Adopting a dog in Japan...

I've wanted to write about this for a long time, but other things just kept creeping up.

*For the record I do NOT support pet stores and neither should you.  There are many shelter dogs all over the world in need of homes, but because of the 2011 earthquake many dogs in Japan were displaced and lost their former homes, and even today shelters still remain full of them.*

I want to say if you're a foreigner, forget it.  What I mean to say is forget adopting from an entirely Japanese rescue organization.  Even with my Japanese boyfriend speaking to the organizations entirely in Japanese, as soon as they found out a foreigner wanted to adopt the dog, any dog I was interested in was immediately adopted by some kind loving Japanese family.  Shelters in Japan are wary of foreigners because some foreigners have left Japan and left their adopted animal behind.  Thus, Japanese shelters are left with a bad taste in their mouth for foreigners looking to adopt.  It didn't matter to them how many times I swore up and down that I want to stay here.  I had the scarlet "F" on my chest.

Despite all these heartbreaks, there are some organizations that will work with foreigners, and I'd like to recommend them to you.

First, I recommend ARK.  They do not have a shelter in Tokyo but they will transport your new adopted family member to you.

The other organization is Animal Friends Niigata.  Their shelter is in Niigata but they will also transport your new adopted family member to you.

Animal Friends Niigata frequently does adoption events at Aoyama Farmer's Market.  You can volunteer there if you want.

If you're looking to give an animal a forever home, these are my suggestions.  If you aren't long term and can foster an animal, ARK would be happy to help you with that.

Here's my baby and me:

Spring?

We had a surge of Spring this week and AZ forgot that Phil had seen his shadow this year and we were still owed six more weeks of winter.  Well the Spring has since vanished and I awoke this morning to total cloud cover.  It's not raining yet; that's expected for late tonite/tomorrow.  The sun is supposed to poke its head out around noon which is good because I planned to take Ein, my data dog, to the Matsuri Festival.  I love taking him because the おたく go nuts.  They love him.  Well, he is famous.

 

  

Since the weather was nice I pulled from my summer mags:

Those are Lucky Brand jeans.  You know those ridiculously overpriced status jeans for chicks.  They're like new and I got them at Goodwill for about $5.  Take that, you high end boutiques!  In fact, I often find Lucky jeans there just not often in my size so that's my first pair.  Yay for Goodwill!