Welcome to the Breed Spotlight page! Here you can read about one of my files, that I thought I'd give a little of "extra attention"! There is no set limit for how often I will change the spotlight. Whenever I feel like it, I suppose! In the future, once I've had more than one spotlights, I hope to link to previous ones, so you can read about several files on a slow day!

Breed spotlight: Japanese terrier

The japanese terrier could perhaps be said to be Japan's answer to the toy fox terrier. Unlike its american "cousin", this asian counterpart has a noticable sighthound look to it. It is not a new creation as such - the dogs originate from british imports that reached the japanese shores during the 1700s. But it was not until the 1900s that you could speak of a set type of dog. These toy terriers looked a bit like something between the modern type and a fox terrier.
In 1916 a descendant of the so-called "kobe terrier" was crossed to a dog that was a english toy terrier x miniature bull terrier, and this dog became very important to the breeding. After 10 years of careful breeding, the japanese terrier as we know it today had been formed. The breed soon became popular, as it was small and easy to fit into city life. Like everything else, the breed became rarer after the second world war, and since then interest for the breed has never quite been as high as in the pre-war times. The breed is rare outside Japan.

Just like in real life, the petz japanese terrier is a rather unknown little breed. But it is definitely an interesting little dog!
My japanese terrier was hexed from the chihuahua, and so it's an active and playful little dog. The file is meant to be showy - it has angled legs and addball ears. But because it is a rather small-size dog, this doesn't hinder the movements too much, and you'd probably be able to compete in Obedience.
Since the file isn't all too extreme, you can cross it with matching dogz to get fun mixies. The crosses up there are japanese terrier crossed with an australian kelpie, an eurasier and an english toy spaniel... just showing examples of what you can get!
For breeding, the japanese terrier is a good pick. Since it is always tricolour, you do not have to worry about great 2nd gen colour problems. However, because a variety of markings is allowed, there are many possibilites for hexers wanting to get their own unique dogz. The breed may be ticked too, which adds even more fun possibilities! Also, there are several possible head and body markings included in the file, with more allowed in the standard. To round it all off, the file can be tailed or docked, so you can pick which you personally prefer!

The competition in the PKC is small for japanese terriers, but there has been enough dogz for breed competition in the past. If you want a small and realistic-type file, but still play friendly enough to do OD... If you want a breed with easy-to-breed colours but lots of room to hex unique markings... If you want a rare breed to show off... this just might be the one for you!