The breeds · northern
AKC Foundation Stock Service · UKC Northern Breed · FCI standard 319
Shikoku Ken.
FCI 319 utilization: hunting dog, companion; bred as a hunting dog mainly for boar in the mountainous districts of Kochi, tough and agile enough to run through mountain country; an enthusiastic hunter. UKC: developed as a hunting dog, mainly used on boar in the mountains of Kochi; an enthusiastic hunter with marked endurance. AKC page: an enthusiastic hunter. Wikipedia: one of the medium-sized large-game hunting dogs of Japan, hunter of deer and boar. NIPPO hunting page: the medium-sized Nihon Ken have mainly been used for bears, wild boars and deer. Aoiyama (breeder blog): the Matagi hunters greatly prized the Shikoku..
Breed sets the odds. The parents set the dog. Every number here shows its source, its spread and how sure we are. Nothing on this page is a prediction about one dog.
The body
What the breed is built like. Registry standards give an ideal, not a range.
Height at the shoulder
No single ideal: FCI/NIPPO 49 cm (19.3 in) and Wikipedia 19 in against UKC's 18 in. FCI prints the tolerance as '+ 3 cm'; read as plus or minus 3 cm, which NIPPO's allowed ranges and Wikipedia's 'in either direction' confirm.
Weight
No ideal printed. Low is NIPPO's 15 kg; the AKC range is counted in both rows.
Coat
Varieties are described, not modelled as lines.
Shedding
AKC breed page trait score, 1 to 5: a breed-club tendency, never a measurement.
Heat tolerance
Derived from the coat description (medium double = 3). No measured data.
The dog at home
What the breed asks of a day. The first thing most homes get wrong.
Exercise need
AKC bands.
Energy
AKC bands, not measured.
Grooming load
AKC breed page trait score, 1 to 5: a breed-club tendency, never a measurement.
Grooming
AKC bands.
The work
What it was built to do in the field, and what a test or trial asks of it.
Role
Editorial views are shown beside the standard, labelled; where they disagree both stand (Chad, Oct 8 2026).
Primary game
Editorial views are shown beside the standard, labelled; where they disagree both stand (Chad, Oct 8 2026).
Search pattern
The bark-and-detain versus bite-and-detain styles rest on one breeder-blog source and are not confirmed by NIPPO or a registry. Editorial views are shown beside the standard, labelled; where they disagree both stand (Chad, Oct 8 2026).
Field trial standard
Cold water
Derived from the coat plus mountain work. No measured data.
How common the problems are
Evaluated dogs skew toward breeding stock; the numbers are still the best there are.
Hip dysplasia
OFA submissions are breeding-stock skewed and under-report affected dogs; period undated ('current all-data', accessed Oct 9 2026).
Elbow dysplasia
OFA submissions are breeding-stock skewed and under-report affected dogs; period undated ('current all-data', accessed Oct 9 2026).
More
akc bands
Fourteen AKC bands in one row; the selector reads each by name. Breed-club ratings: a tendency, never a measurement.
How to read this page
Every value carries a label. Measured means peer-reviewed data on many dogs. Studied means peer-reviewed, smaller or indirect. Breed club means a club or registry states it. Editorial means expert opinion with no measurement behind it. Where two good sources disagree, both are shown and neither is averaged.
Published when the entry rests on the best information available from no fewer than three independent sources, checked by a second pass that did not write it. 5 sources on this page. Found something wrong? Tell us and the correction is logged with its date.
- Also called
- Shikoku Ken, Kochi-ken, Tosa Inu (former name)
Every breed, read the same way.
The breed index grows as entries clear the standard. Gun dogs first.
All published breedsYour shikoku ken, on the record.
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