It is mid-September in fjord country on the west coast of Norway, where towering grey mountains plunge into the sea. The water is clear, cold, and teeming with fish, the sky a deep blue. The green lower forest slopes are full of grazing sheep, but above the timberline the rocky highlands look like troll country. The famed Trollvegen (the “Troll Wall”) is only a few minutes away, the scale and shape of its peaks forcing one to understand why legends say they were carved by trolls. While the trolls are long gone, there are bears in the mountains of Norway and an increasing wolf population. Today, we are looking for red deer with Rina and her 3-year-old Shikoku male, Sagan.
Norway has a population of roughly 5.5 million, 200,000 of whom are hunters—Japan has a roughly equal number of hunters, but out of a population of 120 million. In a positive trend, I am told that the number of female hunters in Norway has been steadily increasing, and they now make 16 percent of registered hunters. The country is rich in game such as deer, moose, fox, wild boar, and birds, and unlike Japan where we have a three month hunting season that covers all game, in Norway the seasons for specific species stretch throughout the year. In fact there are only a few weeks in July when there is nothing to be hunted. This variety of game leads to an equal variety of hunting styles and dogs.
I ended up here in the fjords after planning a trip to Europe to research hunting culture, legislation, and hunting breeds. We often say that Japan is 20 years behind the West when it comes to issues like animal rights and hunting legislation, so a trip to Europe is in some ways a trip into the future. What kind of changes should we in Japan expect? What can we learn from European legislation and hunting culture? A while back I’d heard there was a hunter in Norway starting to use Shikoku to hunt large game, and knew I had to find a way to see this for myself. A call to longtime friend Mika Haetta from the Norwegian Nihon Ken Club put me in touch with the right people.
Rina Ravn (47) and Tor Vangen (51) have been hunting since they were teenagers. Arriving at Tor's house outside Oslo a few days ago, I meet their three dogs: a Norwegian Elkhound named Tyra, a Shikoku female named Alfa, and a 3-year-old Shikoku male named Sagan. Sagan was born in Italy, Alfa in Sweden. The dogs are calm and quiet in their kennels, and all three are let out and greet me without aggression, shyness, or over friendliness.True to breed, the Shikoku are affectionate with their owners, but size up strangers before deciding to accept them. Rina has owned, trained, and hunted with over 15 breeds, and when I ask her to describe the Shikoku Ken, she explains their traits by comparing them to other breeds. Some parts remind her of a Malinois, she says, like their drive and trainability. With so many years of experience, she surprisingly declares the Shikoku to be one of the best hunting breeds she has ever owned.
Among the myriad styles of hunting in Norway, one of the more traditional is the use of Norwegian Elkhound to find and bay moose. While crossing Norway from Oslo in the east, to the fjords in the west, we stopped by a friend's house where a training session was underway using a mechanical animal. Controlled via app by smartphone, this remote-control moose was built by Tony of T-F Elgkampen’s Kennel, a well-known hunter and Elkhound breeder. Moose are large and dangerous prey, their most serious weapon a deadly forward kick, so introducing young or inexperienced dogs to a mechanical moose is a controlled method of preparing dogs for a true hunt in the forest. Since there are now quite a few countries where the use of live animals for training hunting dogs is no longer allowed, something that I can see happening in Japan in the future, a mechanical animal of this nature is quite useful.
At the end of the training session, we are allowed to test Alfa, Rina's Shikoku female, on the moose. This is her first experience in this type of situation, so everyone is curious to see how this breed from Japan will react. While she maintains some distance, she quickly starts to bark, and as the moose begins to move her instincts as a hunter kick in. She shows signs of trying to cut off the moose’s movement, and regularly looks back to see her position in regard to her owner, all while continuing to bark. It's been a good day for all involved, and very interesting to see the Norwegian Elkhound, the Jämthund (Swedish Elkhound), and the Shikoku—three northern spitz-type breeds—evaluated in the same arena.
In Norway there are official tests and champion titles for hunting dogs, something we do not have in Japan, and both Tor and Rina are hunt test judges. Large game can generally be hunted on-leash or off-leash, and there are tests for both disciplines. Interestingly, in Norway it is illegal to hunt large game with more than one dog off-leash, and to hunt, a hunter must either own the land they are hunting on or have the landowner’s permission. In Japan, hunters are allowed to run as many dogs as they like, and are generally allowed to access even private land without permission. In addition to national hunting regulations, landowners can stipulate what type of hunting they allow on their properties, so today Rina will be hunting with her Shikoku male Sagan in an on-leash style.
We park the car at the base of the mountain and start to prepare. The wind is blowing from the north, and even though it is mid-September, the early morning is a chilly 11 degrees. Sagan wears a Tracker Artemis GPS collar and a harness with a 5-meter rope leash attached, and Rina carries her scoped rifle, a Tikka T3 6.5 with a new Freyr & Devik silencer. Silencers are not allowed in Japan, though in my opinion they should be: they protect the hunter’s ears, the dog’s ears, and preserve the quiet of the mountain.
