One of the most iconic dogs in the world is being commemorated ahead of the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Hachiko is a dog known all around the world for his loyalty and faith in his master.
The dog’s story is so well known that three films and several statues have been made about his story.
This year, Japan and other countries will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Hachiko and remember a dog who never stopped believing his master was coming home.
Hachiko, a cream-white Akita Inu, was born in November 2023 in the city of Odate in the Akita prefecture.
The same year Hachiko was born, his future owner Professor Hidesaburo Ueno asked a student to find him an Akita puppy.
Following a long and gruelling train journey, Professor Ueno took delivery of the puppy on 15 January 1924 where the pup was initially thought dead.
According to Professor Mayumi Itoh, after a lot of care and attention, Hachiko was nursed back to health six months later and named Hachi after the Japanese number eight. The Ko was an honorific bestowed by Professor Ueno’s students.
As the pup grew, his bond with the professor grew too. The Professor would take a train to work several times a week and was accompanied to his local train station by his three dogs on every occasion.
Once he’d entered the station, the three hounds would wait for his return until one day, tragedy struck.
On 21 May 1925, Professor Ueno died from a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of just 53, leaving his family and his hound devastated.
After the funeral, Hachiko spent time with several families before out of the blue resuming his commute to the station on his own through every kind of weather.
Professor Itoh said: “In the evening, Hachi stood on four legs at the ticket gate and looked at each passenger as if he were looking for someone.”
At first, the dog was thought to be a nuisance by local vendors and passers-by who tried to shoe him away.
Hachiko, however, stood firm and never stopped waiting outside the station. He gained nationwide fame when the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Asahi wrote about him in October 1932.
As the months and years went by, people would leave food for Hachiko every day and write poems about him as his legend grew.
So well known internationally was Hachiko that his death on March 8 1935 made the front page of many newspapers.
At his funeral, Buddhist monks offered prayers and dignitaries read eulogies while thousands visited his statue in the following days.
In post-war Japan, a fundraising drive for a statue of Hachiko raised 800,000 yen, worth around 4billion yen or £22million in today’s money.
According to an article written by high school student Takeshi Okamoto in 1982, Hachiko teaches people “the value of keeping faith in someone”.
