The Wrong Ear Pup

 So for the first time I'm doing something that I always advise against, which is to raise two hunting puppies at the same time. Let's even scratch the hunting part and say that it's never a good idea to raise two puppies at the same time. Pups need training, training takes time, and we all have limited time and resources. If you're raising two pups, your time and resources get split. There's also the issues you will have of two pups being more focused on doing things together, rather than being focused on their relationship with you, unless you have a set up where you can keep them generally separated (something most pet owners or hunting households will not be able to do).

But here I am. I haven't had any dogs for a year and a half, and since I'll still be hunting, I do need some dogs to work with. I have some ideas of what type of dogs I want to own and produce, to go with what I feel is the future of hunting. I'll post more about that later. So to go with the Kai female that I've got that was born on July 13th, I've got a pointer female that was born on July 27th.

Boudica is out of a female named Rin, who is bred, owned, and hunted by a local friend of mine. In an interesting twist, there are groups of hunters here in the south of Chiba prefecture that hunt big game with pointing dogs. I'll cover that in another post as well. Rin has a lovely temperament, very even tempered, quiet, and calm for a pointer. She hunts birds and four footed game. The sire of this litter is out of this same line of pointers, that are out of European (British) pointer lines.

Part of the reason I am raising the two pups at the same time is that I often get asked how the Japanese hunting breeds are different from Western hunting breeds. It's a tough one to answer unless you've owned, trained, and hunted both sides of the coin. So here we are: I'm raising a Kai and Pointer that are both females, in the same style, and they are roughly the same age. I'll document for myself and anyone else interested, the differences I see as they progress, and together we'll get to judge the end result, which of course will be the ultimate test of the hunt.

I picked up Tsuki on October 2nd, and Boudica around 10 days later. The journey has started, and I've already regretted it a few times. It is definitely not easy, but it has been enjoyable as well. Every new breed I own and work with teaches me something new. There's so many assumptions we can make about breeds and hunting based on what we read or have other hunters explain to us, but nothing really cuts it like seeing dogs in the flesh, in the field, and better yet, raising them from when they're pups. And yeah, Boudica is called my 'wrong ear pup' because my Finnish friends over at Rangerin Kennel say the Nihon Ken have the 'right ears' and these floppy type ears are 'wrong ears'. I like that.