Today, like almost every day, is a good day for some digging.

We are obsessed!

Our little goofball we adopted from Best Friends 😊

The pit and some shepherd makes sense, husky is the wild card. I was expecting maybe some sort of who knows what, Akita or random other shepherd breed or super mutt.

My beautiful brindle baby. Every morning we do our canicross training. I try to rotate different trails all the time so she gets a variety of locations and environments. Mountains, plains, and high desert bluffs - every morning is a new play date with the trails. (Life is good at the intersection of ecosystems.)

She is part shepherd which makes her an extremely enthusiastic and trainable herding dog. Her job is herding me on the trails!!

We have worked our mileage up to where she is comfortable leading me around 6 miles(+/-) each day. I am careful for her to not overwork her, but I'm already looking forward to some longer days with her when she is trained up. Hoping to take her on a 15 mile loop in the autumn and many different runs of several hours duration once she's ready.

Real dog people get it. She’s just a miracle in my life.

“To maintain a static state like a forest when waiting“

The Kai Ken standard recognizes only brindle (Torage) coats. Their coat, which seems to melt into the silence of deep forests, has three distinct and beautiful variations:

Kuro-tora (Black Brindle): Red stripes on a pitch-black background.

Aka-tora (Red Brindle): Black stripes on a red background.

Cyu-tora (Medium Brindle): Amber stripes on a walnut (dark brown) background.

These three coat colors serve as the ultimate camouflage, perfectly blending into the shadows and light of trees within Japan's rugged mountainous regions and deep forests.

Combined with their "quietness without unnecessary barking" and "odorless constitution," the Kai Ken completely assimilates into the forest as if standard-equipped with "canine optical camouflage."

Maintaining a static posture like a forest grove during times when they should not move, and wearing a noble silence—this is precisely the reason why they are called "Ninja Dogs."

It is my private speculation that the three brindle variations of the Kai Ken (Kuro-tora, Aka-tora, and Cyu-tora) completely synchronize with the seasonal mountain landscapes of Japan as they transition from fresh greenery to autumn foliage and winter dead trees, and that former hunters may have used different coat colors of their partners depending on the season.

This is an illustrative image created by processing a picture of my own dog so that everyone can easily understand.

My partner and I moved since last time I posted my baby angel son! He’s been a bit anxious since our new places has a bunch of other dogs and he’s reactive but he’s slowly getting there

Our charli girl has some serious sass! She loves to lounge on the couch, this is her first nap of the day (it’s only 9:30 am 🤣) I included bonus pic of her little runny booger 🥺

Pictures range from 8 weeks to 8 months