The Dog Who Waited

Every weekday evening, the trains came into Shibuya Station in Tokyo, and the crowds poured out. Office workers, students and shoppers hurried past the gates and away into the streets.

And every evening, beside the station exit, a large white dog sat watching the doors. His ears were pricked. His eyes searched every face.

He was waiting for one man. The man never came. But the dog came back the next day, and the next, for nearly ten years.

A puppy from the north

The dog's name was Hachiko. He was an Akita, a big, strong breed of dog from the snowy north of Japan. He was born in November 1923, in the city of Ōdate, in Akita Prefecture.

When he was a few weeks old, he was sent by train to Tokyo, to a new home. His owner was Professor Hidesaburō Ueno, who taught agriculture at the Imperial University in Tokyo. Professor Ueno loved dogs, and he took the puppy into his family. He named him Hachi. The "-ko" was added later, as a sign of affection and respect.

Waiting at the station

Professor Ueno lived not far from Shibuya Station. On many days he took the train from there to the university. Hachi would walk with him to the station in the morning.

Then, in the late afternoon, Hachi would go back to the station and wait for the professor's train to come in. When Ueno stepped out, the big dog would greet him, and they would walk home together.

It was a happy routine. But it lasted only a little over a year.

The day he did not come home

In May 1925, Professor Ueno was at work at the university when he collapsed suddenly. He died that day. He never came back to Shibuya.

That evening, Hachi went to the station as usual. He waited. The trains came in and the crowds went by, but the professor was not among them.

Hachi went back the next day, and the day after that. In the months that followed he lived with different people, including the professor's gardener, who lived near Shibuya. But no matter where he was staying, Hachi kept returning to the station, around the time the evening train used to arrive, and waiting.

The famous dog of Shibuya

At first, not everyone at the station was kind to him. Some people chased him away. Some boys teased him.

Then, in 1932, a newspaper in Tokyo published an article about the faithful dog who still waited every day for his dead master. People across Japan were moved. Visitors came to see Hachiko. Station staff and food sellers looked after him and gave him treats. Teachers told the story to their pupils as an example of loyalty.

Some people have wondered whether Hachiko also came to the station because the food sellers fed him. Perhaps that was part of it. But for nearly ten years, through hot summers and snowy winters, he kept returning to the very place where he had last waited for his friend.

In 1934, a bronze statue of Hachiko was put up outside Shibuya Station. Hachiko himself is said to have been there when it was unveiled.

Together again

Hachiko died on 8 March 1935, in a street in Shibuya, at the age of eleven. People across Japan mourned him.

His body was carefully preserved, and he can still be seen today at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno, Tokyo. Some of his remains were buried beside Professor Ueno's grave in Aoyama Cemetery.

During the Second World War, the bronze statue was melted down for metal. But after the war, in 1948, a new statue was made by the son of the original sculptor, and placed in the same spot.

The statue is still there today, and it is one of the best-known meeting places in all of Tokyo. Friends simply arrange to meet at Hachiko. Thousands of people pass it every day, and many stop to touch his paw or take a photograph.

In 2015, the University of Tokyo put up a new statue on its campus. It shows what Hachiko waited for all those years: the professor, coming home at last, and his dog leaping up to greet him.

Want to read more?

Pamela S. Turner's Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog tells the story for younger readers, as seen by a boy at the station. Hachiko himself can be seen at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.