Hollie and I began breeding Akitas in 1984 after several years of

showing the breed. After nearly a lifetime of breeding several other

breeds, the Akitas became the ones who captured our hearts and eventually

they became our sole passion…. a passion that will continue for a lifetime.

After a few years of working with the breed, we decided that temperament had to be

our priority. We were eventually able to buy AM/CAN CH Sunojo’s Gotta Getta Gund (Gummy), a son of AM/CAN CH Dune’s Duncan Idaho, and thus began the start of

our legendary temperaments.  Gummy, with a lovely linebred pedigree onto the

famous Sachmo, brought an amazingly easy, people loving, children adoring nature

to our breeding program and he is the rock that Minda Akitas was build on. 

Shortly there after, we added two half sisters from the Northstar kennel, CH Northstar’s Shanghai Express ROM (Gertie) and Kabuki’s Tuff All Over (Tuffy), both daughters of the stunning BIS/BISS CH Northstar’s Siberian Express ROMPX. Both Gertie and Tuffy brought with them many lovely qualities and most importantly the fabulous happy, silly, energetic Northstar personalities. And if Gummy was the rock Minda Akitas was built on, these two girls were the moon and the stars! To this day, every single Minda bred Akita in our kennel goes back to one of these three fabulous foundation dogs.

One final component locked our breeding program into place when AM/CAN CH Sunojo’s Gotta Getta Gund was bred to CH Northstar’s Misdemeanor and we kept multiple BISS CH Nia Minda Catcher In The Rye TT ROMP (Catcher) who took the Minda Akita temperament to new heights.  A stunning, classy and very large male, Catcher set our breeding program on the path that we walk today and in some ways, he still sets standards not exceeded. If Gummy was the rock, Gertie and Tuffy the moon and stars, then Catcher was the sun that everything still revolves around. 

And this was just the beginning of a breeding adventure that is still unfolding into the future with delight and unlimited thrills. We were blessed with a foundation of greatness that we have been privileged to build upon and continue.