picture of the day

Dog retirement home

29 Comments

A volunteer grooms a dog at the Sapporo Retirement Home for Dogs in Hokkaido. The home has sheltered more than 200 animals since it opened in 1978, giving them the best possible care until they are either adopted by sighted humans or die.

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29 Comments
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"giving them the best possible care"

They certainly look well cared for and quite content. Good job!

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Wow! Dogs get better treatment than the homeless in Japan.

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These are retired guide dogs. For the job they have done, they deserve all the care and attention they get, and then some. It's just a pity they can't spend their last years with the blind owner they have served for so long.

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This is a great photo. As somebody who grew up in a guide-dog/working dog breeding household, such photos always bring a tear to my eye. This reminds me of the dogs I had as a child. When I was a little chap, I alway had at least 1 retiree to look after, at one stage I had 4 labs and 1 golden at the same time. We also had a retired police rottweiler. Wasn't that difficult really. Let the dogs out in the morning for a crxp, and they would then line up on our front porch for the rest of the day watching all the young dogs go through basic training, etc. Love the guide dogs even today, the smaller dog we currently have is part of the guidedog association breeding program (past of the so-called "last 10% - golden retrievers are now in the minority). Our larger dog is an official guidedog supporter, giving blood donations to the guidedog program for operations, etc.

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I knew an office manager for a commercial real estate company who had a yellow lab puppy who was going to be trained to be a guide dog. During the day she took him everywhere so he get used the hustle and bustle of being around people all the time.

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The golden retriever looks about the right size, but the labrador is tiny.

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It's nice to see dogs being well taken care of - especially ones that have given such service to their owners. Domesticated animals such as dogs and cats are bred to serve us or to be our companions - and a lot of them are abused and neglected. It's nice to see and read some good news about how animals are treated. Thanks JT.

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Lucky dogs!

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Kawaii!

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Does anyone have a link for the shelter's homepage?

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To timorborder - I seem to have missed you on an earlier thread about dog insurance - so will repeat my post below in hopes you may see this one - tnx:

"To Timorborder. Could I ask you to post the name of the insurance company / policy that provides coverage of 1 milYen per annum, please.

My younger husky was diagnosed with a rare and bad variety of cancer 2 and half years ago (9 yrs old at that time), he defied the prognosis (weeks, to a couple of months) by more than a year. But the bills during that year were well over 2 mill. Sure was sorry not to have had insurance to help us out.

Now have another pup, and want to get the best policy(s) available. The best I've seen so far covers up to 5 man en a month. Certainly OK - but yours sounds more comprehensive.

Thanks in advance."

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I have a friend who is involved with the animal shelter, and she always complains that Japanese people do not adopt animals, they prefer the brando breed cute pets. It is a big problem apparently, and actually many foreigners adopt, even taking the pets back to their country. So if you are interested in a pet, just check the local animal shelter, they are in huge need for caring people

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Does anyone have a link for the shelter's homepage?

http://www.h-guidedog.org/

There is also information on donating and volunteering inside.

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tanyurine

sorry to rain on yr parade but your not helping strays by feeding them, wanna help, catch & adopt one & get it fixed! Otherwise your just contributing to the problem

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When I see the dogs in training to become guide dogs I don't pet them because I feel that would be a distraction from their duties. On the other hand, lots of people probably do and so they need to be able to deal with it.

Ditto for my cat, I don't like other people feeding her. They think it's a kindness ("she looked hungry!") but they make no provision for absences and she may become dependent on them when she should rely on me. Plus, she's supposed to be on a diet!

Domestic animals are there to provide a different sort of companionship from humans. We need to love them for what they add to our lives, not to make them responsible for filling in missing parts.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest....

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only if humans were treated this good.

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only if humans were treated this good.

These dogs have worked selflessly all their lives and each one has helped a person who would otherwise be virtually housebound or dependent on others for moblity, to lead as near normal a life as possible. They deserve all the pampering they get in their old age, and then some.

