The story behind Hachiko - worlds most famous dog

Hello Steemit,

Vlada here with another post - as you might know from my introduction post, I come from Japan, so Hachiko is super close to me!

Hachiko is a national hero to us - those, who identify as Japanese! Hachiko is a dog so famous, that there have been numerous movies made about him. He has his own statue next to Shibuya Train Station in Tokyo, where thousands of people come by every single day.

Now you might wonder. What made this dog so special?

One day, Eizaburo Ueno, science professor at Tokyo University had looked for the perfect Akita puppy, until one of his students encouraged him to adopt Hachiko. Hachiko, or Hachi which became his nickname, and his new owner soon became best friends, and Eizaburo loved his dog above all and treated him as his son. The two of them were inseparable.

Hachiko grew older, and at one point he started to see his owner off to work in the morning at the Shibuya Train Station, in central Tokyo and went to pick him up at the station in the afternoon when he returned from work.

On May 21, 1925, only two years after Hachiko was born, Hachiko was as usually sitting by the exit at Shibuya train station waiting for his dear Eizaburo. But his owner never showed up...
It turned out that Eizaburo had suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage and died suddenly and unexpectedly while at work.

Hachiko moved in with a former gardener of the Ueno family, but throughout the rest of his ten-year long life he kept going to the Shibuya Train Station every morning and afternoon precisely when the train was due to enter the station, waiting in vain for the return of his beloved owner which sadly never came back.

The raising popularity

A major Japanese newspaper picked up the story of Hachiko in 1932 and published it, which led to Hachiko becoming a celebrity all over Japan. People started calling the dog “Chuken-Hachiko” [romanji], which meant “Hachiko – the faithful dog”.
The story of the dog that never gave up gained a lot of attention also in national media, inspiring many people from all over the world to visit Hachiko at Shibuya Train Station to offer him treats.

In 1934 a statue of Hachiko was unveiled at a grand ceremony in front of Shibuya train station with Hachiko himself present as the main guest. Today the statue is a popular attraction, both for the japanese and the tourists.

Hachiko passed away peacefully and alone on the street near Shibuya train station on March 8, 1935.

Thank you for following and I hope you enjoyed the short story about Hachiko. You can read more about this wonderful dog on the internet... or simply, watch a movie about it.

This article was inspired by https://nerdnomads.com/hachiko_the_dog website