I make no apology for this being the third day on the theme of the wonderful, loyal Akita dog, Hachikō. On the 31st I wrote about the American film that in modern style echoed the beautiful, original Japanese film of over 80 years ago.
Anyway, Daniela Caride, of the blog The Daily Tail, added a lovely comment to that first post and it deserved being published in full. Here it is:
I sobbed for two hours straight watching “Hachi, a dog’s tale” (I still have a headache) — a movie inspired by the real story of Hachiko, an Akita dog who achieved international fame for his loyalty. The dog waited for his deceased owner for nine years at the train station.
I realized that Hachi became a symbol of loyalty not because he was better than any other dog. Dogs are exceptionally loyal if treated with love and respect. But nobody offered Hachi a loving home during the long years he waited for Professor Ueno. It broke my heart. So I wrote the poem below.
Hachiko the dog
I humbly ask you to send this post to every person you know who may be able to find a home to a pet in need. Together we may be able to ease the pain of homeless animals like Hachi, who ask for so little and give back so much.
Hachi waits
By Daniela Caride
Hachi waits at the train station
The dog waits for nine minutes
It’s after five
It’s time
And the professor doesn’t arrive
Hachi waits for nine hours
Nine days
The professor is late
But the dog doesn’t mind
At the train station he stays
Hachi waits for nine months
Nine years straight
He’s convinced the professor is really late
But the dog doesn’t mind
At the train station he stays
Tired of old age, not tired of his long wait
Hachi finally closes his eyes
And finds his friend
In his deepest dreams inside
At the end
But Hachi still waits
Even after he died
He waits on the streets of every town
At all the neighborhood pounds
Under the skin of every dog around
For someone to rescue him
To give him
A name
Water
Food
And a home
Where love abounds
We recently watched a film about an Akita dog called Hachi, Hachikō in Japanese, that demonstrates the loyalty that dogs can have for their human owners.
Here’s the official movie trailer. [UPDATE – for copyright reasons that movie trailer has been removed from YouTube.]
It’s a very moving film – seriously so! Expect to shed many tears. Even more so when one reflects that the Hollywood film is based, reasonably accurately, on a true story. The details of this story are in Wikipedia from which is quoted:
In 1924, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo took in Hachikō as a pet. During his owner’s life Hachikō saw him out from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno did not return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage at the university that day. He died and never returned to the train station where his friend was waiting. Hachikō was loyal and every day for the next nine years he waited sitting there amongst the town’s folk.
Hachikō was given away after his master’s death, but he routinely escaped, showing up again and again at his old home. Eventually, Hachikō apparently realized that Professor Ueno no longer lived at the house. So he went to look for his master at the train station where he had accompanied him so many times before. Each day, Hachikō waited for Professor Ueno to return. And each day he did not see his friend among the commuters at the station.
The permanent fixture at the train station that was Hachikō attracted the attention of other commuters. Many of the people who frequented the Shibuya train station had seen Hachikō and Professor Ueno together each day. They brought Hachikō treats and food to nourish him during his wait.
This continued for nine years with Hachikō appearing precisely when the train was due at the station
This hasn’t been the only film about this dog. See below:
Back to the Wikipedia entry:
That same year, another of Ueno’s faithful students (who had become something of an expert on the Akita breed) saw the dog at the station and followed him to the Kobayashi home (the home of the former gardener of Professor Ueno — Kikuzaboro Kobayashi) where he learned the history of Hachikō’s life. Shortly after this meeting, the former student published a documented census of Akitas in Japan. His research found only 30 purebred Akitas remaining, including Hachikō from Shibuya Station.
Professor Ueno’s former student returned frequently to visit the dog and over the years published several articles about Hachikō’s remarkable loyalty. In 1932 one of these articles, published in Tokyo’s largest newspaper, threw the dog into the national spotlight. Hachikō became a national sensation. His faithfulness to his master’s memory impressed the people of Japan as a spirit of family loyalty all should strive to achieve. Teachers and parents used Hachikō’s vigil as an example for children to follow. A well-known Japanese artist rendered a sculpture of the dog, and throughout the country a new awareness of the Akita breed grew.
Eventually, Hachiko’s legendary faithfulness became a national symbol of loyalty.
Hachikō died on March 8, 1935. He was found on a street in Shibuya. His heart was infected with filarial worms and 3-4 yakitori sticks were found in his stomach. His stuffed and mounted remains are kept at the National Science Museum of Japan in Ueno, Tokyo.
Hachiko
The Akita breed has a great reputation for loyalty. But knowing that doesn’t in any way weaken the power of the message for the present times.
A dog offers loyalty, trust and love in exchange for being treated, in turn, with integrity and compassion.
THERE are plenty of studies which show that dogs act as social catalysts, helping their owners forge intimate, long-term relationships with other people. But does that apply in the workplace? Christopher Honts and his colleagues at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant were surprised to find that there was not much research on this question, and decided to put that right.
And the article concludes:
Mr Honts found that those who had had a dog to slobber and pounce on them ranked their team-mates more highly on measures of trust, team cohesion and intimacy than those who had not.
But do read the article in full because the conclusions are quite significant. Once again, the link is below:
The wonderful news that US Gray Wolves are now back under protection reminded me of the beautiful story of Tim and his ‘pet’ wolf Luna that was published on Learning from Dogs September, 2009.
