We Hokkaido are a rare breed outside our native country of Japan, but plenty of Japanese people know Otōsan – the most famous of all Hokkaido dogs. In 2007, a white Hokkaido named Kai-kun became famous as the star of many commercials for the Japanese phone company SoftBank. Kai-kun played Otōsan, who is the father of a family of humans. The many adventures of Otōsan over the years made Kai-kun a national treasure. Sadly, he passed away in 2018, but Kai-kun’s sons, Kaito-kun and Kaiki-kun, have continued their father’s legacy as SoftBank spokespups.

We Hokkaido are a rare and very old breed. Some humans think that we are the oldest and most primitive of the six native Japanese spitz breeds (which also include Akita, Shiba Inu, Kai Ken, Shikoku, and Kishu Ken). We go by a lot of different names. In Japan, we are mostly called Hokkaido Ken, but we are also called Ainu dog, Ainu-ken, Dō-ken, Seta, and Hokkaido Inu. In the first millennium CE, my earliest ancestors traveled to the northern island of Hokkaido with their humans, the indigenous Ainu people. The Ainu people had been pushed out of Honshu, the main island of Japan, and of course they took their dogs with them! The Ainu people were hunters and gatherers, so of course they needed trusty hard-working dogs at their side! My hunting dog ancestors bred with the native dogs of Hokkaido island, which made us even stronger, tougher, and better suited to hunting big game in cold weather. My ancestors were so brave that they helped their humans hunt deer and even bears! Because we are