just been told tht you cant breed from a long coat akita i knew tht you cant show them cos long coat are a inperfection of the breed can anyone enlighten me please i have breed my 2 akita and i got 3 fluffy ones which r classed as long coats the kennel club never asked any questions on the coats so i persumed tht the pups can be breed

Why would you WANT to breed from dogs with a fault that is a disqualification? You'll only produce more.

i dont want to breed from them thy are puppies tht i have sold and thy are wanting to breed from them

To go back to your original question, Sophie, you will find that the majority of good breeders (as opposed to greedy breeders) will only have a litter :
(1)      when the breeder wants a puppy to keep themselves

(2)      when they do have a dog that is an outstanding example of the breed and conforms to ALL breed standards - coat, colour,
          temperament - and has been fully health checked - hip and elbow scored, annual eye tests etc
and
(3)      will take responsbility for all puppies from each litter for the whole of their lives - if for any reason the new owner cannot keep it.

For this reason also, responsible breeders put the endorsement (PROGENY NOT FOR REGISTRATION) on the KC registration form - and this endorsement can only be removed by the breeder when s/he is satisfied that the puppy has gone through all tests and is a good example of the breed.   From what you say, although your puppies are wonderful, they will not grow into breed standard dogs - so therefore no good, reputable breeder would even consider breeding from them.

I do hope this helps you.

Margot

Sometimes...just sometimes...don't we seem to be banging our heads against a brick wall??:rolleyes:

Only about 10% of pedigree registered dogs are suitable for breeding. If having a long coat is a breed fault, then they're pet quality only and shouldn't be bred from. You should endorse the registrations of your longcoat puppies as 'progeny not eligible for registration' to prevent their new owners perpetuating the fault. The puppies should not be bred from. It would also be sensible not to repeat the mating that produced them.

Its probably more a case of:- not wether you can (because you can) but wether you should....

>they're pet quality only<

Thing is The long coats have a more docile,laid back less likely to 'take up the challenge if challenged' temprament which makes them fit the 'pet' bill much better than the short coats.

which would then explain why some in the breed (short coats) continue to breed them (the longcoats)

Not something Im sure I agree with..breeding just to supply the pet market (rather than further a particularly good line of dog)

(The long coat that was at Crufts last year in the KC good citizen display was a lovely chap, I have to say)

I can't see how coat length would have any effect on temperament.  They may look softer and cuddlier, but doesn't mean anything.

I've heard this about their temperaments, don't know how its supposed to be true but it is believed to be :)

I'm led to believe breeders say its due to the origional 'mix' of using either tosa's or the Karafuto-ken (The Karafuto giving the long coat)
Interestingly the Karafuto (A Japanese Island called sakhalin..now no mans land after the war) was known as the Sakhalin Husky (which is what peaked my interest many moons ago ;) ) which were the dogs the Film Eight below was based on.

Long coated anything seems to be more docile I've found. Take the cat breeds? Why is that? Does anyone know why?

I'd like know too!! I'm pretty sceptical.
I always thought that with temperament,genetically it was not so much Nature versus Nuture, as Nature with a strong influence of Nurture that formed behaviour... ?
   There was  astudy where Monkeys were bred with Aggression but when placed with a docile mother the agression didnt manifest.
I remember the Cats debate (on colour though...'Norty Torties' 'Flighty Gingers' etc.. ;) ) and the Russian research with red foxes...
Interesting stuff!

You been googling Liv?

:P

no.. Mum on messenger!
but I am now!!! its quite interesting, we had this debate on Boxing day as Mum is looking for cat (after Tyb passed away) and we've been offered a red Maine Coon but Jess says Gingers are fighters! :rolleyes:
  Jess the Teenage know it all!!! ;) :rolleyes:

Ooooohhhhh snatch their hands off I'd LOVE a red Maine Coon!!!:D
I've got a dark tortie moggy and a smoke (well he was smoke when a kitten and it's coming back)
black and white moggy...both semi longhaired.

My grey and white semi longhaired moggy was a fighter....
No ginger bits on him anywhere :D

Hi Husky Gal

We have two chesnut mares & they are definitely temperamental! Talking cats, I gave a home to a British Short Haired Lilac Seal Point. Her (Lilac Lil as we call her) temperament is fantastic! She gets on really well with my 2 dogs as well! I emailed a few breeders for an older adult who hadn't quite made the grade for showing & was inundated with replies. The breeder had her spayed & charged me £100. I thought this was very good value for money as she also was fully vaccinated. They are renound for there good temperaments.

At the vets we've noticed it's the longer-coated cats who're more likely to leave us dripping blood (ours, not theirs!)!

Someone with a choc lab told me that they were warned not to get it because they have a more mischievous temperament than black or yellow.  Whether that is true or not I don't know but someone that bred budgies said that the colours did make a difference to temperament.  They found that the yellows tended to be a bit vicious and white ones were just odd.   Probably the gene that carries one characteristic say, colour also carries characteristics specific to temperament.  Like HG says though there are also all the other things that interfere with that such as their environment.  The people who had the choc lab said that she was much more mischievous than other labs they had before but perhaps they were just looking for it because of what they had been told.

