“Kishu Ken are a primitive breed that was selectively bred for the hunting of wild boar and deer in the mountainous Mie prefecture and Wakayama prefecture. The Kishu Ken were identified in a study in the 1930s carried out by a Japanese breeder, Haruo Isogai, which classified all native Japanese dog breeds into three categories: large-, medium-, and small-sized. The Kishu Ken belongs the medium-sized dog group. The breed was not standardized until 1934 and was composed of the dogs collected from that area. When the breed first started, approximately 70% of individuals were said to be non-white. However, white is now the predominant color. The popularity of a primarily white line of Kishu Ken spread the gene responsible for white through the genepool and turned the Kishu Ken into the mostly-white breed it is today.

The Kishu has, historically, had a strong association with the Honshu Wolf. One legend from the Kii peninsula states that the first boar dog, and the progenitor to the Kishu breed, was a wolf pup gifted to a hunter when he showed compassion for an injured she-wolf. This tale varies based on the telling, but the impact of this story on the Kishu breed persists today: many dogs are still named for the wolf from whence they came”

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