The central government is rallying behind local governments in turning facilities where abandoned dogs and cats are euthanized into shelters where the animals can find new owners.
The Animal Protection Guidance Center in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, a city with many warehouses and plants, is a forerunner of such shelters. The dogs are let out in a garden where center employees take them for walks. Inside are ventilated, temperature-controlled "private rooms."
"I think we can wipe away the old prisonlike image," said Tetsuji Kusa, a section chief at the city's health center who helped from the designing stage to turn the pound into a shelter.