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Akita People

"Akita World" talks with

Loren and Cristina Egland,
Antioch, California

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What advice would you give to breeders who are just starting out?

      Loren
The way I started out, researching before you buy. You are probably going to make a mistake your first dog. Even though ours became a champion and all the research and people I talked to and dogs we visited, looking at the Akita journals and all the pictures, and reading as much as I could, it was probably a couple of years before I actually bought one. We ended up with a dog that was just so-so. It was easier to finish them back then because majors were easier, four dogs and you have a major.
   So that wasn't so hard. People who were breeding a lot back in those days, could really pump out a lot of champions.
   I would say start out with a male and then learn with that male. Then after you have had him for awhile and shown him a bit, you will pick up a lot. Then you can go out and find a bitch. The bitch is the most important thing. You really don't even need a male to start a breeding program. All you need is a good bitch, and that is the most important thing. You can control the breeding with a bitch, but with a male you have no control over breeding whatsoever. You can choose from hundreds of males throughout the country to breed to, and you don't have to own them to do so. No kennel is better than its bitches. It is usually best not to take a puppy bitch back in exchange for your stud's service. You need a better plan than that.

   I used to read books about dog breeding, too, and sometimes you come to different conclusions about inbreeding, linebreeding and outcrossing. One of the main books is a little booklet called Planned Breeding, which is a series of articles done by Lloyd Brackett in Dog World.

   Some of it may be outdated, but most of it is timeless. They made a publication out of it, and he talked about how he started with three different bitches, and they were all related to a certain animal and he chose each for different characteristics which they had that were good. He did a lot of inbreeding and linebreeding, but what he was able to accomplish when his kennel had up to 90 dogs at a time is something that most people cannot do because they just can't do that much breeding. They can't have that many dogs and watch them grow and really develop a line through inbreeding.

   On the other hand, I have come to a new conclusion about outcrossings since the Japanese dogs have come in. That has its place, as well. So learn about that, and get the best bitch you can. The ideal way to get a bitch is to find the best bitch out there and go try to buy her from somebody, rather than take a chance on a puppy. But that is very hard to do. People with really good bitches don't want to part with them. You have to know what a good bitch is, too. The other thing is to look at the line, and both parents. Put your money down ahead of time when you find a breeding that is what you are looking for, and try to get the pick of the litter. Then wait. If it is a year later fine, be patient enough to wait. It is hard when you are first getting started. You really want get things going.

   Cristina
 Remember when you are breeding that you want dogs that compliment your dogs, not just winning. If you get that beautiful bitch, you want to make sure that it has physical compensations there.

   Loren
That is what Lloyd Brackett always stressed. He repeatedly said that over and over again. that the "physical compensation is the foundation rock upon which all enduring work is built." It doesn't matter if you are outcrossing, inbreeding, or linebreeding, always Iook at the dogs not just the pedigrees. It doesn't always mean they will produce as well as they appear, or maybe as well as one that didn't look as good. But if you are going to have a enduring worth, or anything build on, you must choose dogs not just by the lines but by actual quality of the dog itself. Selection and breeding is an art.

   Cristina
I have heard some people, if we asked why they got that dog in particular or this one, they would say the I goes back to blah blah. But look at it! It may be awful.

  Loren
That is a recipe failure; breeding paper trails rather than dogs.

   Cristina
I look at the dog, and then I look to see what is behind it. If it is both good, the line and the dog, then I may breed to it. But why would you get a dog just because it has a fabulous lineage?

  Loren
It is the cheap way, sometimes. They can get it for little or nothing. It will cost them more in the long run than just spending the money to get something good to begin with, and it will save years of frustration.

   Cristina
 I hear old-time breeders who say they want to get this because it is going back to that, or going back to their stock, and I am thinking, "But LOOK at it!"

  Loren
That is another problem with breeders, they have to get over that sentimental attachment to their own old stock. This is a new time, and these are new dogs. This is a time to be looking forward rather than backward. If you can get away from thinking like that, then it opens up opportunities that you don't realize exist. We went through the same thing when we got the Japanese dogs. We always wanted this line or that line, our old stock or whatever, But it opened up the mentality that we realize that we are going to have to outcross anyway. So we could look at any line we want to that complements that dog. We shed our bias that had built up over the years. We had rare Sachmo free lines. Then we bred to Kash who went back to Sachmo 26 times.

