Does anyone have an experience getting a service dog (not ESA) in Japan?
If so, I’d love to hear about the process
I am disabled and wanted to look into getting a service dog.
I get along fine without a service animal, so if it’s impossible to do without going back to my home country for an extended period of time then it wont be worth it for me.
But if there’s a way to get a service animal in Japan as a resident it would improve my quality of living and safety quite a bit.
4 comments
I’d think this is something your local health center 保健所 can / would help you with.
What is the type of service animal? Guide dogs are reasonably hard to get here and there are many less in training than in countries like the USA, UK and Australia. You’re welcome to send me a message if it’s anything blindness related
Not sure how easy it is to get a service dog here. But there may be info available here. https://s-dog.jp/english
Just be aware that there are a lot less laws that what you may be familiar with if you are from other countries for instance America with their ADA laws that are uber strict when it comes to protecting service animals.
Unlike said countries, privately trained dogs do not count in Japan. I would talk to your doctor to prescribe you a service dog essentially. I think there’s like only 100 or so registered service dogs in Japan so you’d probably be in for a wait. So unless you desperately need I would probably reserve that dog for someone who actually needs one to navigate their daily life as you mention you get along fine without one – but there’s many people out there who don’t.
Even if you go overseas to get a service dog, it’ll effectively not be classified as a service dog in Japan unless it went through very specific training
Also to note that Japan is very behind on service dog laws. Yes they are allowed in stores/restaurants. But again the amount of registered dogs is so minuscule (and they do need to be registered) that it’s fairly common for their users to be turned away from establishments that simply just do not understand and big bad ADA isn’t around to scare them.
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/policy/care-welfare/welfare-disabilities/dl/150407-01.pdf