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Akita People

"Akita World" talks with

Loren and Cristina Egland,
Antioch, California

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Do you think that is more a result of politics, or the lack of knowledge?

    Cristina
Both.

    Loren
It is kind of a vicious circle between breeders and judges. Judging really has more to do with the direction the breed takes than breeders do, because breeders breed what they can win with. Oftentimes, their priority is winning, rather than breeding to the ideal standard - some aspects of the standard don't have to be real good in order to win in the AKC ring .

    It is kind of a breeding philosophy, too. People are breeding to win, and they tend to breed just those particular dogs that are already winning. They maybe eliminate dogs that have much better features, maybe it is an outcross, let's say, which may not produce as much consistency in the litter, so you may not produce as many champions, but you do have an opportunity to produce one dog that is superior in certain qualities. It may not be their interest. The standard and the ideal specimen may not be as important to them as producing a lot of winners and champions.

   The biggest example of how judging influences a breed more than breeders is looking at the dogs in Japan, and the dogs in America overall as a group. Not singling out any individual dog or line. How much different they are because of the different types of things that they are emphasizing. The judging is what controls what breeders basically are breeding. Judges tell us they can only put up what the breeders bring them, so I guess you have to lay some blame on the breeders, too, because theoretically they should be strictly trying to improve the breed, no matter whether they win or not. Then again, that opens up an excuse for breeders to breed dogs that are not at all competitive, and that is not right, either. You need to keep an eye on the show ring, and understand the things you do need in order to be competitive and yet not sacrifice other things. It is a fine line. I have judged a couple of Akita specialty matches and Sweepstakes at Regional, Independent, and National Specialties. The last time I judged, I would not look back and change a thing, but it is easy to second-guess yourself. Judging is also a learning experience.

Have you ever used a handler?

    Loren
Yes, occasionally. Most of the time I show my own dogs. Cristina doesn't show.

    Cristina
I just don't feel like running around that ring! (laughter)

    Loren
I'm getting to where I'm not so sure I do, either.

     Cristina
He does a beautiful job of showing our dogs. He has finished our dogs, basically. But we had used a handler once, mostly for one of our bitches that we had. She was one that came right from Japan and that was when the doors were just opened again. She was so different-looking, but she was gorgeous. Just beautiful. We took her to a dog show, because she looked so darn gorgeous, although we didn't start showing her until she was pretty old. We just didn't know what we were going to do with her.

   Loren
We got her from Japan as a puppy. We called her Japan, because she was one of the first ones brought over here. When we got her, we were basically taking a chance. We wanted some features that the Japanese dogs had that we don't see in America. Enough of them in one dog to use for breeding. So Frank Sakayeda went over there, and got one for us. He had imported a bitch that in 1992 won Winners Bitch at the National. We wanted a puppy out of her, because she had been bred to a Meiysho winning brindle over in Japan, but she didn't have any puppies. So Frank went to Japan and brought her back for us. Even though Frank speaks their language and knows the breed very well, we weren't expecting to get the kind of quality we got in her.

   We didn't really show her much, maybe six or eight times, the first four years of her life. We just got her out once in awhile and showed her off. But she started looking so good that we decided to enter a show because it was close, a weekend of shows. We actually had a judge change at the last minute which was okay with me. She won that day, so I thought maybe we should start showing her more. So we did, and we got Al Lee to do some of the showing for us, because we didn't want to go to all the shows. We thought a handler might pull it off, because she looks a little different than the average dog out there. Gosh, she finished really quickly. She had about eight weekends, and I think six of those were in California and two were in Oregon.

   The Oregon shows she didn't do anything at, but each weekend, in California, she picked up points, including a couple of majors, and finished. I put four or five points on her before that, just in the little showing we had done.

    Cristina
We were shocked because she looked different, but she was standard. She is a beautiful bitch. She has enough bone, she has the thick, curved ears, with beautiful triangular eyes that are swept up and beautiful cheeks. She had a nice muzzle, and she is beautiful.