   Cristina
Remember when we were at Jeri Lagus' house looking at movies of the old dogs?

   Loren
Pete and Jeri Lagus had a movie of the first National, and all the old people in the breed today were young back then.

   Cristina
Looking at the dogs, you can't believe it. They weren't that great. There were some that were all right, but when you look at them, you can see they have improved. Of course, we have lost a lot of things too. But there is always a way of improving your dogs. When you stop and think about it, the old stock was beautiful, but if you can make them even more beautiful, why not?

   Loren
If you can't improve on the old dogs, then what is the point? You also have people who will look at a dog, and they will say they want to produce something like this. It is totally different than anything they have but that is what they want. That is what they are looking for in their breeding, so when they do a breeding, they breed to dogs totally different in looks and expect to get it That is just insane. There is no rhyme or reason to why people do things sometimes.

   Cristina
I have heard that said about Lion. He is beautiful, and he is a 75 percent import. He is big and tall, and is just a lovely animal. He looks very Japanese, and we hear that so-and-so's dog looks like him or whatever. Well, it looked nothing like him! How do you think we got that look? We got that look because of his unique breeding.

  Loren
We advertised him once as the most unique Akita in America. He is big. People think if they go with Japanese stock, they are going to lose size and then they will lose bone. Well, sometimes you get bigger dogs because they have a bit more leg under them. Some of the American stock are short legged. It is true that some dogs may not have as much size or bone, but you only need one dog out of a litter to continue on with. You are not going to breed every dog produced in every breeding. You only match up one male and one female at a time when you are doing a breeding. So you pick out who you have selected just as you would with any breeding, you select dogs that have bone and size and structure and you go on from there. You build on that, rather than thinking along those lines. It is not necessarily true, and we have proven that over and over again. Some of the biggest dogs out there with excellent bone and body and leg length are 50-50 crosses.

   Cristina
Or 75 percent.

   Loren
In that case, Lion is kind of an aberration to be that size, but he is the biggest dog in the ring usually, and he is 75 percent Japanese. We saw the JKC translator at a Sacramento show in 1998. We were showing Lion and Mr. Awashima told us he was Japanese type and should be placed as a Japanese Akita. He thought Lion would win Best in Show in Japan.

   Cristina
There is a misconception that you lose bone and size, and that is another point. When we did go to a Japanese import, a full import male, we went and looked at the features and looked at the size. We looked at the bone before we even bred to him, and I have to admit, the ones that we have bred to ours are beautiful. They were beautiful dogs, bone and size-wise and everything. They had beautiful muzzles, and that is another thing you have to be careful of. The Japanese have a lesser muzzle than a lot of the American dogs, but if you get these nice, chunky beautiful headpieces, that is good. One of them named Hank, a dog that we bred to, has what I consider an ideal headpiece. He had a very nice muzzle.

   Loren
A lot of the Japanese stock have gotten too foxy and pointy, and you want to stay away from that. But there is some Japanese stock that doesn't have that snipey look. I don't think I have ever seen a perfect head.

   Cristina
But I am saying if you look at his head, you know that is an Akita. Shadow is beautiful, too.

  Loren
They need muzzles that look Akita. That aren't too heavy or overdone, but that are not pointy or slender either. That is something that even the Japanese standard says, a broad, full muzzle that is not pointed. It should taper some, of course, but not be pointy. If they are breeding to their standard, then they wouldn't be doing that. But again, some of that is open to interpretation. Some people think the muzzles are longer on Japanese dogs, and that is just not true. They are probably shorter than the Americans. The Americans are so large and full that when they get long, they don't look snipey, but they are definitely longer in relationship to the skull. Thus, it is common to have Akitas that resemble German Shepherds.

   Cristina
When you are breeding to an imported male, that is one of the things that you really look at.

