HELLO NO SACHIKOHIME "Sachi" is a very nice mix of the original bloodlines imported here in the 1990’s and a more recent Kai Ken Aigokai (KKA) Japanese import, Tenrou No Wakajishi "Akashi." Sachi came to me from Hello Kennel. Sachi was born on April 20, 2016. She is a kuro-tora (black brindle) with a sashi-o tail and closer in type to a shika-inu-gata (deer dog type - longer, leaner body, longer legs & fox-like face). She is agile and graceful. Sachi inherited her sire's quirky and calm personality. She is generally good-natured and is very clever and a quick learner. She is also very curious and playful and like her pop, Akashi, she loves to steal items from us to initiate play. She is also extremely loyal to me and very protective.

Sachi was a superstar in puppy kindergarten at our local kennel club and easily graduated to the next level, basic obedience. This was a large class in a cavernous building and the sound system was extremely loud. Although Sachi easily and quickly mastered basic obedience, we didn’t have much fun in the class. We both learned Sachi prefers smaller class sizes and more fun! We have since experimented with barn hunt, agility, and deer antler search and retrieve. She was great at the search part but not so great at the retrieve and give to me part…LOL. Not surprising, her favorite game is keep away. She absolutely loved barn hunt and we will be doing more of that. We began a tracking class summer of 2019 and she has very focused nosework and really enjoyed doing it. It’s quite interesting and fun for both of us.

Sachi also easily earned her AKC Canine Good Citizen Title :)

Sachi loves going everywhere she can with me and when I have to leave without her, she waits on the back of the couch where she can watch out the window for my return. She will bark the alarm when a stranger approaches the house or yard, however, she is friendly in public, greets new people with a friendly tail wag or polite bow, gets along well with other dogs and never hesitates to show off her tricks, especially if there is food involved.

Sachi learns new things easily and quickly. She learns behaviors associated with words or hand signals so fast it's almost as if she teaches herself. She can bow, dance, spin, give high fives, and many other tricks. Sachi and I braved our first AKC Conformation dog show the summer of 2018 and she did very well in spite of the hot and humid weather. She took 4th in her group of 9 AKC FSS breeds, and of course Best of Breed (she was the only Kai-ken there :) We spent some time at the Meet the Breed booth which she enjoyed more as she likes to say hi to everyone and couldn’t do that in the ring. I showed her again the summer of 2019 and she took 2nd in group and again Best of Breed, this time beating out my male, Hayaikaze Go Rogue “Opie”

Sachiko is a joy to train and hang out with. I have been meticulous in preparing Sachi for breeding. She has blood work done every 6 months (CBC, blood chemistry, and Thyroid Panel), DNA testing with Optimal Selection and Embark (she is clear for both forms of Progressive Retinal Atrophy - PRA), OFA Hips are excellent, OFA Elbows are normal, OFA Patellas are normal, OFA Heart Exam and Echocardiogram are normal and OFA Thyroid is normal. CERF eye exam is normal. We will repeat that every other year. I don’t use chemicals in or on her, only all natural parasite control. I follow a very conservative vaccination schedule for all my dogs and use titers to time them appropriately and safely. Sachi is registered AKC FSS and UKC.

Sachi has produced several nice litters with Hayaikaze Go Rogue “Opie”. They have produced puppies with great working temperaments, structural soundness, and intelligence. :) Sachi is now spayed and retired from my breeding program. She remains the Queen of the pack.

ROGUE RIVER FELIGRO “Felly” was my keeper from my first litter, the Niah X Akashi litter. Feligro was the embodiment of the traits I wanted from both Niah and Akashi. She was bold and fearless, sweet and affectionate, curious and intelligent, correct in form and structure, and loved agility obstacles. What a joy it was to be there when she was born and have the privilege of helping to shape her into the wonderful Kai that she was.

