TBoard by muted labs
The Dog Who Waited at Shibuya — lesson illustration Foundation

ANIMALS

The Dog Who Waited at Shibuya

  • 8 spell
  • 7 known
  • 4 open
  • 1 math
Print / Download PDF
Play app demo
Lesson preview

THE WALK TO THE GATE

In the 1920s, in TOKYO, the capital city of Japan, a professor named Hidesaburo Ueno taught FARMING at a university a ten-minute walk from his HOUSE. A cream-colored puppy had come to him from a farm in the cold north, and he named him Hachiko. Each morning the dog walked with him to the university GATE and saw him off. Each evening he was at the gate again. Anyone passing saw a man and his dog and thought nothing of it.

  1. SPELL
    GATE
  2. SPELL
    HOUSE
  3. KNOWN
    What is the name of the capital city of Japan, where the professor and his dog lived?
    Answer: TOKYO
  4. KNOWN
    What did the professor teach at the university?
    Answer: FARMING
  5. OPEN
    What do you think the dog watched for while he waited near the gate?

THE SHAPE OF A DAY

Hachiko was an Akita, a large, thick-coated BREED of dog. Dogs learn the shape of a day by doing the same things over and over. An action done at the same hour again and again becomes a HABIT, something the body does without being told. The walk to the gate was part of Hachiko's ROUTINE, the fixed order his days followed. In May 1925 the professor died suddenly at work. The dog began turning up at SHIBUYA STATION, a busy train station nearby, and he kept turning up.

  1. SPELL
    STATION
  2. SPELL
    BREED
  3. KNOWN
    What is the word for an action done at the same hour again and again until the body does it without being told?
    Answer: HABIT
  4. KNOWN
    What is the word for the fixed order that Hachiko's days followed?
    Answer: ROUTINE
  5. KNOWN
    What is the name of the busy train station where the dog began turning up after the professor died?
    Answer: SHIBUYA
  6. OPEN
    Hachiko walked the same path at the same hour every day. What is something you do at the same time each day?

NINE MORE YEARS

Hachiko came back to Shibuya Station for nine more years, until he died in 1935. Station workers and food sellers fed him. A newspaper story in 1932 made him known across Japan, and in 1934 a schoolbook told children he had met his master's train there every evening, which was not quite true. Many people called this loyalty. Others said a well-fed dog has a PLAIN reason to return to the same corner. While he was still alive, a BRONZE STATUE of him was raised outside the station.

  1. SPELL
    BRONZE
  2. SPELL
    PLAIN
  3. KNOWN
    What do you call a figure of a person or an animal, shaped from metal or stone and set up in a public place?
    Answer: STATUE
  4. OPEN
    If you had been one of the food sellers near that station, what would you have offered the dog?
  5. MATH
    The first bronze statue of Hachiko went up in 1934. It was melted down during the war, and a new one was put up in 1948. How many years passed between the two statues?
    Answer: 14

A MEETING PLACE

Your own dog, if you have one, probably does a smaller version of this, waiting by the DOOR minutes before you get home. That is anticipation, expecting something before it arrives because a pattern has been learned. The bronze Hachiko still stands outside Shibuya Station, and people now use it as a LANDMARK, a well-known SPOT where friends agree to meet. Crowds pass it every day, at the same place where the dog once waited by himself.

  1. SPELL
    SPOT
  2. SPELL
    DOOR
  3. KNOWN
    What is the word for a famous place in a city that everyone knows and can find, like the bronze dog outside Shibuya Station?
    Answer: LANDMARK
  4. OPEN
    Which place near you would be a good one for friends to agree to meet?

Enjoy the lesson? Get the TBoard app

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play
Sources consulted for the facts in this lesson