I ask Rina what type of training is necessary in order to hunt with Shikoku in this style. She says that the foundation of the ability to hunt deer on leash comes from complete mastery of basic obedience commands like sit, stop, and stay, and that she finds the Shikoku to be a good learner. Most importantly, an energetic breed like the Shikoku needs to be taught to be calm from a young age, and this must be continually reinforced.
Rina pulls out a piece of dry deer skin and lets Sagan smell it as if to say, “This is what we are hunting today.” We start up the mountain slowly and quietly, paying attention to the direction of the wind, in much the way I would hunt in Japan if I were stalking deer without dogs. But here, we have the dog as an early warning system, using its advanced sense of smell to tell us when the deer is close. Sagan and Rina move in quiet tandem, sometimes creeping only a few meters forward before stopping to check the wind. I ask Rina what hunting traits she particularly likes about the Shikoku, and she says that they have a great nose, and track scents both on the ground and in the air. Many breeds tend to do only one or the other. In this style of on-leash hunting, the first scents that Sagan picks up are generally older and on the ground, and as we close distance on the deer he starts to use his takabana (high nose) to pick up scents on the air, pointing us toward the deer.
A few hours into our search through an upland forest littered with large boulders, we are on our first deer. Immediately I see a Shikoku trait that is very useful in this style of hunting: expressive body language. The Shikoku tends to be very aware of its environment and quick to react to it—a trait that is looked for in the NIPPO (Japanese Dog Preservation Society) show ring in Japan. As the track gets fresher, Sagan begins to pull slightly on the leash, and Rina uses hand signals and commands to sometimes slow him down, bring him to heel, and let him forward. All the while, it is very easy to see what is happening, and how close we are to the deer just by watching his body language. At times he comes to an almost point in tachikomi—a natural stack. When Rina is ready to take a shot, she orders Sagan into a sit, and she sets her sights.
Sagan is also trained in blood tracking, which is when a dog and handler team work to find dead or injured animals. In August this year, Sagan was featured in the local newspaper when he tracked an 89-kilogram wild boar that had been shot by a local hunter. Wild boar are very rare in the area, which is why the article was in the paper, but it is interesting to note that in many countries in Europe it is required for hunters to have access to a blood-tracking team in order to have permission to hunt large game. Hanya (injured prey) is something that hunters all over the world detest, but in many European countries it is mandated by law that hunters must put forth every effort to find all the animals they have shot. In Norway if a wild animal has been hit by a car on the road, the wildlife officers must be called, and a tracking team will often be brought in to find the injured animal. There are currently many Shiba being used all over northern Europe as tracking dogs, and I see this as something the Japanese breeds would naturally excel at.
Twenty years of hunting has taught me that the expectations and requirements of a hunting dog vary according to the terrain, prey, local legislation, and preferences of hunters. In this style of on-leash hunting, we are unable to judge a dog’s search range, its renraku (when a dog returns to the hunter to confirm location and search direction), recall, whether it will vocalize correctly, stay focused and committed once prey is found, and whether it can stop and hold prey in place. These are things that I would require of my dogs when hunting wild boar Japanese style in the mountains of Chiba. However, seeing these Shikoku in Norway under different requirements reminds me of a conversation I had with the former head of NIPPO judging and lifelong hunter Mitani Sensei. I called him several years ago and discussed the lack of a ‘working standard’ for the Japanese breeds, and the possible need for one. His reply was that the Nihon Ken (Japanese Dog) has traditionally hunted in many different styles, and that as a preservation society our goal should be the preservation and allowance of all the various instincts and styles in the Japanese breeds. Individual hunters are then free to choose what traits to breed toward in their hunting lines.
The Shikoku Ken is an ancient, primitive breed, which generations of NIPPO members have tirelessly worked to preserve. They are Japan’s tennenkinenbutsu, officially designated as national treasures. NIPPO’s focus on preservation means valuing tradition, the maintaining of the Nihon Ken Standard, and the preservation of the Nihon Ken as a hunting breed. In Japan, Ichiju Ikku (One Gun, One Dog) is a term of great respect that has traditionally been considered to be the ultimate goal of hunting with a Nihon Ken. One hunter and one dog, battling the elements in the oldest human endeavor of all. It is an honest reckoning of skill, in the truest working test of all—The Hunt.
Today, the Shikoku Ken in Japan is in the midst of a precipitous decline, and it is more important than ever for us to find new work for the modern day Shikoku. This could help increase awareness of the breed, and attract people passionate about its preservation. A breed with a job is a breed that will survive. The supreme importance of maintaining the Nihon Ken’s working abilities is written into NIPPO’s original mission statement. While the vast majority of the breed today is bred for preservation and exhibition, it fills me with a sense of satisfaction and pride that in the fjords of Norway there are now Shikoku being hunted in a new way, but one that I think would impress the hunters of old. An ancient breed, hunting in a modern style of Ichiju ikku—the pinnacle of human-canine partnership.
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