{"id":117564,"date":"2015-02-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-08T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvaryny.com\/?p=117564"},"modified":"2026-08-29T09:41:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T06:41:50","slug":"hokkaido-ainu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvaryny.com\/en\/breed-hokkaido-ainu","title":{"rendered":"Hokkaido (Ainu)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Hokkaido<\/strong>, also called the Hokkaido Ken<\/strong> and the Ainu Ken<\/strong>, is one of six Japanese breeds that the state has entered in its register of natural monuments. It is a medium-sized native spitz with a thick double coat, pricked ears and a curled tail, bred for hunting in the mountains and snows of northern Japan. The breed stays rare even at home: in 2025 the Japan Kennel Club registered 24 Hokkaido, against 3,598 Shiba Inu in the same year. What we have gathered below is what can be checked against documents \u2013 FCI Standard No. 261, the register of Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, the standard of the Japanese association NIPPO, and peer-reviewed veterinary publications. More about breeds on Tvaryny<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hokkaido (Ainu): a brief overview and characteristics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Hokkaido<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Parameter<\/th>Characteristic<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Country of origin<\/strong><\/td>Japan<\/td><\/tr>
FCI standard<\/strong><\/td>No. 261 \u201cHOKKAIDO\u201d, version in force published 30.10.2016, English version dated 09.02.2017<\/td><\/tr>
FCI classification<\/strong><\/td>Group 5 (spitz and primitive types), Section 5 (Asian spitz and related breeds), without working trial<\/td><\/tr>
Use under the standard<\/strong><\/td>Hunting dog, companion dog<\/td><\/tr>
Height at withers, dogs<\/strong><\/td>48.5\u201351.5 cm (FCI No. 261)<\/td><\/tr>
Height at withers, bitches<\/strong><\/td>45.5\u201348.5 cm (FCI No. 261)<\/td><\/tr>
Height under the Japanese NIPPO standard<\/strong><\/td>dogs 52 cm (range 46\u201355), bitches 49 cm (range 43\u201352)<\/td><\/tr>
Weight<\/strong><\/td>FCI Standard No. 261 lays down no weight<\/td><\/tr>
Coat<\/strong><\/td>Double: outer hair harsh and straight, undercoat soft and dense<\/td><\/tr>
Colours under the standard<\/strong><\/td>Sesame, brindle, red, black, black and tan, white<\/td><\/tr>
Status in Japan<\/strong><\/td>A national natural monument since 21 December 1937<\/td><\/tr>
JKC registrations in 2025<\/strong><\/td>24 dogs (across all 141 breeds \u2013 302,530)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Origins: what the documents actually say<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A handsome legend about Japan’s native breeds is easy to write; a page that can be checked is hard. Let us begin, then, with the document that describes the breed officially. The historical summary in FCI Standard No. 261 states that the breed descends from medium-sized Japanese dogs brought to Hokkaido by settlers from Honshu in the Kamakura era, in the 1140s, when exchange between Hokkaido and the Tohoku region was taking shape. That wording repays attention, because it contradicts the commonest account circulating online, the one about \u201cdirect descendants of Jomon-period dogs\u201d. The standard traces the breed not to the Neolithic but to a medieval migration from the main island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science is more cautious here than popular writing. The study of the mitogenomes of ancient Japanese dogs (Xiaokaiti and colleagues, Anthropological Science<\/em>, 2024) sets out from an archaeological fact: dogs have been present in Japan for at least 9,300 years, from the Jomon period onwards. The authors then show that the mitochondrial lineages of dogs from the late 8th century are already different from, and more varied than, the Jomon lineages \u2013 later waves of settlers brought dogs of their own, and the ancient haplogroups were largely displaced. A straight descent from \u201cJomon dog\u201d to modern breed does not follow from this evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is, though, an old and very concrete observation that sets the Hokkaido apart from the southern Japanese breeds. In 1984 Hashimoto, Yamakawa and Tanabe published in the Journal of Biochemistry<\/em> a study of red-cell glycolipids in 1,591 dogs of 36 breeds. They identified a polymorphism in the terminal sugar of haematoside: some dogs carry N-acetylneuraminic acid, others N-glycolylneuraminic acid. The second variant turns up in only a handful of eastern breeds, and the Hokkaido in that sample did not carry it \u2013 unlike the native breeds of southern Japan, northern China and Korea. From this the authors inferred separate routes of settlement: the dogs of southern Japan came from northern China by way of the Korean peninsula, whilst the dogs of the north of the archipelago have a different origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The name \u201cAinu Ken\u201d points to the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The historical section of the FCI standard says outright that the Ainu bred these dogs for hunting bear and other game, and that the breed’s second name comes from that. In the Ainu language the dog goes by several names, which the language archive of the National Ainu Museum (\u56fd\u7acb\u30a2\u30a4\u30cc\u6c11\u65cf\u535a\u7269\u9928) records with precision: