Dog Memorial: An Eternal Return to Shibuya
There is a special pet memorial in Japan. Hachikō Square in Shibuya, Tokyo, honors the loyal Japanese Akita dog who waited every day for his owner, Professor Hidesaburō Ueno, who worked at Tokyo Imperial University, to return from work and walk out of Shibuya Station.
However, on May 21, 1925, Ueno suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at work, and never returned to Shibuya Station and his loyal dog awaiting his arrival. For the next nine years, however, Hachikō continued to wait for Ueno’s return, and in the process became a symbol of fidelity throughout Japan and across the world.
Unconditional Love Between Kindred Spirits
Mark Twain said “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” Though this quote communicates many important attributes about both dogs and human beings, the core of the statement is about loyalty. Dogs are perhaps the most loyal living beings in the world.
[More pet loss advice, insights, and resources: How to Write a Pet Eulogy, Pet Loss Condolences: What to Say and How to Say It, and Life After Loss: 5 Signs It’s Time for a New Pet.]
Dogs love unconditionally and are capable of displaying affection and maintaining a dedication to pet parents and pet families in ways that other animals — especially humans — are simply not able to do.
If Shakespeare wrote about dogs, his plays would lack the drama, duplicity, betrayal, and backstabbing ways that seem to haunt human beings and the terrible plotlines we create. Hachikō is a dog that symbolizes what we all know about dogs: they are loyal and steadfast and comprehensively focused on the souls and spirits they love.
The Irrepressible Honesty of Dogs
Dogs are honest. We see that honesty when dogs are anxious or so fearful they have difficulty waiting. They spin in circles, bark, and do everything physically and emotionally possible to assuage that distress and address its source. Dogs will jump into rivers to save drowning owners and loved ones.
Dogs will fight off intruders that break into their homes and sanctuaries. Dogs will learn our native languages. Dogs will leap into their owner’s arms when they return from extended trips away. However, watching a dog wait for that owner to walk through the front door, or witnessing a dog see a loved one in distress, is heartbreaking.
When dogs are unable to help or fix a distressing situation, they experience that same sense of hopelessness and crushing futility we all do when someone we love is experiencing hardship. Dogs – like moms, dads, friends, and families – can sense when someone they love is in trouble.
Coming Together At a Place of Loss
Poor Hachikō must have been grief-stricken waiting for Professor Ueno to return, which is why the humans around him could relate to his situation so well. We all know that feeling of loss and the horror of being left behind and alone – and how devastatingly hopeless that loss feels when shrouded in the unknown.
RIP Hachikō. And Professor Ueno. Thanks to both of you, Hachikō Square is full of life. Your pet legacy and human legacy will live on forever through Hachikō’s pet statue and the countless people who meet beside it and take photos with the dog who lived and loved with unconditional loyalty.
[More pet loss advice, insights, and resources: How to Write a Pet Eulogy, Pet Loss Condolences: What to Say and How to Say It, and Life After Loss: 5 Signs It’s Time for a New Pet.]