1.Situation of Pets

How I started researching
Questionnaire
How many of them are kept in Japan?
Why did humans come to have dogs and cats?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of owning a pet?
What would you do with your pet if you were in the hospital?

How I started researching

The person in charge of the project started owning dogs and became interested in animals being kept as pets.
That’s when I learned about the killing of pets, and I felt a sense of helplessness that I couldn’t do anything about it.
I proposed this theme because I wanted to take this opportunity to investigate the current situation of animals and see if there was anything we could do together to help them.
To get us thinking about pet issues, we watched the movie “The Day We Name Our Dogs” as a class.
Through this movie, we learned about the painful situation we were in and it made us feel even more compelled to do something about it.

Questionnaire

Where do you go when you decide to get a pet?
We decided to survey all the schools as a first step in understanding the current situation.

We asked people who have had pets where they bought them, and those who have never owned pets where to buy them if they decided to.

※The horizontal axis is “number of people”.
And pet × is for people who have never had a pet and pet 〇 is for people who have or have had a pet.

From this result, we can see that there are many people who choose a pet shop, whether they have a pet or not. When I asked why I chose a pet shop,

• I want to keep from a puppy

• There is an image that protected dogs and protected cats are not disciplined.

I was asked a lot.

How many of them are kept in Japan?

The term “companion animal” has come to be used in Japan today to describe a dog or cat that lives in close proximity to its owner, for example by making a grave for it or dressing it in fashionable clothes.

Recently there has been a “hastily made pet boom” due to the effects of the corona, and in some pet stores sales have doubled compared to normal.

The psychological shock and stress caused by the death of a pet is known as “pet loss” and has become a social problem!

※The unit on the horizontal axis is “animal”

Source:A Guide to Worldwide Pet Ownership

Looking at the number of dogs and cats in Japan, there are 8.92 million dogs and 9.52 million cats, for a total of 18.44 million pets in total.

Looking at these numbers alone, it’s hard to get a sense of what’s going on, but when you consider that there are 15.53 million children under the age of 15 in Japan (2018), it’s surprising how many are kept.

Why did humans come to have dogs and cats?

The origin dates back to the Jomon period …
Dogs began to be kept in the Jomon period as hunting partners and guard dogs.
Cats began to be kept from China in the early Nara period to prevent mice from eating Buddhist sutras.
Since the opponent is a running mouse, the free-range breeding method was adopted.
Years have passed, and nowadays pets are mainly kept as “healing”.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of owning a pet?

First, I’d like to break down the benefits of owning a pet into three categories: mental, health, and the impact on your children.

Mental and health benefits

・Healing -> Stress reduction

・It distracts us from loneliness and desolation.

・It’s useful for security.

Effect on Children

・They can learn the value of life.

・Useful for emotional education.

Of course, there are disadvantages.

・Cannot stay away for a long period of time → Cannot travel, go away, or be hospitalized

・Continual barking becomes a nuisance to the neighbors.

・It costs a lot of money to keep them.

What would you do with your pet if you were in the hospital?

One thing to think about is this ; if you are hospitalized, where should you leave your pet if you are infected with the new Coronavirus that is spreading around the world and hospitalized.

There are probably no facilities that can keep pets owned by corona-affected people for long periods of time. That is why the #StayAnicom Project, which provides free care for pets of corona-affected people, is being launched.

The #StayAnicom project is a service for owners who have been infected with a new type of Coronavirus and have opened up part of Anicom’s facilities to provide free care for their pets while they live in quarantine.