Pets in Japan: An Overview

Walk down any street in Japan and chances are you’ll see a dog. Online cat celebrities like Maru and Shironeko contribute to hours of YouTube videos and blog posts. Doge has made a name for herself in the West in the form of a recent meme. And we can’t forget Shibuya’s most famous dog, Hachiko, who, after his owner died while away at work, continued to go to Shibuya Station every day and wait until he died 9 years later.

The first person I knew to own a pet was the school nurse who lived in the house next to me. She invited me to drive for hours with other teachers to a pet store in Toyama to pick up a chihuahua. Every day she would go home during lunch to take care of him and brought him to some teacher events like a barbeque. I also saw that a neighbor down the street owns a corgi which she walks every morning. There is no doubt in my mind that pets in Japan are well loved.

A pet shop in Tokyo

However, there is a larger problem in Japan, namely the notable absence of shelters and the poor conditions of pet stores. Though the pet shop I visited in Toyama appeared to be not very lacking in customers, the condition in which the dogs were kept was unclean. There was a small dog in a cage out on the shop floor which clearly smelled of refuse and was very distressed. The shop was loud and the cages behind a glass window were very small. Another shop I visited in Nagano City had even smaller cages and very dim lighting. However, the condition of the pet shops is nothing compared to that of puppy mills and balcony breeders. Pet store pets can suffer from genetic illnesses caused by inbreeding and are born in squalid conditions in highly unregulated puppy mills.

As I stated earlier, pets in Japan are very clearly loved by their owners, but there is a huge problem of awareness in Japan. Shelters are few and far between, and 82% of animals that are lost with no ID tags and left unclaimed are gassed. Meanwhile, the purchase of a new pet from a pet shop can run someone more than 100,000JPY, which goes back to the breeder, continuing the cycle of overproduction in puppy mills.

With all this being said, not all pet stores are as terrible as I witnessed, as I haven’t visited every pet store in Japan. Not all breeders abuse their animals. My aunt is a sheltie breeder and she cares very deeply for her dogs. What I’m trying to do is encourage people to be aware of what goes on behind closed doors in the pet business and what happens before you bring a pet home.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however. Several shelters have emerged in recent years, using the internet and social media to spread awareness about animals who need homes. The first one that comes to mind is ARK (Animal Refuge Kansai). I was first introduced to ARK during my study abroad time in Osaka. ARK was selling calendars at a music festival to raise funds for their rescues. They have locations in both Osaka and Tokyo. Japan Cat Network is similar, though has several small shelters. Animal Friends NIIGATA is very similar to the Japan Cat Network and cares for old and disabled pets. The last major group I know of is HEART TOKUSHIMA, though it is located in (you guessed it!) Tokushima Prefecture. All of these sites are in English and have ways to donate either financially or in kind with gifts from Amazon. Additionally, these four groups were instrumental in rescuing abandoned pets after the Great Tohoku Earthquake, either reuniting animals with their owners, or finding new homes for pets whose owners had been killed or forced to relocated after the disaster.

I’d love to hear anyone else’s experience with animal welfare in Japan.