History of Japan’s Hunting Dogs, Part 4

Postwar Hunting Dogs — At the Intersection of Institutions, Economy, Training, and Folklore

Abstract

This article traces the postwar revival of hunting dogs in Japan from four perspectives: (1) the institutional context (firearms, hunting, public hygiene) from the Occupation through the high-growth years; (2)organizational reconstruction centered on the All-Japan Hunters’ Association (hereafter AJHA)—registries, breeding, trials, and evaluation; (3) economic incentives and internationalization (import of foundation stock and export orientation); and (4) pest management and folkloric continuities in local communities (mountain-deity beliefs, funerary rites, gender). Wartime depletion (starvation, fur requisitions, kill-orders) devastated bird-dog stocks, yet firearm hunting resumed under conditions soon after the war; the bottleneck lay not in guns but in the shortage of dogs. The postwar phase is therefore also a history of reorganizing the “economy around dogs”—how this living capital was reproduced, circulated, and re-evaluated.

1. Introduction: What Was Lost with Defeat—and What Endured

Occupation authorities enforced thorough disarmament, but hunting firearms were not categorically banned: limited use was permitted for food supplementation, recreation, and wildlife control. By contrast, wartime fur controls, animal donation campaigns, and feed shortages caused a severe break in hunting-dog populations. Primary accounts stressing that the greatest postwar obstacle for hunters was dogs rather than guns are telling. Thus, the “resumption” of postwar hunting meant rebuilding the canine resource basein tandem with reorganization of firearm licensing.

2. From Occupation to Peace: Rebooting the Institutional Environment

2.1 Frameworks for Firearms, Hunting, and Public Hygiene

• Firearms: Under the Occupation, hunting guns were administered by the police through a permit system. Subsequent reinforcement under the Firearm and Sword Control Act redefined firearms as highly regulated tools requiring specialized competence.

• Hunting regime: Building on earlier legacies of wildlife protection and closed seasons, the postwar period reorganized permits, seasons, zones, and methods. Hunting acquired a triple character: leisure, wildlife management, and mitigation of agricultural/forestry damage.

• Public hygiene: The Rabies Prevention Act (1950) standardized dog registration and control. Hunting dogs were incorporated into new norms of sanitation (vaccination, prevention of straying).

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2.2 Organizations (AJHA) and Communities Return

From the immediate post-defeat period, associations revived their journals, reconstituted membership, and rebuilt hunting-dog divisions. Key tasks were: (a) ascertaining extant stock (registry, location, sex, age); (b) breeding policy (pairings to complement strengths and weaknesses); (c) evaluation systems (bench shows + trials = dual assessment of conformation × performance); and (d) incentive schemes (public pricing of prizewinners and prize money for breeders/trainers).Point: Postwar dog reconstruction foregrounded economic incentives rather than moral suasion, sustaining supply by designing an environment in which high quality commanded high prices.

3. Reproducing the Hunting-Dog Resource: Registries, Evaluation, Trials

3.1 Registries and “Making Things Visible”

Early postwar estimates spoke of roughly a thousand purebred Setters and Pointers remaining—figures that also imply unorganized ownership and loss of wartime records. The dog division restored pedigree continuity by overhauling the registry, which served as:

• a ledger of genetic resources (avoiding inbreeding; fixing desirable traits); and

• a platform for assetizing evaluation (show/trial results translating into price),

i.e., a pedigree × market infrastructure.

3.2 “Bench Shows + Field Trials”: Dual Assessment of Form and Function

• Bench shows: Judged aesthetics and soundness against morphological standards, securing foundational breeding stock (health, structure, gait).

• Field trials: Verified practical hunting ability—search, point, hold/steadiness, steadiness to flush and shot, marking, retrieve, and handover.

  
  

Linking the two curbed both cosmetic selection that ignores field ability and performance-only selection that degrades constitution.

3.3 Skeleton of Postwar “Standard” Training

• Behavior chain: search → point → hold → handler-authorized flush → steadiness to shot → marking → retrieve → handover

• Stimulus control: a triad of whistle, hand signals, and voice

• Generalization/discrimination: ground cover (susuki, kaya, brush), wind, target species (pheasant, copper pheasant, ducks)

• Ethics: restraint in punishment, reinforcer design, avoidance of overload

With imported literature and foreign bloodlines, techniques standardized rapidly.

4. Economic Incentives and Internationalization: Price, Import, Export

4.1 Why “Expensive” Was Necessary

The postwar argument was blunt: superior hunting dogs should not be cheap. Without cost recovery for breeders and trainers, investment stalls. Hence:

• Official price evaluation and publication for prizewinning dogs

• Prizes/subsidies for breeders and trainers

• Unified data integrating registries and results

Such price transparency advanced, and market transparency raised resource quality.

