long thin ears, when they should be thick and cupped. That is why we should improve the breeding aspect.

   Loren
You have people who totally misunderstand the standard, too. In the last issue of Akita World someone was talking about how she understood the standard, and said she understood the part of the standard that referred to the muzzle as being two to three muzzle to the skull, but rather than describing that as five equal parts, two parts being equal for the muzzle length and three parts equal for the skull length. She understood that basically to mean a one to two ratio, where one-third or one part was the muzzle length, and two-thirds was the skull length. Well, that is incorrect. Some people misunderstand that terminology, for some reason. Somehow they think the two-to-three means two-thirds and one-third, and that is not what it means. It means 40 to 60 percent. Things like that they misunderstand. Size is a very misunderstood thing. The standard is so specific, and so clear. It says bitches 24 to 26 inches and males 26 to 28 inches at the shoulder. That is the standard, and anything within that size range is equally acceptable according to the standard. So it doesn't mean that 27 inches, being right in the center of 26 and 28, is something that is most ideal. A 26-inch dog is equal to a 28-inch dog, as far as the standard goes. But because we have a lower limit disqualification, under a 25-inch height for a male and under 23 for bitches, they somehow think that is part of the standard height. Or because we have no upper disqualification limit, they think the bigger the better. Some Akita people say the dogs can be as big as you want them to be, that there is no upper limit. Well, just because there is no oversize disqualifying fault, it does not mean that it is not faulted. You have people advertising that their dog is 28 1/2 or 29 inches tall. Well, they are openly advertising their dog's fault, as far as size goes.

    Cristina
They always think the bigger, the better. That is a misconception. The Akita is supposed to be a substantial-size dog. But say that you had two Akitas and one was huge and a structural disaster, and then you have one that is maybe 26 inches that is beautifully structured, well, you are going to take the 26-inch one and give that one the reward. But some judges are poorly educated; they think the bigger the better, no matter what it looks like.

    Loren
They get used to seeing certain things, whether it be the short-legged problem that we have in the breed, or whatever. They get used to seeing that certain look, or the German Shepherd look where the muzzles tend to be a little longer. They may not look snipey because the muzzles are so overdone, and large and powerful. It overpowers the face, rather than being balanced. Everything needs to be in balance. These dogs are not meant to be Mastiffs. Probably one of the worst things people do, and it is always the first thing out of their mouths when they are describing the standard, is the first line of general appearance where it says, "large, powerful, much substance and heavy bone." This could describe many breeds. Beyond that, they could hardly care less, it seems. When you start looking at some of the dogs it seems that way. Whereas the Japanese tend to be a little more artistically inclined, because they emphasize things like the shape of the eye and the ears, and the quality of the coat and richness of the color. They look for the full, large tail and things. Things that really add to the beauty and the appearance of the dog, and are really part of the standard Akita.

    Some people think color is the least important thing in the standard, but the standard doesn't say that. It emphasizes color. Back in the points to remember section, that has followed the standard ever since its inception, it mentions that "Rich, clear colors are desirable. Especially with pintos, well-balanced markings are vital to the overall appearance." If something is vital, it is critically important, and you see pintos or so-called mismarked pintos that have just horrendous markings. Markings can detract so much from the dog, and colors that are so washed-out and dull that it just doesn't add dignity to the appearance of the animal. So to say that color is not important, or the least important, is not something that they can base that opinion on in, the ACA standard. Color is the first thing you see. It is the only thing mentioned in the standard that encompasses the entire dog.

Do you see some colors go up in the ring more than others ?

   Loren
Possibly. To some extent, anyway. The average dog out there is not going to be your brilliant reddish-orange color. Old dogs like Baby, Buster, and our old Big Mac had it. We are starting to see some whites now that have done well, but sometimes they have to be pretty dam good or they are not going to do as well as some other color might. If you have a really striking brindle, something that is very unusual in color but very beautiful, especially if the striping comes all the way down to the face, that has always been kind of a hard one to sell to the judges and to some breeders. I personally believe it is one of the most exotic colors there is, and beautiful. A natural look, like a tiger. Sometimes that may be harder to finish.

    Cristina
Because the judges don't see it as much.

    Loren
It could be, too, that the dogs they see winning are a different color, so they are thinking that the winning breeders have this color. It could be any thing. Lack of knowledge, even. But a lot of breeders like those colors, judges just aren't as familiar with them.

Is there anything that can he done to improve judging?

   Loren
I have been a member of the judges' education committee since 1994, and we have seminars every year at the National. We do slide presentations and have live dogs in. We discuss the standard, and what the standard is actually talking about, and all those things. But there is only a limited number of judges who attend those. There are some other ones that are held throughout the country on occasion, too, but even if you do have a good judge, sometimes judging isn't always just about the dog. That's kind of the way it is. Sometimes they are thinking about other things, and why they are doing what they are doing is hard to say. You know that going in, so you accept sometimes that maybe you are not going to get very competent judging in some instances.

  On the other hand, there are other judges who are pretty good. Breeder-judges, some of them, tend to have a little better eye or appreciation for the details of the standard, in the aspects of what you are lacking in the breed.

  Like eyes, which is one of the major problems right now in the breed. We are not very good at all in that department, but if you don't breed to the dog that has an exceptional eye, you are not likely to get it if you don't breed to dogs with a correct characteristic. It is kind of a shotgun approach, you do have to get quite lucky breeding dogs that don't possess exceptional quality.

    Cristina
Ideally, it would be wonderful if you could take bits and pieces from different dogs and put them into one dog. Then you could have that beautiful Akita. There are a lot of beautiful Akitas out there, don't get me wrong. It is just that you want to better the breed, and sometimes when I go to dog shows I get really disappointed. I look out there and I think there are so many improvements that could be made, and a lot of times people are just breeding this one to that one, maybe because the dog has been winning a lot. I'm not saying breeding to winners is wrong, because our dogs have won, too. They have done their fair share. Everybody has, but I am just saying sometimes the winning dog is not necessarily the best dog. People will breed to that dog just because of that, because they are blinded by thinking that since the dog is winning, that is what they want. Then the judges see the same type of dogs always going in the ring, and if they do see something that is different, and maybe a little bit more to the standard, they will put up the one that is more like the other dogs, rather than the one that looks different but is more ideally to the standard. It gets a little bit depressing, when you go to a dog show and that happens.

  Loren
Well, if you could build them instead of breed them it would be a lot easier! (laughter)

    Cristina
With the whole dog show thing, you have to really enjoy it to be in it. As I said before, the judging isn't always the way we would like it, and that isn't just because your dog didn't win. It's that you look at it and you wonder how that other dog could win.