    Loren
It is probably due to an old judge, C. Seaver Smith, who gave me the points and talked to me while we were getting a picture taken. He said she was the only one in the ring that had the correct forward slant of the ears, and beautiful balance. That was probably part of it. Nice sidegait, and all that. It kind of got us going. I told him we got her from Japan, and he said he didn't know anything about the imports or how they were different. He said she seemed a little smaller than some breeders like, but she was still standard. He had said that to me one other time, fifteen years earlier, in fact. It was when I had shown Glacier, and he couldn't find anything wrong with her, just thought maybe she could be a little taller. So it is funny how he kept the same line of thought all those years.

    Cristina
But actually Japan and Glacier were good-sized animals. Bitches, you know. They are not huge, like some. They are standard, and they are beautiful animals. This judge was able to see that, and I see a lot of other judges who are able to see it too. She finished so quickly, and she was directly from Japan.

    Loren
Anyway, he got me going on showing her, because we won that day. He asked me about some of the differences, and I told him that in Japan, they tend to be a little bit more artistic, focusing on the details of the standard. He said that was the Japanese way! (laughter) It is a big controversy right now, with Japanese and American dogs, and the talk of splitting the breed into two breeds.

    Cristina 
I don't see that. If they would have done it, and had went about splitting the breed like they did in the FCI countries where they gave you a certain amount of time to breed toward the type of Akita that you were after, say the Japanese or the American type Akita, you had time to do it in. Then splitting the breed wouldn't have been bad. But the way a few wanted to do it here, there are some people who just messed everything all up. They want to just split the breed, 100 percent, Japanese or American pedigree. That is not going to cut it, because there is not enough Japanese in the United States. The quality is poor. We were fortunate to have some good quality Japanese stock to work with.

    Loren 
In the FCI countries, they were never cut off from Akitas in Japan for eighteen years like we were here. They knew a breed split was coming, so they had time to breed in that direction. Some breeders had actually been breeding Japanese type since the 1992 JKC standard change. And when they split the breed there, they did it by type. They didn't do it by pedigree, they didn't need to have a dog directly from Japan to be typed as Japanese. In fact, they still have some countries that are still splitting the breed, and they will be continuing to type dogs all the way through the end of 2004 from what I understand.

   Interestingly, 100 percent American has been typed Japanese and vice versa. So the FCI's manner of splitting was totally different from how the small faction here wanted to split the breed. They wanted to make it 100 percent Japanese, and another faction wanted 100 percent American. It didn't make a lot of sense, because if you force that, then a split in AKC would not be compatible with the Japanese Akitas in FCI countries, because they didn't do it that way. Then you end up having three breeds in the world rather than two! James Crowley indicated that a breed split, all of the details would have to be worked out so that no one is unfairly penalized. Akitas that are mostly Japanese pedigree would be severely penalized if they were not allowed to be in the Japanese side. One-hundred percent Japanese dogs can still be shown so they would not be penalized even if not split at 100 percent.

    Cristina   
The sad part about it is we have more Akitas than any place in the world. There are so many of the Akitas that have been around when hey had closed the doors, the old time Akita that was brought over here, and that is what we have been breeding constantly. We have so many Akitas here, so finally when we do get the chance with Japan opening its doors in 1992 to let the Japanese Akita in here, we should take advantage of that. They are beautiful, and we should try to breed toward that beauty, which is the standard type of Akita using both animals.

    Loren   
Some people don't want the breed split because they think staying as one breed will add genetic diversity and might improve the health. Other people think that since Japanese breeders don't OFA hips or CERF eyes, etc., that somehow their dogs are a risk. Dogs are dogs, though. Our stock came from their stock. I doubt that there is much difference healthwise. But just because you have one breed here, and you have imports coming in from Japan, does not mean that you are going to add a lot to the genetic diversity unless people are using those dogs. And the majority of them are not. Ninety-nine percent of those who think not splitting will greatly add to genetic diversity have never bred to an import. So there has really been little effect on the breed.

   If you really wanted genetic diversity in the breed, you could split the breed according to some formula, say anything over 50 percent Japanese pedigree would go on the Japanese side and the rest on the American side, or have some similar percentage, since I think the AKC will only do a pedigree percentage type of a split. I don't think they will just do it by type like they will in FCI. If you gave people enough time to know what is coming, so that the dogs we have now would still be able to be shown, then you would be encouraging breeders to use diverse stock to breed toward the percentage needed to qualify for the Japanese or American breed. You'd probably have more genetic diversity in both breeds by doing it that way than you will by keeping it as one. But it is better to keep it as one, in my opinion, than to use a hard-line approach that is different than FCI. One-hundred percent wasn't the way JKC forced the split. They were allowing the FCI people to breed in that direction using whatever stock necessary.

