Akita Dogs Take Viewers On a ‘Dog-View’ Tour Of Birthplace of the Breed with Google Street View

Akita dogs are a big part of life in Japan’s Ōdate city, which is known as the birthplace of the beloved Japanese dog breed.

So to give visitors to the northern Japanese city a unique perspective, three Akita-Inus – Ako, Asuka and Puuko – were employed by Google to map the city from a dog’s perspective.

A small camera was attached to their backs and the dogs collected their very own Street View of their home city with the help of their humans.

The most famous Akita (or Akita-Inu, as the breed is known as in Japan) is Hachiko, who is known around the world for his extraordinary loyalty by waiting for his owner at Tokyo’s Shibuya train station for nine years after his death.

Ako and Asuka, who serve as “tourism promotion stationmasters” at Odate Station, went for a stroll in late February with their humans to various local attractions – including a bronze statue of Hachiko set up in front of the station and a museum featuring the Akita dog breed.

The Akita have also captured beautiful images at a snowfield surrounded by mountains, the Rokenjinja shrine, which honors another dog that showed great loyalty like Hachiko.

Google has been working with the Akita prefectural government since 2017 to introduce tourist destinations in the prefecture on Street View.

Find out more about this fun project in the video below!

And if you want to see how the project is shaping up, the ‘Pup View’ is here on Google Maps.