Litter A Part 1 - Split Heats & French Adventures

​The journey to breeding Akiko has been a long one, but this year has felt the longest so far with us finally being ready to try and get Akiko pregnant with our first, as well as the UK’s first Kai Ken litter.

And it has been far from easy.

In mid June, Akiko gave me something of a fright when she seemed to have some off coloured discharge. I rushed her to the vet where she was ultrasounded, swabbed, and diagnosed with vaginitis, so we treated with antibiotics and an action plan to continue cytology to see if it would be safe to breed her.
Akiko came into heat on June 25th, while I was away visiting my partner up in Newcastle. We had been expecting her to come in any time then, but of course she had to wait until I was away! Still, we swiftly began progesterone testing her from day 5.

Cytology proved at this point that any sign of infection was gone, so we moved forward with our plans to breed, and progressively progesterone tested her almost twice per week.

Unfortunately we soon discovered her progesterone dropping, and while her cytology showed normal progression towards ovulation, she soon came out of heat again, leaving us with what is called a split heat. A split heat happens when a dog starts her heat but does not ovulate, causing them to come back out of heat and then finish the heat cycle properly a few weeks later. This is the second time Akiko has had this, the first being on her first ever heat back in December 2018. Since then she has had normal cycles.

I was suggested by some veteran breeders to try Akiko on something called Sepia 30c, a homeopathic remedy made from cuttlefish ink which balances hormones. I was skeptical, but since it was harmless enough, I started her on three pills a day, along with one pill of Wheatgerm oil, and one of folic acid as I was taught by my mentor.
Within four days of her being on these tablets, much to my surprise, Akiko came back into heat, on July 30th.
Unfortunately, I was due to start my new job on August 15th, potentially throwing a spanner into the breeding works, but we decided to see how things would go and if we could potentially line things up to continue with our plan.
We started progesterone testing once again, and to our delight, Akiko’s progesterone increased normally as it should’ve done. I completed my first week of work, where I had Friday, Saturday and Sunday off, so we double checked her progesterone, and to our pleasure, she was ready, giving us the weekend to travel to France and back for a quick love affair with our stud of choice, Ôjin. I came off a night shift Friday morning at 7am, and we left 12pm for France. 

Traffic was not on our side, and we arrived at the Eurotunnel late evening. We got to enjoy the luxury of Flexi+ for the tunnel, which was well worth booking. Not only did we get to board first, but we also had access to free food and drink in the Flexi+ lounge. We finally got to Calais, too late to attempt a mating on Friday, but we still had all day Saturday to give it a go.

Akiko in the car on the way down.

​Saturday morning we were up bright and early, and enjoyed a brief walk on the beach in Calais. It was Akiko’s first time ever going on a beach, and it was beautiful, clean and warm- she loved it.
We then began the two hour drive to Camille’s home, where we would meet her, Ôjin and Hylia, her two Kai Ken. We arrived and immediately, Akiko was infatuated with Ôjin. We attempted to walk to Camille’s house, but Ôjin had other ideas, and within seconds the pair had tied in the street, much to the disapproval of a very angry neighbour. Still, we had not intended for such a swift mating, but dogs make their own decisions! They tied for a good twenty minutes or so, before Camille had to return to work.

On the beach in Calais

Akiko, Ôjin and Hylia.

We spent the rest of the evening hanging around a service station/supermarket in Bolbec not too far away, where we mostly just chilled in the car between a few interesting walks with Akiko. We wanted to keep her quiet and stress free after her mating, but she was unphased and happy as ever.
We headed back to Camille’s home around 8pm and had a second tie, this time in her house, which also lasted for a similar length of time. We took some photos and we headed off, intending to make our way home to England the same night.

Unfortunately, that did not go to plan.

We arrived at Calais, and the pet passport office during the early hours of the morning where we went to check in. We were confronted with the unfortunate fact that something had been left off of Akiko’s animal health certificate- her echinococcus treatment.
We were immediately refused entry back to the U.K. by two extremely rude employees who not only mocked us, but laughed at our upset and confusion. We felt ridiculed, embarrassed and improperly prepared, since we had left the AHC in the hands of our vet, and the pet passport office on the English side did not inform us that we would have any issues returning. While we understood that this was a mistake on our part, the way we were treated by the staff was unfair and cruel. We were exhausted, confused and scared for our jobs back home, and they laughed in our faces.
We were given a number to a vet we could see at 10am the next morning to get the worming treatment, and then we would have to wait 24 hours before we could return to the U.K.

Research told us that we could have been allowed to continue our crossing with a warning, but unfortunately the staff were more interested in making fun of us to give us that option. When we arrived at the vet after sleeping in our car in the pet travel car park that night, we found at least six other couples and their pets who had also been refused. One had been refused because they did not believe it had been 24 hours since the worming treatment, despite the fact they had been on the road for 24 hours driving from Poland. Another was refused because there was a blank page inside their pet passport where a vet had previously accidentally missed one when filling in rabies information. Several others were also refused, and we all waited our turn to be sorted by the vet, who was kind and understanding to our issues, even if it did leave our pockets €130 lighter.

We ended up getting a B&B near the Eurotunnel where we could kill the last 24 hours before we could travel. We tried to make the most of it by going out for a lovely dinner at a nearby pub which took the edge off our stress. Akiko managed the whole thing with no issues and took everything in her stride.
At 5:30am then next morning we headed back to the pet travel office and prepared to travel again. The worker who had made fun of us previously was there, and encouraged her co worker to scrutinise our documents, but thankfully, everything was correct this time, and we were allowed access.
We had been excited to go to Duty Free and Flexi+ again after our awful experience, but unfortunately both were shut! So we headed straight back home to the UK, and arrived back in Shropshire at around 11am on Monday.

Since our return home, everything has been okay. Akiko is, as of writing this, two weeks from mating, so potentially two weeks pregnant, and she is starting to show a few signs. We have her ultrasound booked in for September 16th, so with any luck we’ll have a good result despite all of the trouble!

Akiko 2 weeks since mating.