World Dog Alliance has been building momentum to garner support from former Prime Minister Abe, aiming to push forward a bill in the National Diet outlawing dog and cat meat consumption. Unfortunately, even though we have met significant progress, he announced in late August that he was resigning as prime minister because of ill health.

Scheduled to take place on 16 September 2020, Yoshihide Suga will be the first new prime minister of the Reiwa era. WDA has high hope for him to extend Abe’s efforts saving dogs and cats from the cruelty of their meat trade.

On 13 March 2019, before the start of the Budget Committee, Congressman Oshima handed a letter from Congressman Jeff Denham, WDA’s legislative partner who successfully promoted the U.S. Congress to ban dog meat, to Prime Minister Abe. The letter clearly called on Japan to follow the pace of the United States as soon as possible and legislate to ban dog meat as soon as possible.

On 7 November 7 2018, Congressman Oshima on behalf of WDA urged PM Abe to ban dog meat consumption in Japan.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan, Japan has imported 453 tons of dog meat in the past ten years, which is equivalent to 100,000 dogs being eaten. WDA sent an investigator there in September 2018. There are currently more than 100 restaurants and frozen meat shops selling dog meat in Osaka, Kansai, Kobe and the capital Tokyo. The total number is estimated to exceed 100, and the number has been increasing in recent years.