Dogs in kimonos: Japan reinvents a children’s holiday for pets

Tokyo: The worshippers, dressed in kimonos and bespoke belts, took their places inside a sacred Shinto shrine. One by one, they received blessings from a priest and listened obediently to ancient chants. Then they began to bark.

It was a Friday morning at the Ichigaya Kamegaoka shrine in Tokyo, and a parade of poodles, Pomeranians, Chihuahuas and bichons frises — with names like Latte, Chip and Potapotayaki — was celebrating a children’s festival known as Shichi-Go-San, or 7-5-3, alongside their owners.

“Be joyful with your owners,” the shrine’s chief priest, Kenji Kaji, said during the ceremony. “Every day and for a long time to come.”

For centuries, 7-5-3, which in modern times is celebrated throughout the fall, has been a rite of passage for Japanese children reaching the ages of 7, 5 and 3, considered milestones in Japan. Now the festival is getting a pet-friendly revamp, with dozens of shrines across Japan offering blessings for four-legged companions, and owners splurging on wigs, amulets and tailor-made jackets.

The popularity of 7-5-3 reflects Japan’s booming pet industry; the pet-product market has grown by about one-fifth since 2019, to about $12 billion, according to some estimates. It also a sign of Japan’s rapidly changing demographics. The country has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and the number of children has reached a record low of 13.6 million.

“People have shifted from having children to having pets,” said Miki Toguchi, 51, who visited the Ichigaya Kamegaoka shrine recently with Kotora, her 5-year-old miniature schnauzer. “I don’t have children, but I have a dog.”

The shrine now welcomes more than 350 pets for 7-5-3 each fall, compared with about 50 children. Shinto is a faith that worships spirits that are found in all objects, living and inanimate.

Kumiko Kasai, 43, a professional in Tokyo, visited on a recent morning with her golden-brown dog, Liz, a Pomeranian-poodle mix, who recently turned 3. Kasai and her husband, who opted not to have children, spent months planning the ceremony and paid about $200 for a kimono with a golden obi sash for Liz.

“I had great memories of 7-5-3, and I wanted to do the same for my dog,” Kasai said. “The lives of dogs are not long. And she’s a part of our family.”

The festival dates to the Heian period of Japanese history, from 794 to 1185. It was originally meant as a way for noble families to mark milestone birthdays for their offspring, at a time when the mortality rate among children was high.

The holiday is still widely celebrated by Japanese parents, who flock to shrines to show gratitude to the gods for protecting their children, and to pray for long, healthy lives.

There are different rituals for each age. Three-year-old boys and girls are recognised for growing their hair out for the first time. (In ancient Japan, their heads were typically kept shaved until that age.) Five-year-old boys are celebrated for dressing in a haori jacket and hakama, traditional pants once worn by samurai. Seven-year-old girls are honored for wearing an obi over a kimono. Children feast on chitose ame, or thousand-year candy, a long pink-and-white candy that symbolises longevity.

The decline in the number of children taking part in the ceremony has hurt Shinto shrines across Japan. Pets provide a replacement revenue stream and a way for shrines to stay relevant with younger generations.

Pet-oriented 7-5-3 services have taken off in recent years, with shrines promising to protect pets against accidents and disease.

“Pray for your pet!” said a flyer advertising a daylong service in the western prefecture of Fukuoka. “Pray for growth!”

At the Ichigaya Kamegaoka shrine, Kaji charges 5,000 yen (about $32) to perform the pet ceremony — the same fee as for children.

The shrine offers a purification ritual, in which a priest waves a wooden wand and sprinkles scraps of white paper over pets as a blessing. After the ceremony, pet owners write prayers on wooden amulets that are hung near the entrance. Many people shuttle their dogs to and from the shrine in strollers.

Maki Narita wrote a blessing for Salt, her 5-year-old Pomeranian, who was dressed in a wig and kimono: “May he have a healthy, peaceful and happy dog life.”

Then Narita and her friends held a photo shoot with their pets on a red mat.

“It’s so important to celebrate, in the same way it is for a human child,” she said. “I’d like to do the same thing to him as I did for my daughter. He is my child.”

Kaji, the priest, has modified prayers so they are relevant to pets; he asks the gods to protect them from getting hit by cars.

He also makes a point of warning owners about the loud sound of the taiko, a traditional Japanese drum. He is occasionally bitten by furry visitors, but he said it was worth the trouble.

“The best thing is for both owners and pets to live happily,” he said. “The worst thing would be if both Shintoism and shrines became outdated.”