Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the dog shogun

Tokugawa Tsunayoshi(徳川 綱吉, 1646-1709) was the 5th dictator(shogun) of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan. He is known for instituting animal protection laws.

He was well-educated, he removed premodern barbarous style and gave weight to a virtue. For these reasons, his early reign is said to be good.

In 1683, He was greatly annoyed with sterility and his only successor died early. he was told by a monk, that he had killed other's lives in hid previous life and he needed to save creatures' lives. Then he instituted some animal protection laws(生類憐れみの令, The law of pity for a living thing). He forbid cooking fish, chicken, and pork in prefectural governor's kitchens, made governors go out with a dog. He was a dog in sexagenary cycle so valued  killed people who killed a dog ,and he built "dogs house" to guard ownerless dogs. The dog houses cost too much money, the cost of construction was about 8677kg of silver and 1000000L of rice., and a dog was given 540ml of rice and 187g of miso and 180g of fish.  82 thousand dogs were kept at the most, Food that 100000 of human consume was given in a year. In 1695, Japan was damaged from cold weather, and crop was harvested only 30 percent than usual. According to the report, starvation victims was left on a load because people had no energy to hold a funeral, survivors also decided to suicide.

He had been said to be stupid for a long time. because he fed dogs and made people hunger. However, lately, he has been reconsidered to be a good leader.

At that time, barbarous people who have been affected by the Age of Civil Wars still existed. Tsunayoshi wanted to remove them, but "barbarous people" poked fun of his laws. For example, they send a dog fur to him and told him that "we didn't kill a dog, we just hunted their skin". His laws were very unique and they're laughed, so we had been told as if he were crazy. And more, Tsunayoshi might build the dogs house to maintain security. Many dogs had been homeless with knowing human flesh's taste, so people had been damaged from rabies. He took 40 thousand dogs in the house, if they had been still homeless when the cold weather, the damage would've spread more. Is the dogs house nowadays a health center? In past students were taught that Tsunayoshi had been a stupid, but now a history textbook draws Tsunayoshi as a virtuous and unlucky leader.

This temple was built by Tsunayoshi's will. It is said that common people started to raise a dog from that time on.