4.2 Foundation-Stock Imports and Outcrossing After Peace

With trade restored, imports of elite foundation stock (British/American Pointers and Setters, etc.) enabled outcrossing to improve nose, stamina, recovery, and nerve strength. Scarce domestic genetics were supplemented with imported blood while pursuing line maintenance and improvement. Surpluses opened prospects for exports to neighboring regions, and international benchmarks refined domestic evaluation standards.

5. Changing Social Perceptions: The “Othering” of Guns and the Place of Dogs

5.1 The Firearm and Sword Control Act and the Social Meaning of Guns

From a society where “conscripts handled guns,” postwar Japan shifted to strict permitting, storage, and skill requirements. Guns became exceptional, tightly managed tools, and urban opinion often otheredhunting. As a “prelude” to firearms, hunting dogs had to continually demonstrate social legitimacy—training, hygiene, prevention of straying—spurring AJHA’s self-discipline and the standardization of techniques and ethics.

5.2 Pest Management and Local Communities

Rapid growth transformed satoyama landscapes, destabilizing human–wildlife boundaries. Deer, boar, and macaque control became essential, preserving roles not only for bird dogs (Pointers/Setters) but also for big-game dogs (native Japanese, crosses, hounds). Hunting dogs were redefined not merely as hobby toolsbut as labor with regional public value (mitigating agricultural/forestry loss) and as institutional actorscapable of administrative collaboration (deployment requests, reporting, safety management).

6. Folklore, Religion, and Gender: The Mountain Deity and Women Hunters

6.1 Mountain-God Beliefs, Kōzaki-sama, and Funerary Rites

Beliefs in the mountain deity persisted: safety prayers/opening and closing rites for the season; narratives casting hunting dogs as the deity’s messengers. Funerary rites for dogs (burial, offerings, local variants such as “returning only the head to the mountains”) underpinned an ethic that refused to treat dogs as mere tools, shaping handling and training. The history of hunting dogs is a genealogy not only of bloodlines and trials but also of narratives and rites.

6.2 Inu-yama, Ingari: Non-firearm Drive Hunts and Women Hunters

In some regions even after modernization, dogs held boar while humans finished with blades or staves. Records note women hunters’ participation and role division within packs of roughly ten dogs (search, flush, hold, contain), transmitted alongside embodied human techniques. Here dogs were not modern competitive “units” but extensions of the community’s body—an important fragment that adds depth to postwar dog history from a gender perspective.

7. A Logical Model of Postwar Reconstruction (Summary)

7.1 Supply Side (Breeding/Training)

• Registry development (management of genetic resources)

• Dual evaluation (conformation × work)

• Price transparency (prizes signal value)

• Prizes/subsidies (raise certainty of investment recovery)

• Importing blood (outcrossing for trait improvement)

7.2 Demand Side (Society/Administration)

• Hunting = leisure + management + regional public value

• Commissioned/collaborative pest control (KPIs: deployments / damage reduction)

• Sanitation/safety norms (registration, vaccination, prevention of straying)

• Accountability (public information to address urban othering)

7.3 Cultural Side (Folklore/Ethics)

• Mountain-deity rites (dogs as messengers)

• Women hunter cases (community transmission of skills)

• Animal-welfare awareness (restraint in punishment; reward-centered training)

Bundled together, these show how postwar hunting dogs were redefined from mere “tools” into living technologies embedded in institutions.

8. Future Research Agenda

1. Quantifying registries and trial records: digitize prize histories, prices, and pedigrees (postwar–late Shōwa) to test market–trait correlations.

2. Regional pest-management histories: by prefecture, trace deer/boar/macaque damage and dog deployment.

3. Gender history: oral histories of women hunters/trainers; reconstruction of pack organization (role division).

4. Comparative history: reception/transformation of European–North American field-trial systems and incentive schemes.

5. Ethics and welfare: shifts in training (punishment → reward-centered) and social acceptability.

Appendix A: Postwar Timeline of Dogs and Institutions (Highlights)

• 1945–46 — Limited permission for firearm hunting under Occupation; associations return; journals resume.

• 1947–50 — Launch of registries and stock surveys; institutionalization of rabies control.

• 1950s — Reorganization of trials and shows; proposals to introduce price evaluation and incentives.

• After Peace — Import of foundation stock improves lines; standardization of training.

• High-Growth Era — Full-scale pest control (deer/boar/macaques); transformation of satoyamastructure.

• Thereafter — An era of urban othering and accountability (disclosure, safety management).

Conclusion

Postwar Japan rewired the severed supply chains of genetics and skill through multiple circuits: (1) registries, evaluation, trials; (2) pricing and incentives; (3) imported blood and standardized training knowledge; (4) linkage to regional public purposes (pest management); and (5) reinterpretation of folkloric ethics. In a society where firearms became tightly managed exceptions, hunting dogs endured as living technologies admitted under a social contract—evidence of postwar Japan’s resilient adaptation acrossinstitutions, economy, technique, and culture.