My Kishu 

by Adriana Masaryková

I’m 45 years old and with my husband we have two adolescent kids. I have always wanted to have a dog, although I was never sure which one. I basically like the dogs with appearance similar to a wolf. I have kept a strong memory from my childhood about a TV series Goro, white dog. I have always liked this dog (and not only me, my husband always has liked it, too) and thus in 2000 we started searching whether there are any responsible kennels of this breed anywhere near (i.e. in Central Europe area). Back in 2003 we discovered a kennel in The Netherlands, but it was way too far for us since we had small children. The time passed, kids grew up and our desire for a dog never faded away.

In 2015 I found out, that there is a Kishu breeder in Czech Republic, in Prague. However, we did not have luck because all puppies were already sold. At the end, another breeder started to breed Kishu near Brno, and we got lucky to reserve a female puppy from their second litter born in 18.1.2017. Bizen was born as the first one and was the smallest one. I went for her in person and I was positively shocked to see how well the breeder took care of the dogs and puppies, how well she prepared the puppies for their new families and what the puppies already knew.

Kishu is very clean, it does not have any issue with housebreaking. I have never thought about myself that I would be a dog person. Now I already have these 2 females and recently we received confirmation from SKJ of our kennel name! :)

The second female got to us via reexport from Great Britain where her original owner could not keep her anymore and so the breeder helped her find another forever home with us. Benihime is a 6-years old female, she is very friendly (which is not too typical for Kishu).Thus we have two ladies, each being different. Bizen is quite reserved, she expresses her love by a gentle nipping, she doesn't like stroking and patting. Benihime, on the other hand, she loves it and even begs for it.

Both dogs need the presence of their family and are tightly connected to it. These dogs are a bit more demanding when it comes to upbringing and with us it is highly probable that they will never be walked off the leash. They have a strongly developed hunting instincts and prey drive, so they hunt all the time. It might become dangerous due to off leash spoilt noisy small dogs which might easily become an interesting prey. We have done a special training but until now we struggle a bit with a recall. Last year we took part in our first dog shows and official breeding approval for Benihime. She can thus have a litter and we have time now to decide whether we will mate her with a nice stud dog and let her have her first puppies.