About

Thank you for your interest in Shinkai Kensha. 

We feel it is important for the Kai Ken to be out and about doing things with their humans and living life to the fullest. While we may do conformation, sports, and breed education, these active dogs should be up for any adventure you choose. Our job is to give our puppies the best foundation to achieve this with you. The possibilities are limitless!

Kennel Goals

We hope to contribute to preserving the breed by improving the overall health and diversity within the US, and plan to register all puppies with AKC and eligible puppies with KKA back in Japan.

• Health is very important to us, we are tracking health within the breed

• We check pedigree and genetic COI/CORs prior to any breeding

• We are not breeding for profit, we are breeding for preservation

• We are not breeding for the sole purpose of selling pets

• We do not plan to have frequent or a large number of litters

• We will never breed a female more than 3 times

• We will only breed health-tested dogs whose results are publicly-recorded

Instead of a kennel with a large number of breeding dogs, we plan to have a network of like-minded, trusted individuals / co-owns that maintain close communication for future breeding purposes. This allows for the following:

• Dogs will receive the individual attention they need, and lead fulfilling lives with a family of their own

• Owners will be able to monitor individual growth and development, and report on any issues that may arise

• Breeding candidates can wait to be evaluated until they are of appropriate age for health testing

• Keeping healthy and sound dogs in the breeding lines

We would like to import dogs and puppies from diverse lines and place in co-own homes for future breeding evaluation. Any import would go through the same placement process that our own puppies would.

We breed to show standards, any dogs with show disqualifications will be placed on spay/neuter contracts.

We participate and encourage participation in performance and breed education events.

We will offer support, mentorship, and guidance in the areas of dog ownership, training, and breeding.

We have a strong support network of mentors, trainers, and breeders, and will always have a mindset towards continuous learning.

Puppies will be socialized to a variety of environments.

• We will perform early neurological stimulation and socialization (Puppy Culture)

• Puppies will be started on potty training, crate training, and introduced to clicker training

• Puppies will be professionally evaluated for structure and temperament prior to going home

• Puppies will be genetically tested via Embark prior to going home

Puppies will be microchipped and vaccinated appropriately for their age, by a licensed veterinarian, with documentation provided to new owners.

We will take any dogs back, no questions asked.

• We do not want our dogs re-sold and whereabouts unknown

• We never want our dogs in shelters

---

The Rest of the Pack

The Humans

Our team of 2 humans has a background in software engineering and systems engineering with a splash of martial arts and photography. We spend a large majority of our free time out with the dogs; we do training classes, performance trials, conformation shows, breed education, and they all come with us when we travel (we now have a van just for the dogs!).

We like to take the time to focus on each of our dogs as individuals, as they all have different needs, preferences, and are at different levels of training. Starting with our Shiba, we have learned more about canine behavior and health than we ever anticipated, which is why health and temperament are the top priorities for us.

---

Links

Orthopedic Foundation for Animals	Database of health tested animals
Hayaikaze	Kai Ken breeder in Washington State
The Nihon Ken Blog	Information about the 6 native Japanese Breeds

---

Contact Us

If you have additional questions, please contact us using the form below.