This article appeared in the Winter 2000 issue of Akita Dog, a quarterly publication of the Akita Club of America, Inc. It is reprinted with permission of the author and copyright owner, J. Creason.

Kay, How did you get involved with the Akita breed?

Early in our marriage, Eric was a graduate student at Cal Tech. He was studying radio astronomy and he was away at the observatory a lot. Frankly, I was uncomfortable being alone and thought that I would feel more secure having a dog.

Now, I had never had a dog, except as a child we had a dog for maybe a day. Anyway, not knowing anything about dogs, Eric and I were trying to figure out what we might want and we were debating either a German Shepherd or a Malamute, thinking we'd get something exotic. We were just kind of mulling it over, and he mentioned it to some people he knew at school. One of those people happened to be Pete Lagus. Pete said, "Come over and see my puppies. I've got Akitas."

We didn't know anything about Akitas. And I had never met Pete and Maggie. So, we went over to their house, and I was expecting to see little puppies. Well, Pete opened the door and along side him I saw this huge, I mean huge head. I screamed. It was Akita Tani's Kuroyama, a dog that at the time was a top winning Akita dog at the matches in southern California. Kuroyama went on to sire the first Best in Show Akita, Wanchan's Akagumo. Within 30 minutes of meeting Kuroyama and Mikan, Eric and I were convinced that this was the breed for us.

Akita Tani Kennels
Pete's first dogs were from Akita Tani Kennels, which were owned by Liz and Al Harrell. He introduced us to Liz and Al and their dogs. We eventually got our first Akita from them and actually our subsequent Akitas, as well, were from Akita Tani. We started attending monthly ACA meetings even before we brought home our first Akita puppy in January 1969.
 

Now that you were an Akita owner, what happened next with your involvement and interest in the breed?

Akita Tani Kennels had quite a few dogs. Akita Tani did not own the dam of our first dog, but they had produced her, bred her, and Liz whelped the litter for the owners. Liz and Al owned the sire and we met him. We also met all the grandparents and several of the great grandparents. It was wonderful to see all the ancestors behind our puppy. It was a living pedigree.

The thing I really appreciate about the arrangement at Akita Tani was not just being able to see the ancestors of my dogs and what they looked like but getting to know their temperaments. It was delightful how friendly they were. Every time we would go down there, we would visit every dog. We would go, one by one, to each pen and greet each dog, and they would come to see us. We would put our hands in and pet them, and they would wag their tails and lick our hands to greet us.

Making Akitas a Way of Life
We would go down to Akita Tani kennels, it seems, just about every weekend to sit around and talk about the dogs with Liz and often a number of others gathered in conversation. This is where I first met Rusty Cunningham (now Rusty Short). They would have handling classes on the weekends; someone would teach conformation.

We got started taking our first dog Teru to puppy matches, and that became one of our primary activities. Our social life centered around the dog matches. And, of course, at that time this was in the late 60s/early 70s; we are talking miscellaneous class and puppy matches.

In a lot of the conversations with Liz we talked about pedigrees. I was working in a genetics research lab at the time and was interested in genetics in general. Studying pedigrees and learning some dog genetics was grabbing my attention, and Liz encouraged me to join the registration committee.

My First Akita, Teru
Teru was the ringleader of his litter. He was a real smart aleck. He apparently figured out how to open the latch to the puppy pen, and he led all the puppies out. He was real cute. He was the only one in the litter with a blaze on his muzzle. He was Al's personal favorite in that litter, and I think Al probably paid a little more attention to him than to the others.

One day when I was down there with Teru at a conformation class, he saw Al from a distance. He hadn't seen Al since we adopted him at 9 weeks of age, probably about 9 months earlier. It didn't matter that I was holding the leash; he just took off and made a beeline for Al. Now, Al was a tall, slender guy and Teru must've weighed about 80 or 90 lbs at that point. Teru leaped up into Al's arms and hugged him and licked him all over his face, and it was a sight to behold. Al couldn't have been happier.

I remember another occasion in conformation class with Tomo. She saw a squirrel and took off, leaving me flat on the ground while she bolted across the field. That was embarrassing!

My Second Akita, Tomo
We got Tomo 9 months after we got Teru. The day we brought her home at 8 weeks Teru ecstatically charged around the yard nonstop until we introduced them. He was so gentle with her; he would literally throw himself off-balance to avoid stepping on her when they were first getting acquainted and starting to play together. They became fast friends and adored each other.

One of my most unforgettable memories is an incident when I took Tomo to the vet. I sewed a lot and had a fair amount of fabric left over. I made a pair of "season" pants for Tomo because they didn't have any in the pet shops that were her size. I chose some bright kelly green plaid fabric left over from a dress of mine. One day I took her to the vet when she was in heat and wearing her pants. Sitting in the veterinary clinic, I suddenly realized I was wearing my matching kelly green dress. I was so embarrassed. It was like mother and daughter in their matching outfits.

Where to next?



              

Last updated November 29, 2002

Copyright 2000 by Kay S. Greisen
All Rights Reserved.