   Loren
Yes, and you want to make sure you can compensate for the rears. Another thing about size if that you don't always have to breed to size to produce it. With Japan, no matter what she was bred to, she produced size. Full Japanese stud or not, she would always produce larger than herself. There are some very good all Japanese dogs, just like there some very good all American dogs.

   Cristina
There are less all Japanese dogs, and that is the problem.

   Loren
It doesn't matter what their breeding is, it is the standard and how they match up to that. Now, there is more than one way to get to where you are going. If pedigrees were how you judge dogs, you could just bring their pedigrees to the show and leave the dogs home.

   Cristina
That is a problem today. There are not enough of the 100 percent Japanese dogs, and bringing back the split issue, I can't even see any point in it.

What are some problems in the breed today ?

  Loren
The main thing is that a lot of the American dogs have just become too short legged. The length of leg, compared to the depth of chest, when the depth of chest is 50 percent of the height of the dog, you are going to have a certain amount of daylight underneath the dog if you have the proper amount of leg length. The problem you see a lot of times is when these young dogs come into the ring, and they already look mature and balanced. It doesn't take but a couple of years later, when you look at them, they look like they are on peg legs. Structure may be fine otherwise, but they are so short legged that it just ruins their balance. It affects the dignity of the dog. Anything that takes away from the dignity, in the standard, is not good. That is something that should be avoided or compensated for in a breeding program.

   Japanese stock generally has enough leg under it that they can improve that. Not that there aren't other dogs who are all-American who have the proper length of leg, but it is important. Again, it doesn't really matter what the pedigree is as much as good physical compensation.

   There was a really pretty picture in the last Akita World of a white bitch. She was eight months old, and she was just beautiful. I hope she stays together and doesn't get too short-legged. I thought she was so nice, and I rarely mention anybody else's dogs to them, but I wrote the owners an email, the Akita's name was Wynter, and I told them I thought their white bitch puppy was just beautiful. Unfortunately, we didn't go to the National for the first time in sixteen years this year, and guess who won the National She won the National. Carol Foti was showing her, which was kind of nice for her too. I think Nancy Bowen was also showing her too, so you have to give everybody credit there.

   Cristina
Both Carol and Nancy showed one of our dogs, Shere Khan. He is owned by Suzette Morettini, but he is our breeding. Loren  Fran Wasserman showed Shere Khan at the National when he was nine months old. That was in Chicago in 1995.

   Cristina
As far as features on a dog the leg could be improved. Not only by bringing in the Japanese dog because they usually have a longer leg, but there are a lot of American dogs, too, that have the longer leg, and that is what should be watched.

  Loren
I think it was Pete Lagus who said one time that was one of the reasons he got out of these dogs, because they were getting so short-legged. That was years ago! Pete would answer the question, "How do you like my puppy?" by saying, "Bring him back when he is four years old, and I will tell you!"

   Cristina
Big bodies, no legs.

    Loren
They look more mature that way, and they finish quicker. Then they look like veterans when they are only two years old. That is not good for this breed, but everyone wants to finish their dog as a puppy. The Akiho way is better. Their dogs cannot win the top award until they reach mature age.

   What are some of the kennels that you would consider the best today ?

   Loren
Now we are going to name names and leave out some people and get in trouble, and make people mad at us.

    Cristina
Nancy Fisk has a pretty good kennel.

   Loren
She just did a breeding to a full Japanese dog that Josh Popkin imported. She has good dogs. She will have a really nice litter out of that. You have to give her credit for doing something like that, because it is not an easy thing for some people to do. She has some nice, typey dogs. She has been successful. Some of the dogs out. East I don't see, but I see pictures of them in Akita World. Carol Laubscher has had really good success. Recently, I saw some pictures in Akita World of Cindy Smith's dogs, and they look pretty nice. They are pretty much American type, those folks. Pam Deming bred Cash, Ch. T'Stone's The Hustler. We were the first ones to have a litter out of him, when we bred Japan to him and produced Ember. Pam has dogs that have come down through Kash that have been doing very well. Judy Dunn's ads show some nice, typey dogs. We saw a really nice puppy at the Las Vegas specialty I judged at. I gave Best Opposite in Sweeps to a black and white puppy of Colleen Sullivan's. Laurie Ottow has bred a lovely puppy named Diva. Carol Howton bred Mitsu, who I a tried to buy as a puppy. Bev Wilkinson up in Canada has had some good success. She has used Shere Khan in some of her breedings. She has done very well. Bill Bobrow and Carol Parker have some really nice things going on right now. Camille Kam Wong co-owns some dogs with Carol and Bill. I don't know who we are leaving out, they are going to kill us. Bill Burland is starting to get some things going, and Cornelius Campbell has some good dogs. He has good dogs coming out of Meow. Michael Sclafani is going to do very well with Crystal, and the little puppy we were talking about, Northland's Realm Of The Tiger, the one we liked so well. He is going to do really well. There are some others, too, but some of them I am not as familiar with and some I just have to look at pictures, so it is hard to say. I am probably leaving out somebody that is very good. When it comes to the imports, Josh Popkin is becoming the man. Look for him to do some things in the future that no one else has accomplished.

