Episode 550 – Dog Days, Part 2

Facing Backward Podcasts

This week we continue our footnote on the history of dogs in Japan. How did public perceptions of dogs change during the Meiji period? How did the adoption of modern notions of dog ownership and pet keeping help remake Japan’s cities? And what impact did all of this have on Japan’s existing canine population?

Sources

Skabelund, Aaron. Canines, Japan, and the Making of the Modern Imperial World.

Walker, Brett L. “Animals and the intimacy of History.” History and Theory 52, No 4 (December, 2013).

Kurosawa, Aiko et al. “The Rise and Fall of Rabies in Japan: A Quantitative history of Rabies Epidemics in Osaka Prefecture, 1914-1933.” PLoS neglected tropical diseases 11, No 3 (March, 2017)

Images

Part of a mid-Meiji primer on foreign dog breeds.

An early Meiji primer on foreign dog breeds.

Tokugawa Yoshinobu in retirement.

Though the Meiji Emperor appears to have had a favorite dog, he also had more than one. This undated Meiji period photo shows the kennels of the imperial palace and some of their residents.

A taxidermy of a Hokkaido Wolf at Hokkaido University. Japan’s indigenous wolf population is now entirely extinct.