Our Shiba Inu blog

Summary

The Nippo Show is the exhibition organised by the Nippo (Nihon Ken Hozonkai), the Japanese association for the preservation of Japan's native dog breeds. Unlike FCI/ENCI shows, where the Shiba is judged according to the international standard, at the Nippo Show the evaluation follows the original Japanese standard — more technical, stricter and focused on the preservation of the authentic type.

Summary

Every Shinjukawa adoption begins with a phone interview. It is not a formality: it is the first step of a matching process that aims to find the right puppy for the right family — not the other way around. It is not choosing from a catalogue; it is building a bond that lasts a lifetime.

Summary

At Shinjukawa we are not just breeders. We are both Canine Educators and have obtained the CEPAS European Dog Trainer Professional certification — and are ENCI Canine Trainers. Myriam has additionally obtained the ANMVI-ENCI Master Canine Breeder qualification. These credentials are not medals hung on the wall: they are tools we use every day in our work with our dogs and with the families who adopt them.

Summary

A puppy does not begin to form on the day it is born. Neurological, emotional and behavioural development begins in the mother's womb and passes through critical phases in the first weeks of life, when the nervous system is extraordinarily plastic and receptive. Science has shown that the mother's experiences during gestation, the stimulations in the first days of life and the quality of maternal care measurably influence the temperament and resilience of the adult dog. At Shinjukawa, this is not a theoretical concept: it is a protocol we apply to every litter, from pregnancy to weaning.

Summary

Modern dog breeding is profoundly different from what it was twenty years ago. The integration of advanced genomics, digitalized health screening, assisted reproductive technologies and biometric data monitoring has transformed selection from an art based on eye and experience into a discipline that combines intuition and science. The goal remains the same as ever — improving health, morphology and temperament while minimizing hereditary diseases — but the tools to achieve it have changed radically.

Summary

The MyDog DNA protocol, certified by the Vetogene laboratories — a spin-off of the University of Milan — is currently the most advanced solution available for parentage testing according to the ISAG 2020 profiling standard and for monitoring and preventing hereditary genetic disorders. Since 2025, together with clinical tests for hip dysplasia, patellar luxation and eye diseases, this screening forms the foundation of our selection.

Summary

Not all pedigrees are the same. An ENCI pedigree certifies the genealogy of a dog, but the difference between any pedigree and one that represents a true guarantee of quality lies in the depth of knowledge the breeder has of those bloodlines. We have been working with the same lines since 2010, and we have full genealogical traceability back to the great-great-grandparents of every puppy.

Summary

In many kennels, only one or two dogs are champions — the "showcase dogs" — while the rest of the breeding dogs have never set foot in a show ring. At Shinjukawa every single breeding dog, male or female, has achieved at least one championship title before being admitted to reproduction. It is not a marketing choice, it is our selection philosophy.

Summary

We have been breeding Shiba Inu since 2010 on the same bloodlines. This means that we personally know not only the parents of every puppy, but also the grandparents and great-grandparents — because many of them were born and raised in our kennel. It is a depth of knowledge that very few breeding operations can offer.

Summary

Every serious kennel is built on precise foundations. Ours can be traced back to three dogs chosen with care for the quality of their bloodlines, the complementarity of their genetic heritage and the diversity of their origins. They are not three dogs bought at random — they are three pieces of a puzzle designed to build a solid, coherent and lasting breeding programme. In this article we tell who they are, where they come from and why their combination produced the results that set us apart.

Summary

In modern cynology there is a fundamental principle: form follows function. Every physical and behavioural trait of a dog is not an aesthetic whim — it is the result of centuries of selection dictated by the work that dog had to perform. In Japanese dogs, this principle takes on a particular depth: the size, the independence of character, the silence, the agility are not random traits. They are the product of a unique environment — the Japanese mountains — of specific hunting techniques, and of a historical period in which the laws of a Shōgun known as "the Dog" and the social restrictions on hunting created the conditions for dogs with certain characteristics — first behavioural, then physical — to have a selective advantage over others.

