To begin, let us introduce ourselves: we are Geert Jan Wagemans and Bas de  Bruin and we would like to introduce us to you.

Each grand-admirer of the Shiba experiences it at a certain day. That magical moment when one looks straight into the eyes of a Shiba. Yes, knowing from the moment that "this is the point of no return..."! Well, to keep the story short, this happened to us in 1992 and in March 1993 our first Shiba came to live with us: Ch. Gargantua, better known as "Tukker". For 17 years he lived with us and on March 26, 2010 we had to put him to sleep.

In 1997, we were in the fortunate situation that we could import a beautiful Shiba male direct from Japan through our good friends, Lambert and Yvonne Dircks of the well known "Yumenoshima" Akita Inu Kennel.  Ch. Seiryu Go Niigata Kiyosatosow, for many people better known as "Sumo". Almost all breeders, that have found in Sumo the best spouse for their females, have kept a beautiful offspring to continue their breeding program.
In 2001 and 2003, we have imported from the USA two females from Patricia Doescher’s famous "Hi-Jinx" kennel: Ch. Hi-Jinx Amity and Ch. Hi-Jinx Amirah. These imports too have proven to be of extreme high value for our breeding program.  So far they all achieved some very good showresults and championship titles and... what a personalities! 

Without being pretentious we feel that we have gained a fair amount of knowledge of the breed and we look forward to sharing it with you. Through research, reading books and articles and sometimes simply studying photographs in Japanese books (and believe me, we have many) we got a very clear picture of what 'the Japanese' vision is of the Shiba. We are members of "Nihon Ken Hozonkai" (NIPPO), an association for the preservation of the Japanese dog. Every November, NIPPO organizes the so called NIPPO Grand National. Between 700 and 1200 Shibas are judged at this show. More about NIPPO further on. 

NIPPO's club magazines are obvious unreadable for us but do include wonderful photographic material. Further more we have a number of video tapes of the Grand National, made for us by friends.
We are also members of the "National Shiba Club of America".
Naturally, we are also members of the "Nederlandse Vereniging voor Akita Inu’s", the Dutch club for Akita Inus, which includes the Shiba Inu, Shikoku, Kishu, Kai, Hokkaido and American Akita. This club has a breeding policy to which all breeders are held, should they wish to be named on the breeders list (breeder referral) and have the right to advertise in the club magazine.
Unfortunately you will frequently find breeders on the Internet who, for some reason or other, are not mentioned on the above mentioned breeders list. Be aware that the breeding policy was established to allow breeders to distinguish themselves from people who claim to be breeders but who are less fastidious. It is unlikely that a genuine breeder would not appear on the club's breeders list of his own accord.

All our dogs live indoors, in other words we do not keep them in kennels, as they are extremely sociable, although they do enjoy being outdoors in fine weather.

Who are we? 

februari 2001

I am Geert Jan Wagemans (left on photo) and live with Bas de Bruin (right) whom I met in 1988. Since 1997 we live in a typical Dutch ‘dijkhuisje’ called “Alegria” – a small house on one of Holland’s many dykes – close to a nature reserve known as the ‘Hollandse Biesbosch’.

Even since childhood, dogs have played an important part in our lives.

In 1978 I first became involved in shows, and for many years had great success with Bulldogs. Besides my own dogs, I also showed dogs from the well known ‘Beefeater Bulls’ Kennels of Ann and Ben van den Heuvel.

In his youth, Bas was also often to be found at shows, however not with dogs but with birds. He had great success with canaries.

Currently Bas is concentrating on the breeding of  a rather exceptional chicken breed, namely the large Bielefelder.

Apart from showing dogs, we have always found it important to go through obedience training; certainly a ‘juvenile’ training course for pups is very important.

Agility training is a wonderful sport. I participated in this for a number of years at a high level with my crossbred Whippet/Greyhound ‘Grace.' On March 24, 2004, at the age of almost 16 years old, we sadly had her to put to sleep. 

A word of advice: not all Shibas have it in them to participate in agility activities on a competitive level, but on a more relaxed level, this can be tremendously enjoyable for both owner and dog.

As already written, in 1993 we took our first Shiba. Currently sharing our home on the Dordrecht Zeedijk are: Amity (14), Amirah (12) Avalon (9) Tatsumi (8), Keeper (4), Naomi (3), a beautiful female from Sweden, bred by Lena Sonefors. Guy (3) and Kizzy, who saw the light of life, on June 17, 2013.
The "old ones", who hopefully had a long and happy life with us, but have passed are Grace (whippet/Greyhound, †March 24, 2004 ), Banjer (wire haired Dachshund †August 28, 2008), and the Shibas Hoshi-Boshi (†August 28, 2008) Tukker († March 26, 2010) and my forever biggest friend Sumo (†April 17, 2012)


        

In 1997 I obtained the KK-1 Diploma and in the same year applied for and was given the kennel name. We chose the name ‘Jaklho’, an acronym for ‘ Japanse Kleine Hond’, which is  Dutch for Japanese Small Dog. In 2003 I bred my first litter of Shibas and from this litter 2 obtained the championship title: Ch. Jaklho Sire Seiryu's Son en Ch. Jaklho Majesty Moonlight Missy. When I'm writing this (Feb. 2015), out of the 29 Shibas that we bred, 10 Jaklhos have won championship and/or junior championship titles.

We have our Shibas and other animals because we are mad about them. We don’t breed our Shibas on a large scale, but do in depth study into this beautiful breed, gleaning knowledge from all possible sources. This has resulted in a fairly small group of Shibas of exceptional quality, appearance and health as well as friendly temperaments, of which we are truly proud. 

februari 2007