   It is understandable that since the FCI has split the breed, the JKC no longer encourages starting a breeding program using both American and Japanese stock in order to breed toward Japanese type. ACA voted down pursuing a breed split a few years ago, although it can be revisited again shortly. There may be a little backlash from that from JKC, but there is a reasonable way to do it if it were to be done. I was emailing somebody in Europe who is prominent over there with the Akita breed, the Japanese side of it. I mentioned that some people here want to split the breed at 100 percent Japanese. She wrote back and said it is only because they are afraid of the competition. It basically comes down to what is in their kennel, and wanting to win, rather than what is good for the breed or what matches the standard the best. It is a discussion where you could go on and on. In fact, I have a 1971 ACA newsletter that included letters arguing for and against a breed split, including renaming the Japanese Akita and American Akita. This was two years before the AKC recognized the Akita breed. Both types are thus part of the original foundation stock.

   Cristina
At this point, I don't think it would be suitable at all to split the breed, because it wouldn't be done the right way, so why bother? Why not just keep the imported ones that come in here, and just have them with the American type Akitas and then breed toward the standard.

    Loren   
The funny thing is, the small faction that wants 100 percent Japanese and the small faction that wants 100 American both want to make two different breeds. But they are at odds with each other, since both groups cannot have their way only one group has a chance to have their side be at 100 percent. The only way both groups could have their way is if the breed were split three ways, 100 percent American, 100 percent Japanese, the rest as Akita. These groups are probably the ones most responsible, because of their hard-line approach, for this breed not having enough votes to split.

   I know several people who are for one Akita, but would consider it, or would not be totally opposed to a split, if it were done in a manner that would be beneficial for all and wouldn't hurt anybody. It would be beneficial to the dogs, as well. A reasonable split would still allow people who want to breed 100 percent to do so and still have a place to show. It would increase the numbers and the diversity in the lines, as well as the number of breeders and geographic distribution AKC requires, and thus, you would be able to go directly into a breed rather than have to be stuck maybe in Miscellaneous class for years. This class does not allow for earning championship points, nor does it allow dogs to compete in Group or Best in Show.

    Cristina   
But you would have to take the time to do all this.

    Loren   
There is a lot to be worked out, and whether it will ever come to that or not, I really don't know. It is not going to really influence our breeding program, but it does influence other people, because they have mentioned they are worried about this or that. That is why they don't do this breeding or that breeding. If they knew in advance just where things are going to go, well it may help. Say, for instance, that you have a black-masked Akita that is 75 percent Japanese. Maybe you want to show that dog, but if you split right now at 75 percent, the dog might be disqualified because the standard on the Japanese side wouldn't allow for the black mask. So you hurt that person, although their dog could be used for breeding. But you know what to expect going in what to expect coming out, and those are the kinds of things that should be fair to all. Some people just don't care as long as it is good for them personally.

    Cristina   
We have pondered it, and talked it over, and we think if it is not going to happen the right way, don't bother with it. Don't even split the breed. Everybody will be happy and everybody will just breed their dogs the way they want. Nobody has to go into anybody else's breeding program. If people want to use them, they do. If they want to show them, they do. But the judges have to be told that if you have a gorgeous Japanese-looking type out there, it should be given the same consideration as the American type when they fit the standard, even if they look different than the others. Just because there are not as many of them in the ring, they should not be given any less consideration.

    Loren 
 It was about two and one-half years ago when we did a poll in the ACA. The question asked all ACA members was, "Should the ACA consider splitting the Akita into two breeds?" The results were 43 percent wanted to pursue a split, and 57 percent didn't. Our ACA bylaws states that we need a two-thirds majority to pass such a split. Then of course, if a proposal is made and sent to AKC, they would either accept or reject it or modify it. So it still wouldn't be an automatic thing. But at that point they still needed 50 percent more votes than they got to really pass such a thing. It will probably come up again in 2002, and we will see how it goes then. I don't expect there to be a lot of change, unless there is a little change in some of these 100 percent attitudes.