The first article opened up as follows:
An amazing true story of a relationship between a wild wolf and a man.
This is a story of a particular event in the life of Tim Woods told to me by his brother, DR. It revolves around the coming together of a man sleeping rough, with his dog, on Mingus Mountain, and a fully grown female Gray or Grey Wolf. Mingus is in the Black Hills mountain range between Cottonwood and Prescott in Arizona, USA
But then I added a postscript which I am going to reproduce in full again.
The story of Luna has some interesting connections.
The person taking the picture in the Post about Tim Woods was Willie Prescott. He just happens to be the grandson of William H. Prescott from whom the town of Prescott is named. Here’s that picture again.
A Guest Post from Daniela Caride. Daniela writes the Blog The Daily Tail
Something about being a dog dazzles me. Maybe it’s the freedom. Dogs don’t care what others think of them. They do whatever pleases them most without guilt or worries.
This morning, it became so clear to me. My walk around Fresh Pond Reservation in Cambridge didn’t feel very pleasant. I was worried about my mother’s persistent headache.
Today promised to be the hottest day of the summer, and the heat was not helping my mood. It was only 9 a.m., and I was already convinced something had changed in our constellation, and the sun was about to barbeque the Earth.
But my dogs, Frieda, Geppetto and Lola, were oblivious to anything going on outside Fresh Pond. They trotted happily to the doggie pond awaiting them less than a mile away, stopping only to sniff around and greet other dogs.
At the pond, they refreshed themselves in the water, not minding that the water gets dirtier as the summer wears on. They love that stinky pond, from the day the ice starts cracking and we can finally see our reflections in the moving water, to the beginning of winter when the water turns into ice again.
We completed our lap and approached my car, parked in front of a huge grassy area, where dogs are not allowed. One
Dog days!
of the landscaping employees was testing the park’s brand new lawn sprinklers. He turned them on and watched as half a dozen sprinklers soaked the grass.
Geppetto ran toward the spinning sprinklers, ignoring leash laws, of course. He was dying for a sip. The water flowed so strong that Geppetto had to close his eyes when trying to get the spray into his mouth again and again.
Frieda and Lola followed him, first exploring the artificial rain until they felt comfortable enough to play beneath it. Soon they were romping under the sun without feeling the effects of the boiling heat.
I watched the beauty of that canine dance with envy. My dogs were free, living the moment, unfettered of any concern. Then I asked myself why we humans don’t act more like them, especially in situations like this, in which no harm would be done.
Geppetto and Daniela
First, I went into one of the sprinklers, wetting my hair and face. Then another sprinkler surprised me, showering me head to toe with a refreshing jet. I raised my arms to let the water reach the rest of my body.
Park regulars watched their dogs and me from careful distance, not wanting to get wet. I didn’t care any more. I felt whole.
I am your dog and have something I would love to whisper in your ear.
I know that you humans lead very busy lives. Some have to work, some have children to raise, some have to do this alone. It always seems like you are running here and there, often too fast, never noticing the truly grand things in life.
Look down at me now. Stop looking at your computer and look at me. See the way my dark, brown eyes look at yours.
You smile at me. I see love in your eyes.
What do you see in mine? Do you see a spirit? A soul inside who loves you as no other could in the world? A spirit that would forgive all trespasses of prior wrong doing for just a single moment of your time? That is all I ask. To slow down, if even for a few minutes, to be with me.
So many times you are saddened by others of my kind passing on. Sometimes we die young and, oh, so quickly, so suddenly that it wrenches your heart out of your throat.
Sometimes, we age slowly before your eyes that you may not even seem to know until the very end, when we look at you with grizzled muzzles and cataract-clouded eyes. Still the love is always there even when we must take that last, long sleep dreaming of running free in a distant, open land.
I may not be here tomorrow. I may not be here next week. Someday you will shed the water from your eyes, that humans have when grief fills their souls, and you will mourn the loss of just ‘one more day’ with me.
Because I love you so, this future sorrow even now touches my spirit and grieves me. I read you in so many ways that you cannot even start to contemplate.
We have now together. So come and sit next to me here on the floor and look deep into my eyes. What do you see? Do you see how if you look deeply at me we can talk, you and I, heart to heart. Come not to me as my owner but as a living soul. Stroke my fur and let us look deep into the other’s eyes and talk with our hearts.
I may tell you something about the fun of working the scents in the woods where you and I go. Or I may tell you something profound about myself or how we dogs see life in general.
I know you decided to have me in your life because you wanted a soul to share things with. I know how much you have cared for me and always stood up for me even when others have been against me. I know how hard you have worked to help me be the teacher that I was born to be. That gift from you has been very precious to me. I know too that you have been through troubled times and I have been there to guard you, to protect you and to be there always for you. I am very different to you but here I am. I am a dog but just as alive as you.
I feel emotion. I feel physical senses. I can revel in the differences of our spirits and souls. I do not think of you as a dog on two feet; I know what you are. You are human, in all your quirkiness, and I love you still.
So, come and sit with me. Enter my world and let time slow down if only for a few minutes. Look deep into my eyes and whisper in my ears. Speak with your heart and I will know your true self. We may not have tomorrow but we do have now.
(Based on an article sent to me, unfortunately from an unknown author, and modified to reflect the special relationship that I have with my 6 year old German Shepherd, Pharaoh.)
Learning from Dogs 