Felly continued to delight me as she matured. She was the favorite of everyone who met my Kai, much to Sachi’s annoyance. She had an amazing personality, very sweet like her dam, and clever and playfully mischievous like her sire. She was very engaging, loved to be with her people pack, and never met a stranger, human or dog. Felly was a kuro-tora, a black brindle, with a fantastic coat, thick and plush like her dam’s, with a beautiful mane, and like her sire, she had a strip of fur that ran the opposite direction down the middle of her forehead, her mohawk. She had distinct brindling as a pup and her stripes became more prominent each spring when she blew her winter coat. She had a wonderful thick tail, a sashi-o tail, and like her dam, her tail was always wagging :)

When Felly was a young pup, I made a puppy obstacle course for her and her littermates and I noticed from a young age that she loved the obstacles more than the other pups. She loved climbing, walking on planks, and especially, the tunnel. After her littermates went to their new homes, we took a combination puppy class that included beginner agility. A first for me as I had never done agility with a dog before. We both loved it and we continued to take weekly agility classes. We progressed to attending agility classes three days a week at different venues, and also practiced a lot at home. We entered our first agility trial in December 2019 and Felly qualified for one of her runs and got second place :)

Felly competed in her first Fast CAT in October 2020 and absolutely loved it! She had a big grin on her face as we trotted away from the course :) Fast CAT is a Coursing Ability Test - it is a timed 100-yard dash where dogs run one at a time chasing a lure. Felly had such a great time.

Felly easily passed her Canine Good Citizen Evaluation and earned her AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC) Title.

Feligro is registered with the American Kennel Club Foundation Stock Service (AKC-FSS) and the United Kennel Club (UKC). She has been DNA tested through Embark and is a carrier for both forms of Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA). All of her health testing and prelims are good.

Felly was bred to a KKA registered import, Sai No Riki “Tora” of O’ikon Kennel for her first litter. Tora is an impressive-looking male with a beautiful coat and is very good-natured like Felly, is health tested, and is clear for PRA, which was essential as Felly is a carrier. I held back a lovely female from this litter, Rogue River Rivka. I chose Rivka for her structure and athletic ability as I have gotten very involved with agility. More on Rivka below.

Update on Felly and Opie - I traveled back to Wisconsin from Oregon in November 2021 and was staying with a friend while I was visiting. Felly got out of the fenced yard. I believe she was going after a deer due to the course she took and the distance she traveled through a wooded area and across farm fields after getting out. It was full dark and she was a black dog and she got hit by a car while attempting to cross a two-lane highway. It was a high-speed hit and she died instantly and didn’t suffer. Thank God I was able to find her and have closure. It was pretty devastating for me. I got sick a week later and almost died. I realize she was only a dog but I loved her and I didn’t handle the grief very well. My family had to take care of not just me, but four dogs as well, two of whom were intact males who didn’t get along. Debbie of Hello Kennel rallied the Kai community and found a very nice lady to foster Reuven for a few weeks which helped immensely. I can’t thank them enough. I was extremely weak for a long time during my recovery and made the difficult decision to place one of my males in a long-term foster home. So in February 2022 Opie went to live with his new mom in San Francisco. Opie has made the transition very well and adores his new mom. He’s doing great and she is doing an amazing job with him, I also can’t thank her enough! As I write this update in November 2022, it has been a year since I lost Felly and the pain is as piercing as the night it happened. She was a once-in-a-lifetime dog, I thank God for every minute I had with her and I hope and pray dogs go to Heaven.

ROGUE RIVER RIVKA “Rivka” is my keeper from the Felly X Tora litter. Rivka has Felly’s super sweet temperament :) She’s such a nice dog, just so good-natured. And her athletic ability is incredible. Thank you Dr. Greer for helping me choose her! Her smooth, effortless motion reminds me of her granddam, Niah. I’m amazed by her ability to jump straight up onto high things and also over things from a standing position. Rivka is a chu-tora (equal mix of black and red brindle), has a beautiful thick coat and a nice mane, and a sachi-o or “sickle” tail set. Like Felly, she has never met a stranger :) Rivka is my third generation Kai (Niah -> Felly -> Rivka) and is so nice she has made everything I have gone through since getting involved in breed preservation worth it.

Rivka breezed through her puppy classes and was accepted into and completed a 6-month agility basics course offered by the Milwaukee Dog Training Club. She also easily earned her Canine Good Citizen (CGC) Title. We continue to train but have not competed in any trials yet. I am still a novice as a handler but I think Rivka has the potential to compete in agility at a high level. I’m super excited to see how far we can go!

