Our tentative breeding plans for 2024 are:
- Japanese Akita, Summer 2024: Kumonga x Kaizen (Brindle)
Colors: Brindle (75%), Red (25%)
Puppies born July 26th! One brindle female, two brindle males, and one red male - Hokkaido, Autumn 2024: Saya x Nash (Red)
Colors: Red (100%) - Japanese Akita, Winter 2024-25: Gojira II x Ikuzou
Colors: Brindle (37.5%), Red (37.5%), White (25%)
(Long coats are possible) - Hokkaido, Spring 2025: Manda x Appa
Colors: White (50%), Sesame (25%), Black and Tan (25%)
We will adjust our schedule depending on which breedings are successful.
How Long Does it Take?
Our breeding plans above are based on the estimated time when the female dog will come into season. Dogs generally go into season twice a year, but we do not breed on every season and depending on the individual may be anywhere from 4.5 to 10 months between seasons. It can also vary from one cycle to the next, so the exact timing is difficult. Once her season begins, it takes 2 weeks until the female is fertile and ready to mate. After that we must wait another 4 weeks to find out if she is pregnant and a total of 9 weeks until whelping. We keep our puppies until 12 weeks old for our early socialization and puppy headstart program. The entire process takes 23 weeks.
Assuming we plan to breed the female and she successfully gets pregnant, it takes a little over five months from the day her season begins until the day her puppies go to their new homes. For example, if we have a planned breeding for early January, the new owners will pick up their puppies in June.
Due to the small number of reputable breeders and infrequency of litters in the US, we have a waiting list for all future litters. We never have puppies available when a buyer first contacts us. In fact, it is exceedingly uncommon for someone on our list to wait less than six months to receive a puppy. It can happen if you contact us at just the right time, but most of the time we are between litters with the next breeding still a few months away.
As the saying goes, "Man plans and God laughs." Not every breeding is successful for a myriad of reasons. Sometimes the timing doesn't work out for us to be able to travel to the stud, the female dog rejects him, she loses puppies during pregnancy, or she simply doesn't conceive. And when we do have a litter, we always have more great applicants than pups to go around. So it may take multiple planned litters over the course of a couple years before we are able to place a puppy with a given applicant.