Summary

Sesame is the rarest and most debated coat colour of the Shiba Inu — and the least understood from a genetic point of view. Until 2022, the tests available were unable to distinguish a sesame dog from a red sesame one at the genetic level: two phenotypically different variants that were identical to the diagnostic tools. The study "ASIP Promoter Variants Predict the Sesame Coat Color in Shiba Inu Dogs", published in MDPI Veterinary Sciences and indexed on PubMed, resolved this enigma — and the Shinjukawa kennel contributed biological samples and genealogical data from its own breeding dogs. Andrea Fedele is cited among the contributors in the acknowledgements of the publication.

Summary

Shinjukawa Kennel is a Shiba Inu kennel based in Isernia, in the heart of Molise. Since 2010 we have selected this Japanese breed with a precise criterion: every breeding dog must be a certified beauty champion and have passed tests to exclude hereditary diseases and temperament flaws. In over fifteen years of activity our dogs have won more than 134 titles among Italian, international and breed specialty shows. We are affiliated with ENCI and recognised by the FCI.

Summary

Sesame — the coat with hairs in alternating bands of dark and red pigment — is the rarest and most mysterious colour of the Shiba Inu. Many enthusiasts naturally think it is also the oldest: after all, it is the "wolf" pattern, that of wild canids. But evolutionary genetics tells a more surprising story. Thanks to the study published in 2021 in Nature Ecology & Evolution by Bannasch and colleagues, we know that the oldest colour in canids is not sesame — it is yellow/red, shared with white Arctic wolves and originated from a canid extinct over 2 million years ago.

Summary

Every now and then, one comes across a Shiba with evident asymmetric white patches where it should not have them — a piebald or Pinto. For the Nippo standard it is a fault to be penalised, and yet at times it appears without any apparent reason. It is a known problem in the breed, but preventing it is not as simple as it seems. While for other breeds a simple DNA test is enough, it has been discovered that these are ineffective for the Japanese breeds. Behind this mystery there is a fascinating story that begins in postwar Japan, an off-standard dog that saved the breed from extinction, and an allele that travels silently through the pedigrees of thousands of Shiba around the world.

Summary

Every Shiba Inu alive today can be traced back, through its pedigree, to four founder lines identified by Mitsuharu Kanashi — a judge of the Nippo (Nihon Ken Hozonkai) and one of the association's reference figures, with encyclopaedic knowledge of the breed's genealogies. Kanashi identified four studs around which, in the postwar period, the reconstruction of the Shiba after its near-extinction crystallised: Gen, Korotama (Ichisuke), Tenkou and Matsumaru. Several decades have passed since his analysis, and new lines have meanwhile established themselves, but the fundamental structure remains: most modern Shiba carry in their pedigree the name of at least one of these four dogs.

Summary

In the world of dog breeding one constantly hears talk of "bloodlines", yet rarely does anyone explain what it really means. It is not a synonym for breed, it is not a synonym for pedigree, and it is not a vague or romantic concept. A bloodline is a group of dogs within a breed that share common ancestors and, consequently, recognisable and predictable traits — morphological, temperamental and genetic. Understanding how lines work is understanding how breeding itself works.

Summary

Before the Second World War, "the Shiba Inu" as we know it today did not exist. There were three regional populations of hunting dogs, each shaped by centuries of geographic isolation in the Japanese mountains: the Shinshu from Nagano Prefecture, the Mino from Gifu Prefecture, and the San'in from the prefectures of Tottori and Shimane. They were not breeds raised according to a programme: they were landraces — local populations made uniform by the environment, not by the hand of man. It was only in the twentieth century that Japanese scholars recognised them, classified them, and after the breed's near-extinction in the postwar period fused them into a single standardised breed — the modern Shiba Inu.