Rivka’s agility training was put on hold when we left Wisconsin in May of 2021 to go on a big adventure. We traveled in a 30 ft Travel Trailer, aptly named the Wolf Pack. We traveled around the United States and experienced many of our beautiful National Parks. I even did a stint as a Forest Service Campground Host and my Kai were great ambassadors for the breed. So much has happened over the last 3 years, but this website is about Kai Ken, so we shall skip ahead to now, April 2024.

Rivka was bred to Hayaikaze Go Rogue “Opie” for her first litter last year. They produced one beautiful female pup. She has now been bred to Rogue River Reuven for her 2nd litter and we are expecting puppies in early May!

CLASSY NIAH GOZEN "Nie Nie" is a beautiful little Kai with the sweetest temperament. Her cheerful demeanor is characterized by her constantly wagging tail. Niah is a chu-tora (equal parts black and red brindle) with a sashi-o tail and closer in type to a shishi-inu-gata (boar dog type - stockier with a bear-like face). Niah has a beautiful thick coat with distinct tiger striped brindling and a deep ruff (mane). True to type, she is reserved around strangers and affectionate with family & friends. Niah has a strong prey drive and an excellent nose and takes her daily patrols of the yard for small game intruders very seriously. She is extremely agile and an incredible jumper. Niah has incredible movement and a smooth ground-eating trot.

Niah is also a mix of the original Kai imported here in the 1990’s and more recent imports. Her dam is the daughter of a Japanese import, Nahkshekarian's KuroKuko, and her sire is Classy's Hokori No Inochi. Niah is also registered AKC FSS and UKC.

A KKA registered import, Tenrou No Wakajishi “Akashi” sired Niah's first litter, four wonderful little rogues that were whelped on August 11, 2018. Akashi was a great match for Niah, his size and traits nicely balance hers. Akashi has a balanced temperament, nicely shaped head and beautiful ear-set, thick long tail, and well angulated hocks. His good looks are matched by his amazing personality. Reserved, calm, and steady give way to goofy trickster. Akashi is Aigokai (KKA), AKC FSS, and UKC registered and is a proven and prolific stud who consistently passes his looks and personality on to his offspring. These pups are everything we hoped they would be and I held back a wonderful little female, Feligro.

Niah is now retired from my breeding program.

MY KAI GUYS

ROGUE RIVER REUVEN

Reuven is awesome. Everybody loves him. Reuven is my miracle Kai baby. In 2019 I heard that some really nice Kai imports needed to be rehomed. I was familiar with them because I had driven from Wisconsin to Oregon in 2018 to breed my girl Sachi to one of the males, Taisho En Kaito. Kaito is an Aigokai registered Japanese import from Shida Kensha in Japan. He is a kuro-tora with a sickle tail, a beautiful wide head, and a solid temperament. That breeding did not produce a pregnancy. While I was there I worked with his owners to get him collected. On Sachi’s next heat 6 months later we tried transcervical insemination with Kaito’s collection but no pregnancy resulted. I was quite bummed because I really liked Kaito and wanted the genetic diversity in my lines. Kaito’s owners were rehoming a female Kai named Sai No Akarihime. Akari is also an extremely nice Aigokai registered Japanese import from Ouji Fukushima Kensha (Kennel) in Japan. I loved Akari when I met her in 2018. She has a great temperament, very friendly with people, great structure, and is a chu-tora. Akari and Kaito produced a lovely litter in 2012 and I was able to meet a male pup from that litter. Very nice! I loved him. And I wanted one just like him :) I worked with Akari’s owners to get her health testing done and we also did more health testing on Kaito. We did vet exams, blood work, thyroid panels, cardiac assessment, eyes, and orthopedics (hips, elbows, patellas). At this time, Kaito was ten years old and Akari was eight. Good results on the health testing and the vet gave the go ahead to breed her. I drove back to Oregon again when she was about halfway through her pregnancy, which we hoped was the safest time to rehome her. I went through a lot hoping for a male from this breeding and the first puppy born was little Reuven. Reuven is a hebrew name that means “behold, a son.” Sadly the other puppy was stillborn. But Reuven, wow, what a nice Kai guy! I could not be happier.

Reuven has a wonderful friendly personality that he passes on to his puppies. He is correct in form and structure and has that nice wide head that I like. He is a powerhouse. He is very sweet and loves to cuddle. He is a chu-tora. He has passed all of his health testing and is clear for PRA.