I don't know if there's a great deal of truth in it but someone I know that owns and breeds Newfies maintains that browns are more stubborn than the blacks   Think she was trying to talk me out of getting a second brown one but then, i am a glutton for punishment...:D

I think that is generally thought about Browns!!! They can be MENTAL!!! and norty!!!

>they can be MENTAL!!! and norty!!!cool

Well Lola is certainly doing nothing to disprove the theory :rolleyes: :D

I have a long coated Weimaraner, it is no more and no less docile than the short coated ones I have had.  I know several long coated Rotties and GSD who are certainly no more docile than their "correct" coated relations.

Dogs tend to become what their owners expect of them, and so it is with colours.  I bet blind people would not find any difference in them................

right ok thank you for all your replys but i agree the long coats seem to me more loving and gentle i have still got one of the long coat pups which i intend on keeping she is adorable .

I'm sure she's lovely. Just make sure she's never bred from, and don't repeat the mating that produced her and her similar siblings. :)

i dont intend on breeding again she is getting done few weeks not becos of this but becos she had 2 litters and tht is enough for any dog.

Long coated anything seems to be more docile I've found

Are they though or is it just that long coat appeals to us as fluffy and cuddly and childlike? I know I am guilty of looking at my brothers two GSD's one long one short and have always gone to cuddle the long first from puppyhood, as have my children, but the short has a fabulous temperament too, (he gets cuddled lots too, but we are all drawn to the long-haired first)

Same with the cats I have had over the years, my ginger tom (perhaps  uniquely) was Mr Docile loved by all the neighbourhood cats and never once got into a fight, my male tabby's have always been fighters as were the neighbourhood tabbys, but extremely loving with people, yet my long haired white everyone cuddled and loved and fussed over, completely ignoring the other cats and he was allowed in their houses, yet he was a real trouble causer, cocky as hec with the dogs and nowhere near as good a temperament as my ginger tom. He only appealed to people because of his long coat. ;-)

I do agree that some colours in dog breeds do seem to represent different traits, or perhaps that may also be like the 'long haired syndrome' where your mind fools you into believing it. Or perhaps the real truth is they have come from dogs of good or bad temperament.

While having a long coat wouldn't in itself cause a behaviour change, physical appearance has genetic links to behaviour in many species. A great example is the fox study HG mentioned which you can check out here or here. So I can easily believe that there are linked genes that influence both behaviour and coat in some breeds and that the frequency of some behaviour may be more or less prevalent when an animal had a certain phenotype. Genetic expression is very complex though so I wouldn't count on 100% correlation but could believe in better odds for a trait.

Flip - if my BSH Jack was any more docile he'd be dead!

Long coated anything seems to be more docile I've found. Take the cat breeds? Why is that? Does anyone know why?

Yes and no -Persians are THE most docile of all cat breeds, Exotics (=shorthaired Persians) are most definitely not AS docile, and the semi longhairs (which will include Maine Coons, Birman, Norwegians etc etc as well as any longhaired moggy, the  ONLY true longhaired cat is the Persian, all others are semi LH) -are even less docile than Exotics and Maine Coons could never be described as docile. (It's usually (That ***** cat!!!! in our household! or "that THING of yours!" when mentioning hubby's Maine Coons) 

Personally I'd say it's all down to the breeds behind them. Persians being such an old breed, the most popular breed for so many years, always bred ONLY as show cats and pets, not as rat catchers -everyone wanted them docile and cuddly. Exotic is originally Persian x British SH (UK) or Persian x American SH (US) and the influence of the other breed/s (US Exotics also had Burmese crossed in at one point) made the temperament different to the Persians. As most Exotic SH carry the gene for LH, you tend to get longhaired kittens in the litters as well. These LOOK identical to Persians, and genetically they ARE identical. Indeed many registries across the world DO register them as Persians -under the GCCF they are Exotic Variants or Exotic Longhairs and cannot be shown.(But can be bred from to shorthairs.) I can honestly say that a longhaired Exotic is NOT as docile as a Persian, despite having the exact same look (if you did not KNOW the breeding, you could never ever tell a LH Exotic and a Persian apart just by looks). The LH Exotic will still have the Exotic temperament and they truly are not as much lap cats as Persians.

So I'd say what matters is the background, not the coat.

But I still stand by what I always say about colours in cats, there there is a definite tendency with for instance cream self being about the calmest you can get and reds being a lot more energetic, despite the fact that it is the same colour where the cream has just had the dilution gene added. :)

what an Interesting post!!!!
Thanks Marianne! I  really enjoyed reading that (hoped you'd spot this and clue us up on the cat front :) )

I think this is an interesting topic, and shows how traits can be deliberately or inadvertently linked.

For example in Rabbits the English and Dutch are marked varieties where very few are up to show standard.  the markings are evident at birth and the breeder would want to sort the litters as soon as possible, often killing off the poorly marked ones.  quite often several does were mated at once and the best of all the litters were fostered onto one doe so the others could be mated again so increasing the chances of producing a show quality youngster for the 'Young Stock shows' as the window was about 3 months.

