Japan festival blesses pets in rite usually for children

Chanting and swishing a wooden wand, a Japanese priest on Saturday blessed a cat, a shiba inu and several Yorkshire terriers at a shrine in Tokyo, in a rite usually reserved for children.

The annual “Shichi-Go-San” festival, which literally means “Seven-Five-Three,” traditionally allows families to celebrate the growth of their children at those ages, but with Japan’s population in decline, more and more worshippers are bringing beloved animals to the event instead.

“I came here to pray for my pet’s healthy growth and well-being,” doctor Shoko Kodama said at the Ichigaya Kamegaoka Hachimangu, a Shinto shrine in the capital.

A woman holds her cat in a kimono at Ichigaya Kamegaoka Hachimangu Shrine in Tokyo on Saturday.

Photo: AF

She said she had spent two months hand-crafting a bespoke, bright-red kimono for her cat, a five-year-old British shorthair named Amber.

“This little one is like my child,” she said. “Just having her around makes all the unpleasant things in life melt away.”

Outside the shrine, other pet owners dressed their fluffy companions in colorful kimonos and posed them for photos to mark the special occasion. They then brought them into the inner sanctuary, where the priest, Kenji Kaji, performed a purification rite with a wand decorated with white paper streamers.

The role of pets in people’s lives had shifted as “the family structure has changed” in Japan, which is grappling with an aging population and a low birthrate, he said.

“I think the number of instances where people who don’t have children, or have finished raising them, and welcome a dog or cat as a member of the family has been increasing,” Kaji said.

His shrine has been accepting about 400 families for each festival since the early 2000s, due to demand from pet owners.

Miyu Shiro, who owns two Yorkshire terriers, said marking the event with her dogs “feels perfectly natural.”

“They’re part of our family,” she said, as she snapped photos of her pups, neatly combed and wearing flower-shaped hair clips.

Data in June showed that Japan’s fertility rate fell again last year to a record low, underscoring the demographic crisis gnawing at the world’s fourth-largest economy.

With a median age of 49.9 years, Japan also has the second-oldest population in the world after Monaco, the World Bank said.

Koichi Ohara who attended the festival with his wife and friends, said his three Chihuahuas gave him “unconditional love.”

“They’re more affectionate than human children. They listen to what we say, too,” he said, adding that he had three kids. “Just like us humans, I hope they can live long and in peace.”