Tokyo, Early October (2000), ,
One day I  received an E-mail with a message: "Please save these dogs. Nobody can take care of them." With this message, a long list of  about 80 dogs was attached. All of those listed dogs were well-known purebreds.

Since the situation seemed rather strange, I decided to contact the sender for the details.

Then, I found out that a breeder, who also runs a pet shop, currently owns those dogs. He, who called himself "the manager" ,  said,  " I love dogs so much, and I thought this is the best way for the dogs. So, I gathered all these dogs here. Some of them came here because of the bankruptcy of the breeders, and some of them are the disused dogs. Also some of them are born here. At this moment, I own about 200 dogs. But because my sponsor who was supposed to finance their care gave up and left, I have to finish the remaining work, and it is impossible to keep these dogs with our current financial situation." Although his story was peculiar, the fact that there are so many dogs now suffering is real.

At that moment, dogs were accommodated in three places in the same prefecture.The financial situation was so severe that they were unable to provide enough food for them.The employed caretakers were not being paid. These dogs had been used as the casts for the event at some zoos or at some theme parks, and had been dragged around in many places.

Now they spend most of the time in the small cages  with their own discharges. Those dogs who are in the age suitable for breedings are forced to bear puppies, and many of them have died from various diseases. One of these shed, where approximately 80 dogs were housed , are filled with an offensive odor of the dogs' discharges and with dogs' stressed howling voice due to the lack of care providers. The situation was terrible. The pet shop in the issue is still in operation. They call for help from charitable organizations only for the unwanted dogs; salable dogs are being displayed at the shop. It sounds like their only wish is to make some revenue and get rid of unwanted animals.

The solution for the problem is not only to find homes for these surrendered dogs, but also to first secure them. Different from our optimistic community of dog lovers, official organizations must go through rigid processes to protect the animals legally and effectively, I assume.There are actually many organizations that tried to force legal action to inappropriate breeders and owners. The same can be applied to businesses that handle animals as their products.The numbers of dogs abandoned by the businesses are incredibly high.

Unless such practices are banned, the effort to save unwanted dogs within our reach will not end these tragedies. Some rescue organization pointed out that saving only these unwanted dogs from the shop owner will help his cunning business, and as a result, it will not be a good deed for the future of japanese dogs' circumstances. We talked about this issue over and over. But in these sheds, there are live dogs that twist their bodies to get attention from us. There are live dogs suffering from bloody feces due to stress and filthy surroundings. There are live dogs that can feel pleasure only in their once-a-day meal. Some has refused eating, likely to lose their hope for their lives.

Once one dog starts to howl sorrowful ly, all dogs follows to howl.
They would not choose to be in the cage, but to live with us.

It is none other than us, we, the  human beings have locked them into the small, cold cage of betrayal. We could not abandon them again. Our decision was to pay for what these humans have done to them, by doing the best of ours, to make these dogs happy. However, we were initially hesitant to ask for public donations since we are merely a community group that does not even have any connection to a dog food company.
We could only allocate our members labor and time. Individual members incurred all the expenses, but the dogs do not care about our purses.

Later, we had to ask for donations from the members in the mailing list hosted by our group, and this covered at least those of transportation expenses for the time being. Similarly, members who could not attend to the spot provided dog foods. I truly thank them for their concern and help. These dogs must be blessed. We absolutely did not want to bother dog's host family in any case, so, we made our best effort to care dogs with donated food while there are no documents, agreements or official requests from the the shop owner.
The priority was to secure the dogs' lifeline and to obtain legally effective documents with the shop owner.

On October 27th, as a result of our continuous effort, we received an official requested by the owner to protect the dogs. Filed by an attorney, the document contains the promise that no troubles will be passed on to host families.

At the same time, several veterinarians volunteered to provide simple health examinations for the dogs. I would really like to thank them for giving their time checking each animal to ensure their health.

On October 28th, some dogs were sent to homes for their first temporary stay.
It may be difficult for these dogs to adapt as the familly dogs because of their history of the growth. Members who live far from the spot could not join to take care of these dogs. In return, they have offered to keep the dogs temporarily since these dogs needed to be trained before being adopted by families. It was the first trial for the training and the opportunity to evaluate any actual problems. Only three dogs were sent to members' homes on that date.

The real rescue starts from here.

We must plan, and take action in many stages to solve the situation in the future.
Dogs are currently housed in the place  which has been rented under the ex-owner's investor. Rent has not been paid. Dogs produce tons of waste everyday. Water is needed not only for drinking, but also to wash their cage and dishes. Heater will be necessary since winter is coming soon. In this moment, there were neither provided the hot-water, nor equipped the heating system. In such an environment, and being in a cage most of the time, dogs must be heavily stressed.

While many employees quit due to unpaid wages, several of them are desperately working without any rest. These people feel responsible for dogs' lives and simply love them. They teach us how to care for the dogs efficiently. Nevertheless, at most, only one or two people can volunteer on weekdays, and we feel powerless in facing the reality that we can take so little action to ease the dog’s stress due to the lack of volunteers.

We have discussed the situation with many of our friends. Some people gave us an insightful advice. Others offered support to improve the conditions. Some suggested a large-scale project calling for support through media. They all greatly encouraged us.

For the first time, I realized the effectiveness of media assistance. After our project was shown on TV, phone did not stop ringing at the TV station. People wanted contact information to support us. Since individual expenses run our project, we cannot afford to set up a new phone, or even spare time to talk on the phone. Under such conditions, an Internet Website was finally established. We are still unable to allocate a person to receive phone calls. A Fax is now in place for the time being. Even if we could listen to all the messages left on the answering machine, we wouldn't be able to find time to reply them. The burden on each member's shoulders is so great that we can't even eat or sleep.

Please understand our situation, and support protection for this ex-event dogs.
Any comments are welcomed on our web site BBS, and our members strive to reply to as many messages as possible.

Only with your help, can our project contribute to create a society that eliminates any tragedy for both humans and animals.

Thank you for reading such a long message.

Save the ex-event dogs! Project team member,　Yuri Inoue

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Here, I express my regrets for the dogs that could not wait for our help and have passed away.
May those dogs rest in peace.

Go to the list of those which passed away before us.