Reuven was a little reactive in his first puppy class. This may have been from being a singleton. This is common in puppies with no littermates. The competition for nipples when nursing and toys as they get older is important in a puppy’s development and along with interactions with the mother dog, teaches the pups how to interact with other dogs. It’s very hard to simulate this. Singletons are usually very good with humans because they tend to be handled a lot as young puppies but some can become dog reactive as did Reuven. It didn’t help that Akari didn’t want any of my other Kai getting anywhere near him. Normally in a household with more than one dog, the mother will allow other members of the pack to interact with the pups around the time she starts weaning them. The other pack members help teach the pups how to approach other dogs respectfully and how to interact with other dogs appropriately. Kai, being a primitive breed, will even appoint a nanny dog to help her as the pups get older. As with wolves, she chooses a lower-ranking member of the pack while she is still pregnant. Ideally, it is a daughter from a previous litter. This nanny would be in charge of watching over the pups while the mother goes hunting, can sometimes produce milk and nurse the pups, and will vomit up half-digested meals for the pups when they are old enough. Domestic dogs don’t have to go hunting for food of course. Although many domestic breeds have lost this instinctual behavior, my Kai girls do vomit up meals for the pups.

Reuven was fine with my other Kai and the other dogs I introduced him to. But as I mentioned above, when we started our puppy class, he was a little reactive during puppy play time or when one of the other puppies lunged at him on leash. We stuck with it and he improved over the course of the class. Reuven and I kept at the socializing and took more classes, both obedience and a beginner agility class. It was a lot of work but Reuven passed his Canine Good Citizen evaluation and earned his CGC Title. Reuven has also tried his hand at Fast CAT and tracking. He loves doing anything with me. We do a lot of hiking together. He absolutely loves flushing the quail on our hikes. He is very athletic, as most Kai are, and I’m planning on doing more agility training with him.

HAYAIKAZE GO ROGUE “Opie” I purchased Opie from Hayaikaze Kennel as an 8-week-old pup as an addition to my breeding program. Opie brings genetic diversity to my Kai. His dam is Yamabushi No Octavia “Tavi” and his sire is Yamabushi No Akuma. Akuma is a KKA registered chu-tora (medium brindle) with distinct brindling and a maki-o tail. He has a sweet temperament and has had health testing, OFA Certifications for hips, elbows, and patellas, and DNA testing through Embark. Opie has good structure and beautiful movement. He is an aka-tora, a red brindle, with distinctly defined brindling and a maki-o tail. Opie is earnest, polite, eager to please and slightly mischievous. He is very playful and affectionate with his human family and dog pack. He doesn’t love strangers but he usually warms up eventually. He loves belly rubs. I love his calm demeanor. His puppy class was a combination Basic Obedience/Beginner Agility which he excelled at. We did weekly conformation classes when Opie was a pup, to help socialize him and get him ready for his first AKC show, which we did summer of 2019. Opie did really well and enjoyed himself immensely. He knows how handsome he is and strutted through the show like he was visiting his subjects. We continued agility classes and took tracking lessons summer of 2019 and then AKC’s Canine Good Citizen class in the fall. We had to go through the class twice because Opie doesn’t always love total strangers touching his head immediately upon first meeting him. We kept at it and he eventually passed his evaluation and earned his CGC Title. Since Opie will consistently retrieve, is super fast, and did great in his tracking classes, I found the perfect sport to put his three favorite things together - Scent Hurdles.

Scent Hurdles is a relay sport with two teams of four dogs racing head-to-head over four hurdles to retrieve their owner’s dumbell. There are four hurdles set in a row with a platform on the floor/ground at the end that is divided into four numbered sections on top. Each handler places their dumbell in their section on the platform and they send their dog from the opposite end to jump over the four hurdles, choose only their handler’s dumbell from among the four, and carry it back over the four hurdles to the handler.

Opie loved hanging out with me. He was very loyal to me and very protective. He always got to come with when our dog-friendly errand was Home Depot. Cuz, you know, he’s a dude, and he likes to look at all the tools. Opie is thriving in his new home in San Francisco and will continue to be a part of my breeding program.

Rogue River Kai Ken

Rogue River Kai Ken

Our Kai

Rogue River Kai Ken

MY KAI GUYS