   Cristina
For those whom we left out, we like your kennels, too. (laughter)

  Loren
Not all of them think like us, but I can appreciate a good dog, whether it is American or Japanese. It doesn't necessarily have to be what I would do or what I think they should do. I would do some different things with what they have. To bring things up a notch and not worry so much about showing as some people do. But they have to win to be taken seriously. Also, to become an AKC judge, you must be twelve years in the breed, bred five litters, and four champions. Once someone has these credentials, they may be taken more seriously.

 Do you have any funny or interesting stories about any of your dogs? Which one was the biggest character ?

   Cristina
Well, there was that time that those people came to pick up their puppy. It was so funny.

   Loren
 These people came over, a gal from New Mexico, to get a puppy to take back with her. She had a friend with her who had a little Yorkie, and the puppies were all playing. The Yorkie was about as big as the puppies, and I thought the buyer might want to meet the mother, Ember. So we let Ember out so she could meet the people, and the first thing she did when we let her out was she went after that Yorkie. I grabbed her quick, so it didn't really harm the Yorkie, but it was something. I had forgotten all about that Yorkie, and she was just protecting her puppies.

   Cristina
She did nearly kill a small dog that came from over two blocks away, it got loose and got over in the yard. That was terrible! I looked outside and I thought it was our dog, and it wasn't.

  Loren
Years ago, when I lived in Minnesota, I had a short fence, and they got out. We had Arctic, who was a white male puppy, and Alaska. They both got out, and we were on the edge of town. They ran toward the creek, and only one of them came back. Fortunately, there was a fresh layer of snowfall, so I could follow the tracks. I kept calling but Arctic wouldn't come, and finally I followed the tracks all the way up to where he was, and he was holding on to ledge of ice in the creek. All he had to do was turn around and he could have walked right out of the creek, but he was just holding on. He looked like a little polar bear sticking his head out. He must have been freezing. It was awful. I got him out of there, and he just didn't know what to do. He was holding on to the ice ledge because it was too deep right there, I guess. I was glad I found him.

   Cristina
I have a funny story, we had just moved here and we still had Glacier. There was a board that was missing out of the fence. I was looking all over for Glacier but I couldn't find her anywhere. Then I heard her. The people next door had a little dog door, and they had three little Dachshunds. I was calling and calling her, and I thought maybe she went in the next door neighbor's yard. So I went into their yard, and she had somehow gotten into that dog door, and she was sitting in their house. She wouldn't come out, and I was screaming at her. They were at work, and my dog was in their house! Their dogs of course were probably petrified, they probably ran and hid somewhere in the house, and she was laying in the house. I finally got her out. Akitas are very dominant, independent dogs. Sometimes they don't listen to you. That is another thing with Akitas, they are stubborn. But I love them. They are big and sweet and cuddly, and usually they are wonderfully tempered. But there have been some Akitas who are not. I think it is the way they are brought up. There might be something to the point that they are bred to be bad-tempered dogs. I think all they need is love and attention and they will usually be well-tempered dogs. I feel that way about almost any dog, but if a dog is teased a lot or something like that, it is going to have a bad temperament.

How long have you lived in your present location?