If the same could be said of the majority of humans, the world would be a much better place.

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cleo - ditto. If humans could only learn a little bit from these dogs, we would live in a far better world. Talk about 24/7/365/10 years or more job!.

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All guide dogs are very lucky, promised to go to retirement (nursing) home after retired. Contrary to this, I heard a very sad news the other day that a dog breeder left whole bunch of young dogs and puppies starved to death in cages. He said he could not feed dogs because under bad recession he could not sell dogs with good price.

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Contrary to this, I heard a very sad news the other day that a dog breeder left whole bunch of young dogs and puppies starved to death in cages. He said he could not feed dogs because under bad recession he could not sell dogs with good price.

That's no excuse. Surely a shelter would have taken them. Even if the shelter couldn't place them, they would be euthanized in a humane manner.

In my state in the USA, there was a proposal to raise the veterinary services tax to nine percent as part of an effort to balance the budget. While pets cannot fight back, plenty of people did, pointing out this change amounted to a death sentence for many animals looking for placement. Animals should not have to pay the ultimate price for human errors.

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Betzee - JT should post this article on National. It happend only 2 days ago. Many many other dog breeders have hard time to sell puppies lately as prices are going down. Some bad breeders send puppies to local "Hokenjo" where they put dogs in gas room. Shelters try to save dogs as many as they can but there are too many they can't afford to save all.

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kwatt,

the problem with Jpn is there has ALWAYS been too many puppy mills, some run by the yakuza, the paperwork for dogs pedigree are often fake its as disaster that continues year in year out here. The biggest problem is j-people themselves they buy animals like they are buying a louis vitton handbag & once the cute period ends at lot of animals are abused & then tossed to the hokenjo where hundreds of thousands are gassed every year.

Add to those the millions of dogs stuck on short leads outside in the elements & you have a lot of sad animals.

2yrs back my dog found a box of kittens, instead of ignoring them like most wud do we took them home, out the word out found good homes for 2 & ended up keeping the other two. But most pets in Jpn arent as lucky foar far too many leave miserable lives

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Mods please let this post through, it is a response to Jaspr about his sick dog.

Jaspr - I think the best insurance available at the moment is the one put out by Allainz here in Japan. I have been told that this is actually a tieup between the German insurer Allianz and a Japanese publisher that specializes in selling veterinary books to vets. Ask you vet if they know anything about this. The vet we use actually has take-home pamplets regarding this service.

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Biggest problem about the "Pet Business" in Japan (dogs) is that it is treated as a business. Furthermore, the average Japanese consumer knows squat about what to look for in a good dog. If you really want a good dog, go to somewhere like the guidedog association and ask about early retirees (dogs that have been judged as unsuitable as guidedogs but are still very good from a health perspective. Another option for pedigree dogs is to contact the national association or club. They don't have dogs to sell straight away, but they can usually put you in contact with top breeders who will have had the puppies they sell put through the wringer by a vet. Please note that national clubs does not necessarily mean show dogs. Indeed, show dogs are judged purely of physical characteristics. As such, it is possible for a showdog to be a champion but still carry some form of genetic problem.

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even better adopt & then donate at a place like this

http://www.arkbark.net/

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Thanks timorborder! I will give them a call. For anyone else intersted, the Allianz website (in Japanese) for pet insurance (cat and dog only) in Japan is: http://sonpo.allianz.co.jp/pet/index.html

I agree about the pet business in Japan. Took me a over a year to find what I would consider a reputable breeder. Then a few drives all the way to Shiga-ken to visit them, see their setup and their attitude. But well worth the effort I think.

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Shiga-ken is notorious for puppy mills and rouge breeders. Why not drive an extra forty-five minutes and come here,

http://www.arkbark.net/

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maybe the dog is populer now in there what a transition animal life.

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if this place is near where i reside, i would love to volunteer caring for these dogs ( sigh).Is there one in somewhere in ibaraki ken??

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