The National Mutual Insurance Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives (Zenkyoren) will provide assistance for training dogs to help people with disabilities, federation officials said Tuesday.
The move is the first large project to support the training of service dogs in Japan. Unlike guide dogs for the blind, there are only 37 certified helper dogs in the country, even though legislation promoting their training took effect last October.
There are about 15,000 disabled people in Japan in need of helper dogs, many of them wheelchair-bound due to spinal cord injuries suffered in traffic accidents.