-Shop cute Japanese products and cool products from Japan. This cute blog is about Japanese kawaii, kawaii Japan, kawaii fashion, Japanese pop culture and more. It's a kawaii blog from Japan, Japan blog in English by a Japanese girl.

Some time ago, I had a request from one of my blog readers if I can write about how it’s like to keep pets in Japan. Speaking of pets, dog and cat are the most popular pets in Japan. As one of dog owners, let me write about how it’s like to keep a dog. Unlike U.S or Europe, in Japan small dogs are more popular, which I think is because many of us have to live in a small apartment house with or without even a small garden especially at a central area of Japan because land costs very high. We usually keep dogs inside house. (Old type of apartments whether they’re purchased or rented, prohibit the residence from keeping pets inside the house. But nowadays most of the new apartment houses promote as “Pet OK!”)

As you may already know, I keep a Shih Tzu female dog of 1.5 years old named Pino, who I call “Pi-chan”. Now when I look around, it’s not too much to say that those who keep dogs are either old people who have retired from work, or full-time housewives or moms. Sometimes working women keep dogs like chihuahua at home. But in that case, the dogs have to stay alone at home until the owners come back from work late at night, depending on jobs.

I wanted to keep a dog of my own for a long time, but with full-time work outside it was totally impossible. I thought l should be responsible not to make him or her sad being left alone most of the time. I was working overtime daily and the weekends were gone while finishing laundry, cooking and things I couldn’t do during weekdays. It was since I shifted to freelance work, part-time working from home that I could finally keep a dog. That’s Pi-chan!

I was committed that I should devote my time and effort to my dog once I decide to keep her. While many of us buy pets at pet shop, my husband and I didn’t because we cared about health so much.

Japanese people buy pets from following places:

1)pet shop
It’s easy to access and find what you look for, but puppies are stressed under bad circumstances and sometimes not very hygienic, according to the environment and the management of stores. Many of the puppies can have some kind of physical or mental problems. There’s no way to know the genetic characteristics of the puppy.

In Japan it’s still allowed to sell pets in a showcase, and the sad story is always behind there. Pets that are left without purchased may become sick and eventually they can be killed. It’s not that I actually saw what’s going on at the backyard, but that’s what I hear. (>_<)
In fact, according to what I studied when I was looking for a puppy, most of pet shops sell puppies of too young ages. They are in most cases separated from their mom without waiting enough time because being small looks more kawaii and sells well. (That's why tea cup size is very popular here in Japan, and we may not pay attention to the downside of it. Chances are that too small dogs are very weak and easy to get injured. )This results in mental instability and physical problems.

2)online shop
Thanks to internet, we can choose a puppy from any online shops regardless of how far it is from our places. They will air ship the puppy to us. But we will have to decide only from photos and videos when the breeder is not in the same area. Sometimes I believe there's a thing we can sense only when we meet but not from photos, etc.

3)online auction
I feel very strange against selling pets like dog at online auction, but we can get it cheaper and easily there. However chances are that they are the left ones from pet shops and it’s possible they have sickness or any kind of problems.

4)breeders
We can see the family and the environment around the puppy. Puppies can stay enough time with his or her family. But we have no idea which breeder is good or bad. Even if we find a good one, usually breeders live somewhere far from cities.

5)shelter
Some people take dogs from shelter, but I don’t think it’s very popular yet in this country.

Once we keep a dog inside house, there are some problems that we may not have to face if we live outside Japan. In Japan, as you know, we take off shoes inside house. This means, every time I walk my dog, I have to wash her legs and dry them by hair dryer. This is inevitable task everyday. If I walk her twice a day, I have to do this twice! Walking an hour with my dog is OK to me, but this task is indeed tiresome! I cannot walk her twice a day. Also Tatami room turns terrible because of her nails! (T_T)

Pet industry in Japan is huge. Japan suffers from low birthlate but pets are increasing. It’s said the number of pets are now larger than infants and small kids. We have so many pet (especially dogs and cats) related services such as pet hotel to which we entrust pets while we leave house for vacation, pet salon for grooming, pet kindergarten for training, pet insurance, pet funeral, pet clothes, birthday cake for pet, hotel, restaurant and cafe where we can stay with pet, and more and more…