BR:『一分間だけ』原田マハ著

Kinjiro, who was a golden retriever passed away at 29th July.
He was 12 years old.
It was just 2 weeks ago. Nowadays I am picking up after his death.

However, while reading this book, I couldn’t help reminding his face,
legs, ears, fur and that day’s tragedy again.

My parents were living in my neighborhood.
My father's job was only to feed the golden retriever.
My father couldn't walk smoothly because of his age, so he didn't walk the dog. Instead of walking together, he let Kinjiro go into his garden twice a day.
(About 1,000 square meter garden was enough for the dog to run around.)

This duty was also useful for preventing his senility.
However, I deprived him of this important duty suddenly.

On that day, he hesitated to go for a walk. But I considered that was his
fooling around, because this was his habit that he stopped at least once
while we were walking, and sat down suddenly while grinning.

But why couldn't I treat him with courtesy as an old dog? Each year, we
brought him to the grooming shop to trim his hair before the coming
summer, because we wanted him get over the intense heat during the hot
and wet season. After the trimming, he looked like a "growing child" dog.
Due to this appearance, I frequently forgot his real age.

If I hadn't forced the dog to go for a walk on the day, he could have lain
down in front of his kennel.
If I had imagined his heaviness by his age then, I could have stopped
walking by looking at his behavior.

Whenever we went walking together, he was in triumph and walked by
my side neatly. He puffed out his chest, so of course I did too.
I felt happy while walking with him. That time was around 5 pm in
the afternoon. It was cooler than usual.

After walking together about 20 meters, he suddenly had convulsions.
I am very upset. I called his name many times.
Hearing my uncommon voice, my son came there.
I shouted "Call your grandpa, Kinjiro is feeling strange, please call the vet!"

After everything was finished, my mother and father said,
"That was his destiny. He lived long enough. He was happy, because he was
with you at his last breath. He was not alone at that time."

I couldn't stop crying. In the summer season, many Japanese are brought to
the hospital by ambulance because of heatstroke. I wanted to apologize to
him for not directly thinking about the heat.
...No! I only wanted to face him again, and I wanted to touch him and to go
for a walk with him again.

I am a selfish person.

Unfortunately, a dog can’t determine the owner.
(It’s like the child can’t determined the parents.)

But we loved Kinjiro so much because we were together over 12 years.
The way was only we could do, and we thought that was the best way for him.
So he could live here with us over 10 years.
But he could have lived longer if I had paid attention his health more
at that time.



In Japan, people who keeps a dog inside the house has increased now.
Former days, most of Japanese kept the dogs outside
because the dog had a role as a guard dog.
The neighbors were far from the house each other.
But nowadays, many houses are built in limited area,
the noise trouble by neighbors are frequent occurred,
including the dogs’ barking.
It seems to lead the difficulties to have dogs outside as before.

Additionally nowadays, it is difficult for Japanese to do marriage
and have a child for many reasons.
They take care of an animal instead of their child.
It leads that they bring the pets into the house for more close to them.


We have a custom to take off the shoes before entering our house.
Because Japan is a humid country.
It is easy to increase mold and germs inside.
In order to keep the house clean, it was natural to keep the animals outside.

Additionally, recent house is built with high airtightness.
The animals’ fur inside the house leads to the symptoms of asthma
or atopic dermatitis.

Our dog, Kinjiro kept outside. It was my father’s policy.
He distinguished animals from human, even if dogs.
Of course he loved his dogs very much.
(Only the terrible thunder night, the dogs allowed to stay in the porch
of the house until the next morning, because they hated the thunder.)

In my younger days, I grew up with German shepherds.
They were released in our garden without using a collar because our house’s garden was surrounded all by high fenses.
The collar was used only when we were walking outside the garden.
We could play with the shepherd. We could run together every day.

However, if we kept Kinjiro into the house and looked him carefully,
we couldn’t miss his condition’s slightly change, I guess.

Should we keep an old dog inside the house nowadays,
because of global warming?
Is it required to turn on the air conditioner for the dog under the severe circumstance?

I can't find the answer until now.