Hachikō

He was born on a farm near Ōdate in Akita prefecture in November 1923 and sent by rail to Tokyo as a puppy, to Professor Hidesaburō Ueno of the Imperial University's agriculture department. The routine held for a little over a year: Ueno left in the morning, Hachikō walked with him to Shibuya station, and in the evening he was at the gate to meet the train home. On 21 May 1925 Ueno had a cerebral haemorrhage during a lecture and did not come back. Hachikō went to the station that evening, and the next, and kept going for the next nine years and nine months. He was passed between relatives and former gardeners, and returned each time to the same platform at the same hour. Station staff and vendors fed him; some chased him off. A former student of Ueno's followed him, wrote up the story, and published it in the Asahi Shimbun in 1932, after which the country knew his name. He died on a street near the station on 8 March 1935, and the news carried nationally. The bronze that had been raised outside Shibuya in 1934 — he attended the unveiling — was melted down for the war and recast in 1948 by the original sculptor's son. He is preserved at the National Museum of Nature and Science, and his ashes are buried beside Ueno at Aoyama Cemetery. A study of his organs in 2011 found terminal cancer and a filarial infection; the yakitori skewer of the old telling had nothing to do with it.

Loved by · Hidesaburō Ueno

Honours

• 1932The Asahi Shimbun tells his story, and chūken — faithful dog — enters the language
• 1934Bronze raised outside Shibuya station, unveiled while he was alive to attend
• 1935Mourned nationally; buried beside Professor Ueno at Aoyama Cemetery
• 1948Statue recast by the original sculptor's son after the war took the first for metal
• 2015Bronze at the University of Tokyo shows the reunion that never happened

Their kind

Bred in the mountains of northern Japan for boar and bear, and kept for a reserve that reads as dignity — an Akita attaches to one household and stays attached.

A life in seasons