   Loren
Seventeen years ago we moved to California, to a smaller house than this one. Then about three and one-half years later we moved to this house, which was new when we bought it. We have lived here about fourteen years in the spring. I have lived here longer than I've lived anywhere.

   Cristina
I love it. I love California. We had come to visit before we moved here, and I wanted to move out here. We came out here on our honeymoon and bought a house. We went to San Francisco and we liked San Francisco, we still love it there, but we wanted to move somewhere inland and still be able to be close to San Francisco and Lake Tahoe and Yosemite. We are centrally located here, so it is wonderful. And we are close to dog shows.

   Loren
We wanted a place, too, that was big enough to support a carpet and upholstery cleaning business, which we were going to start. That is what we did back in Minnesota, so we needed enough population without too much. Antioch is a little less expensive, although it is still high-priced. I'm glad we moved here then, I don't know how we would afford it now.

   Cristina
Things have gone sky-high in California, but we have done very well, and our business has done well. It is a wonderful business; all of our business is repeat and referral. It is all word of mouth, and I've never run an ad or anything. We try to exude quality·, just like our dogs. So that is what we are. I love it here!

   What have been some of the benefits and drawbacks of being in dogs?

   Cristina
The benefits are the satisfaction of what you can accomplish in trying to better the breed in the way you are breeding. If you want to be in it for the betterment of the breed, people should realize that in order to do that, you have to get rid of some of your old feelings. You have to throw away old feelings, that was then and this is now. Try to better the breed by breeding good animals, and not how many you breed but how you breed them. Don't worry about if one is going to be the top act out there. We do it for ourselves, to get that perfect Akita which will probably not happen. Probably, nobody will ever have it but there are some beautiful dogs out there. The drawbacks would be the money. We would have had a lot more money saved and we could have had a lot more if we didn't spend it all on dogs.

   Loren
Yes, it is expensive being in dogs, unless you are running the kind of operation that is geared to make money, but that is probably less desirable for the breed. There is certainly nothing wrong with making a little money back on your investment, but if your primary motive is just to make money, then it wouldn't be a very good thing for the breed.

   The enjoyment of it is in the breeding, for us. I like winning, and that is always a thrill, but winning and breeding are two different things. You can win in the show ring, but it can have nothing to do with the animal itself or how it matches the standard or how you should be breeding. You have to separate those two things, and keep an eye on both of them. Sounds kind of contradictory, but it is important to understand the difference. If you have success and you enjoy putting two dogs together and seeing if you can accomplish something, and it turns out well, you get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction out of it. You have something to be proud of, and it is always a kick to be good at something. You also have to be a little lucky, because there is a lot of chance. Basically when you are breeding, you are trying to put the odds more in your favor to succeed by chance. Chance is part of it.

   Drawbacks, yes, it does tie you down a little bit sometimes. You can't just take off without someone watching the dogs, on the other hand, sometimes it gets us out of the house and we go to Nationals; I have attended twenty Nationals. We take a week there or so, but we try not to overdo it with dogs, it is a big part of our lives but we don't want it to become all of our lives. We try to maintain a life outside of dogs. We are probably going to be winding down in our breeding and showing activities, we are not getting any younger, and dogs take awhile to grow old, too. We hope to contribute something, and we hope that the breed does better because we have bred well.

   Cristina
I agree. We hope that we could have put a dent into helping the breed in any way we could. It is a big satisfaction if you bring something nice in.

   Loren
You go out and look at your dogs, and if you look at them and they kind of tug at your heartstrings, make your heart skip a beat, then you feel like you've done something good. If you go out there and they are pretty but they don't quite do that for you, then maybe you should move those dogs to good homes and keep the better ones. Don't worry whether you're the breeder or someone else is, just keep the best. That is the hard part about breeding dogs, if you have a small operation. You do want to do right by the dogs, so you sometimes have to part with dogs that you love. You have to think of the dogs. If you get too many dogs, you have to find a better home for them where they will be happier. They will be better off and you can do some other things. There are always those dogs you will never part with. You keep them forever no matter what, but you have to make some hard choices.

   Cristina
We are just people who love Akitas, and want to improve them, and hopefully we have.

Thank you so much.

   Loren
Thank you.

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