The Dog Blessing Shrine
Japan isn’t short on shrines that cure warts, protect your electronics from the forces of eviltude, and jumpstart your career as a manga artist, but this is the first one I’ve heard of that has a ceremony for blessing your dog!
Shrines and temples do a booming business banishing bad luck from people mired in their periodic three-year-long yakudoshi (“bad luck years”), but the priests at Ichigaya Hachiman will turn away the slings and arrows of outrageous bad fortune from your faithful shiba too.
One burning question remains, however: are shiba yakudoshi measured in dog years or human years?
Photos and info about dog blessing ceremony from the May 2014 issue of Shi-ba magazine.
And just for fun, here are the eleven strangest shrines in Tokyo, with all the inside scoop on the resident gods’ superpowers
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Jonelle Patrick View All
Writing mystery books set in Tokyo is mostly what I do, but I also blog about the odd stuff I see every day in Japan. I'm a graduate of Stanford University and the Sendagaya Japanese Institute in Tokyo, and a member of the International Thriller Writers, the Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters In Crime. When I'm not in Tokyo, I live in San Francisco. I also host a travel site called The Tokyo Guide I Wish I'd Had, so if you're headed to Japan and want to check out the places I take my friends when they're in town, take a look!