How long do you think that kind of change would take to actually be in effect?

    Cristina   
That should be part of the proposal.  My thinking would be to give people three to five years. Say you make it at some percentage that is reasonable, and pretty much if you think about it, anything over 50 percent Japanese breeding shows the direction that somebody is breeding toward. If you set it further in the future, you could put that percentage higher, say maybe 75 percent, and that gives people a chance to continue on what they have already started in producing a Japanese type with good soundness and size and bone and all the things that their standard calls for just as much as our standard does. So that would be the best way to do it in my opinion, but that is just one opinion out of probably 700 ACA members.

Do you feel that you have established a distinguishable line? What are others looking for when they think of your line?

    Loren   
Though some have told us they were impressed by the fact that our type has been consistent for twenty years, our bloodlines are now totally different. And our dogs do not look like the common Akita. What others are looking for is that look. But we really haven't done enough breeding to have established a solid, strong line so to speak. We are just now getting into several breedings that are the first Northland to Northland breedings, so we are only in the second generation type of thing. We probably need to do that a bit longer, and keep working on it, to actually establish something. But our dogs do have a look that is sometimes a little different.

   We often have people say our dogs are beautiful. Oftentimes, it is people who don't really know dogs and aren't into the dog show scene. Maybe they are looking at our website (www.northlandakitas.com). They see our dogs, at shows, and say they are the most beautiful dogs they have ever seen. That makes you feel good, but you have to realize they are not really connoisseurs of structure or the standard. But it does bring up a point, and that is sometimes I think breeders and judges forget to look for beauty. They are looking for all these things, and maybe they have a really good dog, but it may not be an attractive dog. If they add a little beauty to the breed, whether it be in color, markings, coat or whatever it is, that would add dignity to the breed and make our dogs more attractive. Sometimes the man on the street can see beauty better than a judge or breeder. It is a different perspective.

How would you rate type, temperament and soundness, in order of importance?

    Loren   
A dog that doesn't have a reasonably sound temperament is going to be worthless to you. If it is a fear biter, or human aggressive, it doesn't matter how good the dog is or how well it moves. It is not going to do you any good. So you have to keep an eye on temperament, but you can buy good temperament, or get good temperament even at the pound. Just breeding for say a healthy dog, or a good-tempered dog, is not a good reason to breed in itself. Type and soundness, you have several people that tell you they want the exact same balance between both, but you can't always have that. You can have a dog who is extremely sound, a beautiful moving dog, but it can have terrible, terrible type. It may hardly look like an Akita. In that case, that dog is worthless to you in a breeding program. Whereas a very typey dog can be improved upon structure-wise if necessary. So type should always come first; you should know it is an Akita by looking at it. That doesn't mean you can have an unsound dog, or a dog that runs with its legs flying all over the place. You have to have a reasonable degree of balance and soundness, but you can give up a little of that for good type.

   When you are looking for soundness in the show ring, it is just down and back and around the circle and that is about it. You have really no idea what that dog is capable of physically, in its agility, quickness, how high it can jump, how fast it can run or how quick it can move. It really doesn't test all those features, how much an endurance a dog has and things like that. So you are only looking for show ring soundness. Sometimes a dog can move down and back pretty cleanly, and move around smoothly enough, but it is still not as quick and agile and fast or it can't jump as high as another dog. We really don't get much endurance by running around in the ring once or twice.

   Type becomes probably the very most important thing. If I have to make a choice between type and soundness (I won't cop out like many who respond to this question), I would go with type first. When you look at our standard, the standard has three sentences on gait. "Brisk and powerful with strides of moderate length. Back remains strong, firm and level. Rear legs move in line with front legs." That is what is in our standard. The rest of our entire standard is all dealing with type, so how do you give more than 50 percent importance to those three sentences over the entire standard that we have? It is senseless to put that much emphasis on it. That is somewhat, though, the AKC way. That is the way a lot of judges judge. That, to me, is the wrong way to judge. You´ll hear judges say, "Well, I´m not going to put up a dog that doesn´t so move just so". You know, so what if it has a slight movement flaw? Does it still get around the ring with ease? If so, and that is the dog that is dripping with type, that is the best dog and chat is the dog you should go with.

