KUMAMOTO \u2013 When a powerful earthquake jolted southern Japan this \u2060week, rattling homes and knocking out water and electricity, Tomoko Takaoka bundled up her beloved fluffy dogs and went in search of a safe place to stay.<\/p>\n
Unable to reach her parents, Takaoka, a 31-year-old factory worker, turned to a \u200bnearby evacuation center only to discover that her chihuahua, \u2019Ku,\u2019 and \u200cchihuahua-poodle mix, \u2019Sheri,\u2019 were \u200cnot welcome.<\/p>\n
Faced with the choice of sheltering without \u200bthem or staying together, she chose the latter, spending the first sweltering night crammed into her car with her canine family.<\/p>\n
Eventually, social media \u2060posts led her to Ryunosuke Animal Hospital in downtown Kumamoto, which had converted classrooms \u2060in its veterinary nurse training school into temporary housing for evacuees, with separate rooms for owners of cats and dogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring \u200bdisasters it\u2019s only natural for \u2060dogs and cats to stay together with their families. But people who don\u2019t own pets don\u2019t necessarily \u2060want to be \u200bwith them,\u201d said hospital director Ryunosuke Tokuda.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey worry about \u200bfleas, odors, allergies, and noise. Pets are often viewed negatively, \u200bwhich is \u200cwhy many evacuation shelters often don\u2019t allow people and pets to stay together,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The hospital learned that lesson the hard way after the devastating Kumamoto earthquake in 2016. Since then, it has \u200cmade a point of opening its doors to evacuees with pets whenever disaster strikes.<\/p>\n
Its doors immediately opened again after Tuesday\u2019s quake, which has claimed at least 36 lives and left thousands without power and running water, although services \u200bare \u200bslowly being restored.<\/p>\n
Clutching Ku and Sheri inside a tent \u200bset up at the hospital, Takaoka was among 26 evacuees and their \u2060pets sheltering there when Reuters visited earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Her dogs occasionally get excited when they encounter new \u201cfriends\u201d in the shelter\u2019s designated dog room, Takaoka said, but she does her best to calm them. \u200bShe hopes she can return home soon, but more than anything, she\u2019s just happy they are together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just like family to me. I\u2019d like to stay with them as much as possible,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KUMAMOTO \u2013 When a powerful earthquake jolted southern Japan this \u2060week, rattling homes and knocking out water and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43797,1886,8,33,2174],"class_list":["post-67415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-2026-kumamoto-earthquake","tag-animals","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-pets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}