What a great idea! In Japan there are public displays of what guide dogs, hearing dogs and assistance dogs can do. For a country with 127 million people, it doesn’t have many such dogs. Building public awareness should help everyone.
Guide Dog in Harness.
Apart from Japan’s 51 service dogs, it has 19 hearing dogs who can help deaf or hearing impaired people by alerting their handler to important sounds such as doorbells, smoke alarms, ringing telephones or alarm clocks. They may also work outside the home, alerting to sounds such as sirens, cars and a person calling the handler’s name.
Japan also has 1,045 guide dogs …
“In Japan, there are special associations for the three types of dogs and they will hold 200 to 300 promotional activities a year in public places, … to help people better understand the animals and their works.
“They also provide brochures about assistance dogs or channel information through the Internet,” he added.
[Via Dogs with a care factor.]
For more information about service dogs in Japan see:
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Matthew Taylor of http://GNDFund.org wrote:
“Foreigners May NOT travel in Japan with Service Dogs!!!!
I think its extremely important to spread the word throughout the international community that Foreign Service Dogs ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE THE JAPAN RAILWAY SYSTEM~!! Today I was asked to leave the Shinkansen because my service dog was not registered with the Japanese domestic health and welfare department. I showed Japan Railways the copy of my Import Certificate which states that my dog entered the country with me three days prior as “A SERVICE DOG” (KaiJyoKen), my American disabilities card, AND my U.S. registration for my Service Dog. But they said the will not recognize foreigners who are traveling with seeing eye dogs (guide dogs) or service dogs visiting Japan. Obviously the domestic registration process in Japan takes MONTHS to complete, and is NOT available for foreigners who are not “RESIDENTS” of Japan.
Fortunately I do speak Japanese, and confirmed with a Mr. Horise at the head office of JR internal policy division that this indeed is the official policy of JR.
Japan MUST NOT be considered for the Olympics or any other international event, when foreign travelers who rely on service dogs / guide dogs can NOT travel on the Japan Railway system. (formerly JNR = Japan National Railways)”
Candice Epp emailed: