(This page is a work in progress)
Nutrition in your Kai Ken is very important especially since there have been a number of Kai Ken with food related allergies and illnesses such as pancreatitis. In our Tavi x Mameta litter of puppies we had something happen that hadn't happened in our other litters of puppies.
Our 1st litter of puppies was raised on grain free Wellness puppy food-- at the time I had really liked Wellness as a brand, but they changed formulas to add more peas and lentils so our 2nd litter was raised on Fromm Gold puppy food.
The 2nd litter is also the litter I took to have evaluated by Pat Hastings-- who also evaluated their dam (Tavi). During this evaluation Pat Hastings concluded that Kai Ken puppies grow too fast on puppy food, which is why Tavi's pasterns were very straight (they grew too fast). She recommended that I put my puppies on All Life Stages food and never feed puppy food in the future. Following this advice I put Kurisu on Firstmate dog food which is formulated for All Life Stages. And of course she has matured beautifully!
Now on to our 3rd litter.. right before the puppies turned 8 weeks old I noticed some oddities in their front legs. Some puppies had it worse than others, and one I didn't notice anything at all. It looked as if when they stood, their elbows were pointing outwards. I contacted a couple reproduction vets and skilled breeders for their opinions and took them in for some exams that confirmed the puppies had some carpal valgus-like symptoms. Of course I started to dig through photos of Kai Ken, where I also noticed a handful of front limb abnormalities I shared with my vet. The vet told me that 90% of the time it is nutritional, though sometimes dogs damage the growth plates in their front legs from jumping too much, which causes the ulna to close prematurely and the radius to bow outward. There are genetic forms of angular limb deformities (ALD) but unless you've tried to correct with diet and took x-rays to ensure the growth plates didn't close prematurely, its hard to say what exactly caused it.
At the time they were eating Firstmate as well, and Kurisu didn't have any issues at all growing up. So I'm thinking this is line specific for some (I do not have the pedigrees of the Kai Ken pictures I saw with the issues).
Anyways-- we were told to feed low protein and give 250mg Vitamin C until they were 12 weeks old. The Firstmate food the 3rd litter was eating is 25%. If you haven't looked long and hard at dog food labels, you'd learn its suuuuper hard to find low protein foods. It was suggested to feed cheap brands like Pedigree, Kibble n Bits, etc, but even those foods have raised their proteins up to 22%+! We settled on Victor that had a 22% formula.
A great friend and a vet at a seminar I attended with Bakugo gave him a recheck at approximately 12 weeks old, where we were advised to keep him on low protein until 9 months old, and feed even lower protein %. After a LOT of searching, we found Solid Gold Holistique that is 18%, a good brand, and only $50 for 28lb (I really like Firstmate as a brand, but their 18% food was $80 for 25lb). Protein of course isn't the only thing to look at-- fat, calcium, and phosphorus are also essential to growing puppies. Kai Ken aren't a large breed, but they seem to grow quite fast (Bakugo isn't even 6 months old yet and is 32lb!) so it is important to follow similar guidelines. We want our puppies to grow slow and evenly. Calcium to phosphorus ratio should be close to 1:1 (i.e. calcium is 1%, phosphorus is also 1%, Calcium:Phosphorus ratio is acceptable up to 1.8:1, but the higher the calcium the faster they will grow, so I recommend staying as close to 1:1 as you can) which that specific Solid Gold food is (I'm not familiar with their other foods).
During this journey I also learned that in the Akita standard they specify the dog's diet should be at least 50% fish. Of course fish is very popular and abundant in Japan so this makes sense. I also listened to some vets about their thoughts on Chinese medicine-- with regards to certain foods being warming and cooling. None of my dogs have ever had any food sensitivities or allergies, so I've never paid that much attention to the protein. I had always made sure to mix it up so they got different amino acids from each protein and some variety. But what they shared with me made sense (chicken & lamb are warming, beef is neutral, fish is cooling) especially if you think of how fish diets are always recommended for dogs with allergies.
So this is purely my recommendation and how I will be feeding my puppies/dogs going forward:
Puppies (4 weeks to 9 months):
Should eat All Life Stages foods at ~22-24% (unless they show bowing of the legs, then they need to eat 18%)
Maturing/Matured dogs (10 months+):
Should eat All Life Stages foods, preferably no higher than 32% protein.
Why not higher than 32%? There have been a number of Kai Ken that have had pancreatitis-- typically flare ups are due to treats with high fat (i.e. pigs ears, bacon, etc, have sent dogs to the hospital) but protein also puts stress on the pancreas. Additionally, Nihon Ken tend to have an issue with bile puking. I personally believe this to be because in their country of origin (Japan) they were raised on diets that had quite a bit of carbohydrates (rice, wheat, etc). If a food has high protein, then it typically has less carbohydrates, which means they burn through their glycogen stores quite fast especially since they tend to be quite active dogs. If your dog is only being fed once a day and they're using up all of their energy and blood sugar, their stomach is empty, they're going to bile puke. This is why if you feed them a snack at night before bed, they won't bile puke (especially considering most readily available dog treats are something similar to milk bones-- which tend to be nearly all carbohydrates).
Our favorite treats and chews:
Please be careful feeding your Kai Ken these chews:
Yak Cheese, Deer Antlers, & Large weight bearing bones
Tavi has had slab fractures with yak cheese & deer antlers, she chipped her incisor on a marrow bone. Numerous other dogs have chipped or broken teeth on these before. If you're going to give your dog deer antlers make sure the middle part is exposed on all 3 sides (the inner part is softer), try to not get terribly large or heavy bones.