seta<\/strong> is the principal word, current across Hokkaido, Sakhalin and the Kurils; in the north-east of the island \u2013 the Kitami, Kushiro and Tokachi districts \u2013 everyday speech says sita<\/strong>, whilst seta<\/em> stays in the elevated register. Descriptive names exist as well: reyep<\/strong>, \u201cthe one that crawls\u201d, because a dog seeking affection creeps up to a person, and apacampe<\/strong>, \u201cthe one by the door\u201d. There is nothing exotic in this: it is the ordinary synonymy of a living language, documented by a national scholarly institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The turning point came in 1937. The database of national cultural properties kept by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs holds a record under the name \u5317\u6d77\u9053\u72ac<\/strong> (\u307b\u3063\u304b\u3044\u3069\u3046\u3051\u3093, \u201cHokkaido Ken\u201d): category, natural monument; date of designation, 21.12.1937<\/strong>. Under \u201clocation\u201d stands the entry \u5730\u57df\u3092\u5b9a\u3081\u306a\u3044, \u201cno territory specified\u201d \u2013 the status was granted to the breed as such, and not to a place or to particular animals. The description in the record, written in an older administrative Japanese, lists precisely the features that the standards would afterwards take up: it is one of the medium-sized Japanese dogs long kept on Hokkaido; ears small, muzzle pointed, body rather longer than the height at the withers, hock angle open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FCI standard adds a point about the name: when the breed was declared a natural monument, it took the name of the region. \u201cHokkaido Ken\u201d accordingly became the official designation, whilst \u201cAinu Ken\u201d remained the second, historical name. Both are still used today, and the FCI itself carries \u201cAinu\u201d as a gloss on the breed name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same register lets us set the Hokkaido in a sequence: through the 1930s the Japanese state designated dog breeds as natural monuments one after another, and the Hokkaido comes last in the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breed in the register<\/th>Date of designation as a natural monument<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
\u79cb\u7530\u72ac \u2014 Akita<\/td>31.07.1931<\/td><\/tr>
\u7532\u6590\u72ac \u2014 Kai<\/td>22.01.1934<\/td><\/tr>
\u7d00\u5dde\u72ac \u2014 Kishu<\/td>01.05.1934<\/td><\/tr>
\u8d8a\u306e\u72ac \u2014 Koshi no Inu<\/td>28.12.1934<\/td><\/tr>
\u67f4\u72ac \u2014 Shiba<\/td>16.12.1936<\/td><\/tr>
\u571f\u4f50\u72ac \u2014 Tosa Ken (now the Shikoku Ken)<\/td>15.06.1937<\/td><\/tr>
\u5317\u6d77\u9053\u72ac \u2014 Hokkaido<\/td>21.12.1937<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Alongside the state register, the breed is looked after by a voluntary body. The Japanese dog preservation society NIPPO (\u516c\u76ca\u793e\u56e3\u6cd5\u4eba\u65e5\u672c\u72ac\u4fdd\u5b58\u4f1a) adopted its \u201cStandard of the Japanese Dog\u201d as long ago as 1934 \u2013 a single document covering all six breeds, sorted by size into small, medium and large. In it the essence of the Japanese dog is set out in three concepts: kan’i<\/strong> (\u608d\u5a01), restrained inner strength and dignity; ryosei<\/strong> (\u826f\u6027), a good and even-tempered nature; soboku<\/strong> (\u7d20\u6734), natural plainness without adornment. These three words matter for more than their exoticism: they explain why Japanese standards say so little about \u201ccharacter\u201d in the Western sense, and why timidity counts in them as a serious fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One clarification belongs here, since this is perhaps the confusion met most often. The \u201csix Nihon Ken\u201d are not the whole of Japan’s native dogs, but the six breeds entered by the state in the register of monuments and overseen by NIPPO. The scientific literature \u2013 Gojobori and colleagues in Nature Communications<\/em> (2024), among others \u2013 puts the number of Japanese native breeds at eleven. The formula \u201cone of the six original Japanese breeds\u201d is therefore accurate in the sense of protected status only, and not in the sense of Japanese dogs taken together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A final historical detail, this one from our own day: NIPPO notes that the former local lines of the Hokkaido are gradually being effaced and that the breed is converging on one unified type. For a rare breed the news cuts both ways \u2013 typicality is rising, whilst the diversity of lines from which unrelated stock can be drawn is narrowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the Hokkaido looks like: a reading of FCI Standard No. 261<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Hokkaido<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The general appearance is described in these terms: a dog of medium size with sharply marked sexual dimorphism, well balanced, of sturdy build and with good bone; the musculature firm and clean-cut. The proportions are spelled out in unusual detail for a Japanese breed \u2013 there are three of them here: height at the withers to length of body, 10 : 11 (in bitches the body may be a little longer); length of skull to length of foreface, 3 : 2; length of skull equal to the width of the cheeks. By way of comparison, the standards for the Shiba, Kai, Kishu, Shikoku and Akita go no further than the first of these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n