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Take a tour of Akita with two floofy boys on Google Street View

Take a tour of Akita with two floofy boys on Google Street View

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All tours should be like this

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The very best way to get directions is to have a very loyal dog leading you, and now thanks to a partnership between Odate city in Japan and Google, parts of the city can be toured from the viewpoint of a very fluffy Akita.

Odate is part of the Akita prefecture, the birthplace of Akita dogs. The dogs are an important part of the city’s history — Shibuya station even has a bronze statue of Hachiko, an Akita famous for his loyalty to his owner (he continued to wait for him at the train station nine years after his death). To honor the breed’s ties to the city and give everyone a hardy dose of cute, two working Akita dogs named Ako and Asuka were brought in to capture pieces of the city from their point of view.

Akita dog tour in Google Maps
Image: Google Maps

With cameras attached to dog-friendly harnesses, the two Akitas traversed a snowy mountain trail, Odate’s open-air hot spring foot bath, Roken (“Old Dog”) Shrine, the statue of Hachiko, and naturally, the Akita Dog Museum. Each glimpse on Google Maps not only gives you a dog’s-eye view of the locations, but since the cameras are affixed to the Akitas’ backs, frames filled with their adorable poofy heads. Turn around and you’ll see their floofy tails. These are very good boys.

Akitas in Japan tour in Google Maps
Image: Google

If this looks familiar, you may recall that another dog accidentally became a tour guide on street view last year, when it crashed a series of shots on Kakao’s Daum map in South Korea. Odate’s might be on purpose and to aid in tourism, but I like to think this is the beginning of a trend. More doggo guides, please.