Nutrition in your Kai Ken is very important especially since there have been a number of Kai Ken with food related allergies and illnesses such as pancreatitis. In our Tavi x Mameta litter of puppies we had something happen that hadn't happened in our other litters of puppies.
Our 1st litter of puppies was raised on grain free Wellness puppy food-- at the time I had really liked Wellness as a brand, but they changed formulas to add more peas and lentils so our 2nd litter was raised on Fromm Gold puppy food.
The 2nd litter is also the litter I took to have evaluated by Pat Hastings-- who also evaluated their dam (Tavi). During this evaluation Pat Hastings concluded that Kai Ken puppies grow too fast on puppy food, which is why Tavi's pasterns were very straight (they grew too fast). She recommended that I put my puppies on All Life Stages food and never feed puppy food in the future. Following this advice I put Kurisu on Firstmate dog food which is formulated for All Life Stages. And of course she has matured beautifully!
Now on to our 3rd litter.. right before the puppies turned 8 weeks old I noticed some oddities in their front legs. Some puppies had it worse than others, and one I didn't notice anything at all. It looked as if when they stood, their elbows were pointing outwards. I contacted a couple reproduction vets and skilled breeders for their opinions and took them in for some exams that confirmed the puppies had some carpal valgus-like symptoms. Of course I started to dig through photos of Kai Ken, where I also noticed a handful of front limb abnormalities I shared with my vet. The vet told me that 90% of the time it is nutritional, though sometimes dogs damage the growth plates in their front legs from jumping too much, which causes the ulna to close prematurely and the radius to bow outward. There are genetic forms of angular limb deformities (ALD) but unless you've tried to correct with diet and took x-rays to ensure the growth plates didn't close prematurely, its hard to say what exactly caused it.
At the time they were eating Firstmate as well, and Kurisu didn't have any issues at all growing up. So I'm thinking this is line specific for some (I do not have the pedigrees of the Kai Ken pictures I saw with the issues).
Anyways-- we were told to feed low protein and give 250mg Vitamin C until they were 12 weeks old. The Firstmate food the 3rd litter was eating is 25%. If you haven't looked long and hard at dog food labels, you'd learn its suuuuper hard to find low protein foods. It was suggested to feed cheap brands like Pedigree, Kibble n Bits, etc, but even those foods have raised their proteins up to 22%+! We settled on Victor that had a 22% formula.
A great friend and a vet at a seminar I attended with Bakugo gave him a recheck at approximately 12 weeks old, where we were advised to keep him on low protein until 9 months old, and feed even lower protein %. After a LOT of searching, we found Solid Gold Holistique that is 18%, a good brand, and only $50 for 28lb (I really like Firstmate as a brand, but their 18% food was $80 for 25lb). Protein of course isn't the only thing to look at-- fat, calcium, and phosphorus are also essential to growing puppies. Kai Ken aren't a large breed, but they seem to grow quite fast (Bakugo isn't even 6 months old yet and is 32lb!) so it is important to follow similar guidelines. We want our puppies to grow slow and evenly. Calcium to phosphorus ratio should be close to 1:1 (i.e. calcium is 1%, phosphorus is also 1%, Calcium:Phosphorus ratio is acceptable up to 1.8:1, but the higher the calcium the faster they will grow, so I recommend staying as close to 1:1 as you can) which that specific Solid Gold food is (I'm not familiar with their other foods).
During this journey I also learned that in the Akita standard they specify the dog's diet should be at least 50% fish. Of course fish is very popular and abundant in Japan so this makes sense. I also listened to some vets about their thoughts on Chinese medicine-- with regards to certain foods being warming and cooling. None of my dogs have ever had any food sensitivities or allergies, so I've never paid that much attention to the protein. I had always made sure to mix it up so they got different amino acids from each protein and some variety. But what they shared with me made sense (chicken & lamb are warming, beef is neutral, fish is cooling) especially if you think of how fish diets are always recommended for dogs with allergies.
So this is purely my recommendation and how I will be feeding my puppies/dogs going forward:
Puppies (4 weeks to 9 months):
Should eat All Life Stages foods at ~22-24% (unless they show bowing of the legs, then they need to eat 18%)
Maturing/Matured dogs (10 months+):
Should eat All Life Stages foods, preferably no higher than 32% protein.
Why not higher than 32%? There have been a number of Kai Ken that have had pancreatitis-- typically flare ups are due to treats with high fat (i.e. pigs ears, bacon, etc, have sent dogs to the hospital) but protein also puts stress on the pancreas. Additionally, Nihon Ken tend to have an issue with bile puking. I personally believe this to be because in their country of origin (Japan) they were raised on diets that had quite a bit of carbohydrates (rice, wheat, etc). If a food has high protein, then it typically has less carbohydrates, which means they burn through their glycogen stores quite fast especially since they tend to be quite active dogs. If your dog is only being fed once a day and they're using up all of their energy and blood sugar, their stomach is empty, they're going to bile puke. This is why if you feed them a snack at night before bed, they won't bile puke (especially considering most readily available dog treats are something similar to milk bones-- which tend to be nearly all carbohydrates).
Our favorite treats and chews:
Please be careful feeding your Kai Ken these chews:
Yak Cheese, Deer Antlers, & Large weight bearing bones
Tavi has had slab fractures with yak cheese & deer antlers, she chipped her incisor on a marrow bone. Numerous other dogs have chipped or broken teeth on these before. If you're going to give your dog deer antlers make sure the middle part is exposed on all 3 sides (the inner part is softer), try to not get terribly large or heavy bones.