Kai Ken x wolf cross puppies, photographed in Japan. Yes, the animal is a wolf, not a coyote or a jackal, since I’m sure it’ll come up. Yes, it is likely pure.
What is more interesting here is the color of the pups. While two appear to be brindle, the middle one is either extremely sparse brindle, or it’s sable. This is noteworthy because Kai Ken are supposed to be mostly “fixed” for brindle.
This trend comes up again in these modern Kai Ken wolfdogs, who allegedly have a pure Kai Ken parent and a parent who is a North American wolf of some subspecies undefined.
The above animals live at a zoo, and were mistaken for Shikoku Ken crosses by a Shikoku Ken breeder until he inquired with the zookeeper (as best I understand the blog they came from...)
What are the chances of two different Kai Ken who were crossed to wolves being heterozygous, rather than homozygous, for brindle? Or is there something else happening with the interaction? Maybe Kai just aren’t as “fixed” for brindle as we believe? Yamabushi Kennel, the Kai Ken effort in New Mexico who are also behind Hakuzan Kennel (where one of my Kishu was born) have only produced one non-brindle Kai Ken, which was a surprise to everyone.
Brindle wolfdogs have been noted in Japan, but only when mixed with Honshu wolf, prior to its extinction (the Kishu Ken wolf crosses I blogged about earlier all exhibit brindle...)