In order to be able to do this the does have had to be good mothers and not mind their young being handles.

Now in the Fur breeds where the quality of the coat is paramount you won't know until the adult coat comes in if they are going to be show quality, so there is no hurry to assess the young in the nest,a nd often the does are very aggressive and intolerant of any interference.

but what as rabbits got to do with dogs im confused

Not a lot, Sophie .....but dogs wouldn't mind chomping on one or two :D :D :D

Just goes to show how threads can "fray" - but the answer to your primary question - can you breed from a long coat Akita - is still the same - which is "NO - YOU SHOULDN'T" :D :D

Margot

Genetics me dear. 

Breeding any livestock and even plants is all about genetics and selection.

It is certainly something anyone breeding should have more than a passing interest/knowledge of.

Did the bitch produce long coats in her first litter?  If she did I assume you used a different sire to avoid producing the fault.

The possibility of producing a long coat from 2 correctly coated Akitas is only a minor consideration when breeding - there are far more important things such as health & temperament to weigh up first. The gene pool for the breed in the UK is not big enough to be able to pick & choose. However, I would expect any reputable breeder to endorse the registrations on any long coats & to make sure novice owners are discouraged from breeding. There are far too many poorly bred Akitas around.

well my 2 akitas i couldnt ask for any better temperment than they have got mum is so laid back and plasid and dad is the one who just adores playing dad they both love other dogs and people and my last litter have turned out a credit to them, i have heard so many people tell me they have bought and spent top money to end up having theres put down cos of it biting someone or attaking other dogs so i must say i its not all doom and gloom.

That does surprise me (small gene pool) as with registrations in four figures I wouldn't have thought there was any need to breed from anything but top class animals producing as few breed faults as possible.

My own breed at it's strongest numbers in the 70's has never had more than 400 registrations per year, and the last few years it has been not much over 100.  The first 3 quarters of this year there were only 51 pups.  Yet we still get dogs in rescue bred commercially and not KC registered as well as breeders getting dogs back from time to time.

It surprised me as well until I looked into it. Even with the number of imports, you don't have to go back very far to find very many of them go back to one common ancestor. You have to remember that they are a relatively recent breed to this country & even in the States where most of the imports come from, they only rose in popularity after WW2 - your breed has been here far longer. Akitas also suffer from any number of health problems - hip, eyes, auto immune, VKH - it's a minefield!

Most breeds, even long-established ones, suffered from a similar problem of 'bottlenecking' during the two World Wars. There are one or two dogs from WW2 in my breed who appear in every single UK pedigree that I've researched!

With the Akita it wasn't bottlenecking. There were virtually no Akitas in the USA until servicemen brought them back from Japan after WW2. They weren't even given individual status by the AKC until the early 1970s.
So having registrations in 4 figures in less than 25 yrs in the UK shows a veritable explosion in population. Not a good thing for any breed.

However I'm guessing there are different bloodlines in the country of origin, so avoiding repeating a mating that has produced a known fault by importing new stock or semen is surely possible?

Sadly, I think the OP owns both dog and bitch............

The country of origin (Japan) is not the easiest to deal with regarding obtaining dogs. I gather you need to be extremely dedicated, build up good relationships &, of course, there is the language problem. Biggest problem of all though is that most of the dogs in Japan are what are now called Japanese Akita Inu, not Akitas. Fabulous dogs but no longer the same breed!

"Biggest problem of all though is that most of the dogs in Japan are what are now called Japanese Akita Inu, not Akitas. Fabulous dogs but no longer the same breed! "

Is that not maybe the other way around?

The dogs taken to the states and changed to something else altogether.

The Americans are very good at that, look what they did with the Cocker Spaniel?

No saying it is wrong as both the American cocker and America type Akita are fabulous looking dogs, but they are not Cockers or Japanese Akita's as they are in their countries of origin but turned into a different breed.

This was exactly my thought as well Barbara.

Ditto.

Having met a few of the Japanese Akita Inu's (the first at they eye testing sessions at Crufts a few years ago,  must say I thought them lovely but different. more oriental and less mastiff in Head, and lighter in body than the American type.  The bitch I met also had a very expressive face.

While our Elkhound Boy was in Quarantine for part of the time he had an American type Akita bitch as a neighbour.  she was actually the red colour that th Japanese types often are with no mask, but still looked very different to the INu, with the American head. She had not long reared a litter in quarantine, so when our boy arrived she used to look in on him, and I am sure she thought he was her pup.

Even the Golden is being changed beyond recognition in America. Narrow collie like heads, LOTS of coat (very handy for a gundog yes...think Am Cocker), strung up like Terriers etc.....
http://www.moxiekennel.com/images/udates/whiskeybiss.jpg
http://www.dichigoldens.com/chance.html

Love the colour on the chnce dog, and must say looks more like a Golden than the first.  I do prefer the flat/straight coated Goldens like my neighbour has, rather than those where the coat is very wavy.

I won't tell Dandy that LOL, he looks like Shirley Temple. Tight curls. :D It's a shame really that judges now so prefer them with straight coats that people do all they can to straighten the coats as the breed standard does allow for it to be wavy. :)