Akita (dog breed)

Here genetics wins an argument that history seemed to lose. In the early twentieth century Akitas were crossed with Tosa and mastiff-type fighting dogs, and during the Second World War some were bred with German Shepherds to escape requisition, yet breed surveys still place the Akita in the basal East Asian group. It became a Natural Monument in 1931, and Hachikō, the dog who waited at Shibuya station, made it famous. In Britain the Japanese Akita Inu is listed separately from the heavier American-type Akita.