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We bred our first litter in 1989, after several years of studying, joining Akita clubs in England (where we lived until 1987) and in the USA, then eventually purchasing our dogs (one at a time!), studying some more, showing them to their championships, studying, talking, listening, attending seminars, studying pedigrees, doing health checks, studying… and eventually we bred our first litter. Frankly, my opinion is that no one is qualified to breed for the first several litters, because experience is one of the best teachers and you obviously don’t start out with experience, lol! We were no different, but I think we had beginners luck in many respects. We were plagued by longcoats initially, but had no actual health problems for several years. And our beautiful coated puppies, with the exception of our beloved Tigger who we kept, were placed in pet homes with spay/neuter agreements, which of course is required for all pets.

Our first actual health problems started in 2001. A dog we had bred was diagnosed with SA at the age of five. This was truly devastating; I had only vaguely heard of this disease, and read frightening bits about it. I didn’t even think I knew anyone that had produced it, let alone imagined one of our own dogs would ever get it. It came from a breeding of our lovely Scarlet to an outside dog (Nia Minda Catcher In The Rye) who was totally unrelated to our dogs, and we had relied on the word of his owner for his health background. There were eight puppies in that litter. Besides the one with S.A. (Ryder), some developed other immune-related issues over the years, and one had a genetic structural problem called luxating patellas, another first for us. All were loving and beautiful, making it even more tragic. We didn’t own the male that developed SA, but we do own his litter brother, our beloved Comanche. We had bred Comanche years before his brother was ever diagnosed with SA, and had even done an inbreeding with him and his mother “Scarlet” (litter now 10 years old), but no trace of SA has ever surfaced in any of the puppies in Comanche’s three litters (or any other of our breedings), leading us to believe he is not a carrier. However, as soon as we heard of the diagnosis of his litter brother, Comanche himself was neutered, as was Scarlet. Comanche at 11 years old is still one of our most loved and adored house pets, as is his inbred daughter, Ramona. All seven of Comanche’s siblings have also been neutered because of the diagnosis of SA in their littermate, showing a great deal of courage and ethics on the part of their owners.

It turned out that despite denials by Catcher’s owner, Catcher has produced SA with other bitches, all unrelated to ours. He has also produced pemphigus and lupus. His mother’s full sister has produced VKH and SA, and Catcher’s own father, owned by the same people that own Catcher, produced SA, so it seems that some of this tragedy could have been avoided with a little bit of honesty. Curiously, in spite of full knowledge of these facts, Catcher’s owners continue to breed him, fouling the Akita gene pool here in the USA and anywhere abroad where there is a lack of knowledge and/or ethics.

Although we have never produced SA in any of our breedings except the one to Catcher, we acknowledge that it is believed by experts to be a simple recessive, meaning that both parents had to be carriers. That is why we spayed Scarlet immediately – she was a carrier. Looking back, it is most likely Scarlet got the gene from her father, Joey, since the disease has surfaced in Joey’s background. Apparently Joey himself was never bred to an SA carrier, since he never produced it, but you can see how the gene can be passed on from one generation to the next by carriers, and all you need is two carriers and you’ve got SA.

This situation continues to haunt us as we move from one generation to the next. The only positive aspect of this tragedy is that we have been provided a map of where we DON’T want to go. We will do our best to make this kind of information available to the public in an effort to spare anyone else the heartbreak that goes with the diagnosis of such a hideous disease in a beloved family member.

We will continue to add any other problems we produce to this list in the hopes that the information provided may be of help to someone else. If you have specific questions, please feel free to contact us. We believe that honesty can and will be the salvation of our wonderful breed.