Google put cameras on a few Akita Dogs in Akita Province, Japan, to get shots of their street view from an adorable and unique angle. From The Verge:
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.
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.
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.