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:

• Japan Guide Dog Association
• Japan
  Hearing Dogs For Deaf People

Guide dogs bring new freedoms to visually impaired people in many Western countries, but it’s not so easy in China:

Despite the convenience guide dogs bring to the blind, there is no regulations in China at present that guarantee a legal identity to the dogs.

Guide Dog in Harness.

Currently, ownership of big dogs like Golden Retriever and Labrador Retriever in Beijing is restricted, and big dogs are barred from public places. Since guide dogs are a new phenomenon in the country, they are not an exception under the law.

Ping said that her dog Lucky, a 1.4-meter-long Golden Retriever, was barred from public places quite a few times. …

The current laws and regulations concerning guide dogs in China are ambiguous. According to Article 58 of the Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons, blind owners shall observe the relevant provisions of the country when entering a public place. But it does not name the exact provisions to follow. In practice, the guide dogs do not have a legal identity card and the blind owners need to ask for permission every time they appear in public.

[Via Global Times - Blind faith.]

Guide dogs are new in China — in 2010 there are about 15 graduated pairs of blind people and guide dogs in the whole of China. It could be a long while before people become accustomed to the dogs.

In Shanghai, China, residents and pet experts feel it’s too hard to own and keep a dog, and have asked for the law to be changed:

Shanghai Old Town. Photo by kirillmazin.

Raising a dog in Shanghai costs from 500 yuan ($73) to 2,000 yuan per year for a license, depending on where the owners live. And applying for a license needs approval of neighbors and a neighborhood committee. Dogs without a license will be taken away if found.

… In August a legislator had suggested a ban on walking dog in public areas, blaming dogs for damaging lawns, leaving waste everywhere and disturbing the peace.

“Pet dogs bring most people troubles or even harm, and only a few people fun,” Deng Zixin was quoted as saying by Shanghai Oriental Morning Post.

[Via : Dog lovers call for new law.]

We have dogs who sniff for a living, others who guide, and some who fetch or bark. But there are also those few who give milk:

At the Taiyuan Zoo in northern China’s Shanxi province, a red panda gave birth to two cubs unexpectedly on June 25. …

Immediately after the two cubs were born, they were abandoned by their mother — so zoo staff set about finding a suitable adoptive mother. Several female dogs that had recently given birth to their own litters of puppies were considered for the gig, the Associated Press reports. Zoo staff chose this willing candidate, a white mixed-breed owned by a farmer who lives in a neighboring suburb.

[Via : Your morning adorable: Dog nurses red panda cubs in Chinese zoo | L.A. Unleashed | Los Angeles Times.]

What can’t dogs do?