    Cristina   
It is important that the dog moves fluidly and nicely, but that is not one of the most important things in this breed. Some judges, when they judge, you would think that is the most important thing that there is in this breed, and that"s not true. It's the whole dog, the package. Some judges will put up an awful-looking dog just because it moves great; what the heck does that mean?

    Loren   
You can understand how beautiful it is to have a wonderful-moving animal, it just takes your breath away. We used to have Arctic, who had nice type, but any time I showed him, people would come up to me and mention his movement. You could feel it on the end of the lead; he hardly touched the ground. When I would run him on the bicycle, and he went into a full gallop, a lot of dogs have a little up and down to them, but he would just stretch out and back, and that level topline was just incredible. It was beautiful to watch. Then I think about awhile back, watching the world show on TV, and they had this breed, what was it, Italian Spumoni or something? I don't even know what it was. (laughter) But this dog put on such a beautiful show, and it ended up going Best in Show at the world show, and the woman who owned the dog was asked why she thought her dog won. She said it was because of his movement! She didn't mention type. When you get past the breed level, movement and showmanship and all that comes more into play. But Group judging and Best in Show judging really has nothing to do with the standard in the Akita, and that is what judges should keep in mind when they are judging the breed.

    Cristina
A lot of other dogs are much more agile than Akitas. Akitas are beautiful, and they move well. They are just not the best movers there are in dogs. But that is the type of dog that they are. Akitas are supposed to have strides of moderate length. But then, you have judges who like certain things. Some judges love the red color, or the great moving dogs so it depends on what judges like.

    Loren 
  They were originally a hunting breed in Japan. They were also used for guard work, and they have a dog fighting background, too; although the AKC Complete Dog Book leaves this part of Akita history out. So there were three purposes they were used for. A hunting dog needs to be somewhat agile, but doesn't have to be overdone, and they were never really meant to become like a giant breed. Our standard says in the introduction that "the Akita is in the bottom range of the large-size breed category." so it is not a giant breed. Unfortunately, Americans try to overdo it, and they make things too big everywhere. Sometimes they lose balance, and they start getting looseness to the lips and the skin, and overdone Mastiff like muzzles and that type of thing.

    Cristina 
A lot of times people don't really judge for the right reasons on a dog. Or breed for the right reasons, for that matter.

    Loren 
Some people think the Japanese changed their standard, but that is really not true. Akiho still uses the 1955 standard, only the all breed JKC changed their standard to only allow certain color markings. Just because their dogs are different than ours, or because some of the dogs looked different back in those days, more like ours do now, it is just because they didn't have much to work with when they were trying to I restore the breed or recreate the breed.

   In the beginning, the dogs were not really that large that were Japanese type dogs, according to the FCI standard that states, "Originally Japanese dogs were small to medium in size, and no large breeds existed." The first standard for all Japanese dogs in 1934 included the Akita in the large breed class. That standard described one basic type for small, medium and large dogs, so they were all basically considered one breed or one type, but of different sizes. In fact, from 1934 to 1937, they also had intermediate classes besides large, medium and small. They had medium-large and medium-small, so they could fit into there, too. They were cross-breeding and trying to restore the type and they had all different sizes. So that was the original plan, that knowledgeable breeders back then knew. They were to increase size while maintaining the primitive Japanese type dog.

   Unfortunately, they had to do a lot of purifying, because they couldn't find large breed dogs that really looked like the Japanese type. The large dogs were the most impure at the time. Medium dogs were the most pure, even more so than small dogs. So they used medium dogs in some of their breeding to try to restore it, then the war came and there were only a few dogs left, and some of them returned with servicemen. They weren't necessarily the type that was originally intended for the breed. However, American breeders did not understand all this back then.

   Since we are discussing a little history, I just want to mention that we owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Tatsuo Kimura. He has spent decades translating historical data on Akitas and Japanese dogs. We have spoken often, and traveled to Japan as a group. I think he gets a little discouraged that more Akita fanciers don't show a little more interest in the history of the Akita.

Are your breeding natural or controlled?

    Loren 
 It just depends.

    Cristina
 They are usually natural, but lately they are controlled.

