JAPAN’S AKITA DOGS MELT FOREIGN HEARTS
Breeders sending more puppies overseas as celebrities boost demand
HOLLYWOOD actor Richard Gere, French film star Alain Delon and Russia’s figure skating sensation Alina Zagitova have one thing in common: They adore Japan’s Akita dogs.
And they’re not alone. In recent years, foreign ownership of one of Japan’s most famous indigenous breeds had skyrocketed, outstripping domestic demand for the fluffy, perky-eared pooches.
This year, the trend hit the headlines when Zagitova proclaimed her love for Akitas after spotting them while training in Japan, and local officials pledged to get one to her.
Her affection for the cute canines came as no surprise to breeder Osamu Yamaguchi, 64, who had been supplying Akita dogs to foreign owners for two decades.
“My clients used to be 50 per cent Japanese and 50 per cent foreigners. But recently, the number of overseas clients has increased,” Yamaguchi said in his garden here, about 100km north of Tokyo.
The Akita dog preservation association confirmed the surging overseas demand for the dogs.
The number of Akitas registered by overseas owners jumped from just 33 in 2005, to 359 in 2013, and up to 3,967 last year.
Yamaguchi has 20 Akitas at any given time, many of them tiny fluff-ball puppies with white, brindle or reddish coats that tussle with each other or nuzzle their mother looking for food.
Originally a hunting breed, Akitas emerge from the northern Japanese region of the same name. They are large, around 60 to 70cm tall and between 40 to 50kg, with prominent ears that stand straight up, deep-set eyes and almost bear-like faces.
They are one of six breeds recognised as “natural treasures” by the government. But local ownership has been on the decline, with no more than 3,000 puppies registered each year over the last decade, from a peak of 40,000 in the 1970s.
“The housing situation in Japan is affecting” the number of people who could own dogs as large as Akitas, said Kosuke Kawakita, head of the Akita dog preservation association’s Tokyo branch.
Foreign owners had picked up the slack, with Yamaguchi saying he travelled overseas about 20 times a year to personally deliver Akitas to their new owners.
His dogs sold for around ¥200,000 (RM7,200) each, and most clients were from the United States, Russia and China, though he had also flown to France, Egypt, Kuwait and Indonesia to make sure owners had a proper home for their puppies.
“Akita dogs are responsive. That’s their most attractive feature,” Yamaguchi said.
“They understand how you feel just by being near you. And they’re loyal.”
The dog’s faithful character is central to the decades-old true story of Hachiko, an Akita who in the 1920s waited patiently each day at Tokyo’s Shibuya station for his master to return.
Hachiko is commemorated in a statue outside the station, as well as elsewhere in Tokyo, and his story was turned into a Hollywood film in 2009, starring Gere as the professor.