Once again, Hidden Japan has not kept its prompt posting. This time, I’m only partially to blame. The real culprit has been our foster greyhound Flinn who has been as demanding as he has been cute.
Hopefully this cute excuse is apology enough but I genuinely am sorry that the regularly scheduled posts have been not regularly scheduled. What this newfound dog experience has uncovered is a newfound interest in how different breeds came to be.
Of course, an English Greyhound like the above is not very Hidden, nor Japan. So in keeping with the theme of this entire Substack, I want to discuss a dog that has somehow become an economic miracle.
We want to re-imagine what we know about the national Japanese dog. Shiba Inu.
Inu Start
While I am still new to the dog life, dogs have been in existence for years now. Even selective breeding to create desirable traits within these dogs have been a centuries-long pursuit. The Shiba lays claim to being amongst the earliest desirable dog.
We can’t really go back in time to know exactly when the first dog that resembles a Shiba actually existed, but skeleton records of dogs that are Shiba in nature date back to around 300 BC. This makes the breed the oldest in Japan and one of the few native breeds to the country.
While the designation of cute could be accurately ascribed to them, that was not a primary factor for the 300BC’ians who bred this fur baby. No, the Shiba was born to hunt. As a small mountain hunting dog, their fluff served the duty of keeping it warm while hunting birds and rabbits and such. Several sources cite that they were also enlisted to hunt bears. Without ever having hunted bear, I still feel confident to offer this advice to all my readers: Do not rely on the 40cm max height Shiba dogs to catch and take down the apex predator in any country.
The Shiba Crisis
Over the years, Japan shifted from a bear and bird hunting economy to one that did not rely on the Shiba as much. This change happened slowly then quickly. Then, by the early 20th century, the Shiba was in crisis.
Like much of modern Japan, this can be traced to Meiji and the Restoration. It meant the Western styles were in. Western dog breeds were the thing to keep. Even those who couldn’t get their hands on a Western dog breed would at least cross with the Shiba.
By the end of the 1920s, the Shiba was facing an existential crisis. There were almost no pure breeds left. Their rapid downfall was suddenly being noticed by a rising faction amongst Japan in that period that especially prized pure bred Japanese ... the nationals.
Conservation efforts were mounted and by 1936, the original breed of Japan, the Shiba Inu, was designated as a National Monument of Japan. However, this did not solve the Shiba Crisis. World War II occurred and the preservation of dogs stopped being a priority even after the war, with the Japanese economy and society in disarray. The Shiba breed also suffered from outbreaks of disease which lead to only a few dogs to save the day.
By a few, there were and are only 3 bloodlines in different regions (of several thousand dogs) that survived and revived the Shiba story. Through the persistence of NIPPO (the 日本犬保存会, The Association for the Preservation of the Japanese Dog), the breeders, and maybe one particularly excited dog (Ishi), the Shiba was saved. Ishi is an actual dog, that is known as the father of the Shiba. He literally has a statue and museum in Shimane Prefecture where he is rightfully recognised as now having a family tree of over 600,000 direct dogscendents.
The Meme Economy
Interestingly, the Shiba made their biggest impact outside of Japan.
This one image of this singular dog might be the breed’s legacy. After millennia of progress, and a national campaign to rescue it, ultimately it was the internet that defined this noble Shiba for the modern century.
The first Shiba Inu was brought to the United States in 1954. Yet it wasn't until the early 2000s that the Shiba Inu was commonly seen outside of Japan. It was one of the still-early adopters from outside Japan that snapped that iconic shot.
Somehow those heady 2013 days meant that The Meme became a staple of internet culture. Featuring the above Shiba Inu with coloured Comic Sans saying words like “much doge”, “wow”, “very japan”, “so hidden” spread like a virus. Maybe one of the first universal memes, it seemed like this dog was beloved by all pet lovers, and the seemingly surprised face on the famous Shiba would be memorialised as doge.
This doge grew far beyond the intended above photo and has lived a life even beyond the internet. Yes, for those who haven’t been following current events, the meme is alive long past a normal expiration date. (To recap, post global internet usage of the photo, the wider public adopted it, including into the dictionary and making onto international news. It became the basis of a crypto currency, that itself became an obsession of one of the most powerful and wealthy individuals in human history, who then headed and named a government semi-department as DOGE. I don’t know at what stage in this timeline our prehistoric Japanese bear hunter would be lost.)
The Shiba Inu has clearly ascended beyond just a breed and become a brand. Outside of its home in Japan, it is the face of the meme economy and stuck on everything from pet accessories to apparel, NFTs to national initiatives.
The rescue project from the brink of extinction has worked better than ever imagined. They are now one of the most popular dog in Japan. They rule the global economy. Shiba Inu is now a commodity, a meme, and really a symbol of the global life. A sign that any innocuous thing, even a dog, can be a part of a larger cultural movement. There isn’t much I can predict about the next iteration of Shiba. My only guidance here is probably to all pet owners to give the good boys (and girls) a pet and a scratch!
Shibas are tough little mf-ers. As you say, I’m sure they were originally used as hunters, but now they are highly effective security guards.
Oh and they detest my whippet.