   Loren 
It depends on the bitch and the stud. If they can get it done, fine. If not, then we help them out or do whatever we have to do, even if we have to do an AI. You do what you have to do to get the breeding.

    Cristina 
  Lately we have had to AI.

    Loren 
 Yes, the last two breedings were Ember. We hadn't had a litter for two or three years, then we had two or three litters. One was a litter of one and one was a litter of eight, from the same bitch. She just didn't like the stud, and the stud didn't care to be not liked, so we did AIs with her. She likes her other male, and she will mate with him all day long. Since Ember only had one pup, we repeated the breeding and got eight pups. But generally we won't ever repeat a breeding that gives us a normal-sized litter. If a breeder repeats a breeding three or four times, they should quit breeding all together. There is absolutely no good reason to repeat that often. There is no planned breeding program in effect. It is a wrong philosophy to breed for a market, or to breed to a cheap or local stud because that male is easier to get to. I traveled over 2,000 miles round-trip to breed my first litter, even though I had a champion stud at home. Several times I have sent a bitch to the East Coast to get bred. If you can't do it right, don't do it at all.

    Cristina 
 These dogs get put together whether they like each other or not. It's tough.

    Loren 
The actual getting the dogs bred is the hardest part. If it is a specific breeding you want, it can be hard.

    Cristina 
I'll never forget, Loren came home from the vet one day, and he had been trying to get Lion to ejaculate to test his sperm. I asked him what happened, and he said they brought out an ugly Collie or something. (laughter)

   Loren 
This woman was supposed to be a specialist, but she gave up in a hurry when he let out a yelp and looked at her like, "What are you doing down there?" It was a Sheltie.

    Cristina   
A Sheltie, and here is big beautiful Lion. That is his name, and he looks like one, too. Loren said that, and I didn't really think the stud cared what the bitch looked like. They just smell it, don't they?

    Loren   
It definitely depends on how good the vet is at it. Getting them together is the hardest part, and getting them pregnant. Sometimes they don't take, sometimes the timing is wrong or whatever. The whelping isn't so bad, I usually sleep with them all the time when they are about ready to whelp. I sleep with them for a week or two after they whelp, to make sure she doesn't lay on any of them.

    Cristina
I make him sleep with the dogs, I don't.

    Loren
I am out in the garage with them.

    Cristina
Which sounds worse than it is. We have a nice, carpeted area, and that is our whelping area. We put a big, long section from an old couch down there. It is really comfy, but I'm not going to do it. He will. Actually he is the dog person, I won't sleep with the dogs.

    Loren
She likes the fun part.

    Cristina
I go out there every day. We have our own business, so what is good is that the dogs aren't left alone all the time. I get out there in the middle of the day, where some people who have dogs keep them closed up or all alone all day long. We give our dogs a lot of attention, even though they are outdoor dogs.

    Loren
We let them out to run around the backyard, and we have a hill back there to run up and down. It is plenty for the five dogs, for us.

    Cristina
I go out and give them a snack in the middle of the day and clean up their kennels and everything, and pet them. I make sure they know we love them. I don't like to see people have too many dogs; then they can't give them all the attention they should have.

    Loren
You can't do it all yourself, when it comes to breeding, unless you have big facilities and help. There used to be a lot of big breeders like that, years ago. It is not true so much anymore. We have people who kind of think like us, and we co-own some bitches with them. It helps to keep things going that way. Cornelius Campbell is one of them, and Josh Popkin, Bill Burland, as well as Michael Sclafani, Suzette Morettini and some others. It helps because we can keep things going a little bit and have some nice dogs produced without trying to do it all yourself. You just can't do it, especially living in town. You don't have room for all that.

    Cristina
You are only supposed to have three, but we have applied for a license to keep more. And our dogs are not troublemakers, so there has never been a problem.

    Loren
They came out here one time because a neighbor complained they were barking and looked at our dogs and said our set up was really nice. They said they wished they had this in their animal place.

    Cristina
We have never had any problems, and everybody around here has dogs. I think their dogs bark way more than ours do.

    Loren
Most of them don't even bark, but one barks if something happens, but that is about it. They are not real big barkers as a rule. But you sure hate to have one that did bark all the time for no reason. That would be awful.