Sherrill, Martha. Dog Man: An Uncomon Life on a Faraway. Mountain. Penguin Press, 2008.During WWII, the Japanese were so desperate, they began slaughtering their dogs for meat and pelts to line soldiers' coats. By the end of the war only sixteen Akitas, the magnificent national dogs of Japan, existed.
At the start of the war, Morie Sawataishi had never even been interested in dogs, but as the war dragged on and it became illegal to own a dog, his desire for them increased. When he first brought home an Akita puppy acquired on the black market, his wife Kitako was livid. Morie was forced to hide it in a shed. But as these noble dogs began to flourish under his care, Kitako came around to Morie's way of thinking. Woven together by their desire to live a traditional Japanese lifestyle, Morie and Kitako, now in their nineties, live in the remote mountain country of Japan breeding and raising champion Akitas. Morie is now credited with almost single-handedly saving the breed from extinction and increasing its popularity throughout the world.
Anyone interested in animals will enjoy this book. There are chapters dedicated to several of Morie's individual dogs and the book is full of black & white photos of Morie, Kitako, their dogs and their natural lifestyle. Sherrill capably views her subjects through an unsentimental lens, but her portrait is nonetheless moving and evocative.
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