"A bit of History"
This is how the story began, I was brought up by my grandfather (Albert Binyon), I have always been a dog fanatic, going to shows from the age of nine. I have never been encouraged, as Albert liked dogs, but never took an interest in the showing side.
My grandfather passed away when I had my daughter Faye, she was just four weeks old.
On going through my grandfathers possessions I found the above photo of a gentleman with an Akita; going by the car in the background. We made it to be about the late 1950`s. I asked a lot of the akita people here if they knew who it was, nobody knew anything. So the mystery lay dormant for nearly ten years.
On getting B.J.`s book (The World of the Akita), lo and behold, on page 34, there is the gentleman from my photo holding two akitas.
His name was Mr Pattee, the two dogs were Major and Cindy.
From that moment on I was obsessed with trying to find out why my grandfather had this photo. It took a long time and with the help of friends in america I got an address, but if only I had looked in my grandfathers phone book I would of found Mr Pattee and his address listed! I wrote a letter to him describing how I got the photo and asked him was there any connection between him and my grandfather.
Was I in shock when the letter come, here are some "quotes" from the letter.
"Thank you very much for your letter which we received yesterday, first I will introduce myself, I am Merril, sister to Albert" (my grandfather). I couldn‘t believe what I was reading, Merril goes on to say, "Raymond (who we all call Pat), is Alberts brother-in-law. The picture of Pat, with Cindy, was taken when we were living in Japan, we did quite a bit of showing there. It was an uphill job, as a female was never allowed to take a full championship for a long time, the Japanese would come to us at the judging and say that Cindy was the better dog but being a female, she had to take the reserve. Eventually, she did become the first female to take the Grand Championship. She was bred to Fuji and produced 4 pups who were sold in Japan. We also got Major in Japan and brought the pair back to the states, where Cindy was bred again to Major, producing 12 pups. We showed some here in the states, but there was no interest in Akitas in those days, there were only about 5 in the U.S. when we brought ours back and all of those were on the west coast. Up until that time, the Japanese would not allow Akitas out of Japan because they were the sacred dogs of Japan, and only the affluent people had them."
I have a pedigree program on my computer, so imagine my shock when I discovered "Major & Cindy", are generations back in my own "Ch Redwitch Prince Consort at Stecal", The litter of 12 puppies that Merril mentions, a bitch was sold to "Betty Krug" named "Sheba" and a dog to Barbara Miller named "Prince Jo"
My saying is "whats meant to be, is meant to be", and it certainly was in this case and just like the "Pattee`s" who had the first female to take the Grand Championship in Japan, we had the first British Bred Male Champion. Thankyou to Cajun Thunder Akitas because without your help I would not of found that Akitas were in our "Genes", (maybe even "HEREDITARY")
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*UPDATE*
We received a treasure trove of Akita memorabilia over Christmas
from Holly (Pat & Merrill`s daughter)
A big thankyou to Holly for the beautiful memories.
