Doomed to Fail - Ep 179: A Friend Till The End & Beyond - Hachikō

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Today, we learn the adorable story of the Huskie Hachikō, who waited at the train station for his owner for years after his death. Hachikō isn't the only dog who remained loyal to his owner until his own death. There's obviously Fry's dog in Futurama & many other real-life examples. Taylor wants to remind you that she isn't anti-dog. She just doesn't want one, and she believes that there are many others who feel the same, but they are afraid to speak out. It's ok, you are safe here.  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And we are recording. Hi, Taylor. How are you? Good. How are you? Doing pretty well. Pretty well. I became aware during your episode this week that I researched.

well i reached a great topic i really i really actually enjoyed this one but it wasn't when i told people what i do because i got distracted and forgot and the world the world just awaits your you'll get there i know i disappointed the fans uh next week we'll get there fans will riot but we'll figure it out figure it out uh do you want to go ahead and introduce us yeah hi everyone welcome to doomed to fail we bring you history as most notorious disasters failures interesting stories twice a week every week and i'm taylor joined by farce who is not telling a woman's history month story i am not because of these aforementioned distraction instead my story is going to actually start off a little different than how we usually do these things i'm going to start off with a cultural

reference that gq cosmopolitan and then a bunch of random british sites listed as the saddest tv show episode in history. Oh, the end of mesh. No. Do you watch Futurama or have you? Oh, yes, with the dog. Okay. Yeah.

So I'm going to be talking, I'm going to go into a brief little precursor here. So on episode four of season seven of Futurama, they have this episode that's called Jurassic Bark. And I'm just going to, this is for the audience now that I know that you know it. If you're unfamiliar with the background plotline, a Futurama series. This is about this hapless guy named Frye, who's a pizza delivery boy in the year

2000. But on New Year's Eve, he is delivering pizzas to some lab when he accidentally falls into a machine that freezes him and he reawakens in the year 29, 2999. And then he finds his elderly great grandson is his living and he starts working from doing deliveries. That's the general problem. I've watched the whole thing like several times. Amazing. It's a great show. I would argue it's better than The Simpsons, but I think that the world's right to us and throw potatoes at us. No, I agree with you. So they get into all kinds of fun and interesting scenarios. And actually, you know what?

I think it's the same guy who made The Simpsons did Futurama as well. It definitely is. Yeah, it's not groaning. Got it. So the episode Jurassic Park was kind of like a huge level up in terms of like how emotionally attached we were to these characters, I think. Oh my God. I know. So in this episode, Frye goes to a modern museum in the year 2999,

and he finds that his dog from the year 2000, Seymour, has been fossilized and is now on display. He is able to obtain the fossilized remains. He has his protests outside when he won't stop dancing, if we remember. And given modern technology, it was possible to create a clone of Seymour and include his memories. Along the process, Fry's close his friend, this robot named Bender, was upset and jealous of Seymour and tries to destroy the remains before he can be cloned. In the process of destroying the remains, Bender almost destroys himself, showing how much of love and affection he has towards his buddy and realized that what he did was painful to him.

And so he went through all of this. But they get the remains back and they decide they're going to continue on with the cloning of Seymour. And it was during the process of trying to clone him that it has learned that Seymour lived to be 15 years old, which is 12 years longer than when Frye was originally frozen. So he had him for three years, got frozen, and he lived another 12 years. And Fry's assumption there was he had 13 great years of somebody who took care of him, who loved him, who was there for him.

Let's not bring him back because he had a full, rich life after I was gone. So he kisses the remains, the fossilized remains, and puts him on the shelf. and then we go back in time the scene goes back in time to when fry was originally frozen and it shows every day day and day out year after year hot cold raining snowing seymour sitting outside the pizzeria fry worked at waiting for him to come back before the scene ends with seymour laying down and closing his eyes for the final time so sad i actually watched it again, Taylor, I legitimately got, like, chiri-eyed. It is very sad.

It's very, very sad. But what's incredible about this is it's a true story. I'm going to tell you about Hachie. So I'm going to talk about Hachie, but I'm also going to talk about several others. We make fun of my mom all the time because she loves movie Hachie. And we're like, a really mom, like Hachie. Did you know that's a real story, right? Yeah, I know.

Okay. Be more surprised, Taylor. Damn. All right, whatever. Um, no, no, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I mean, it's a lovely story. You tell me about it. I'm going to tell you about it. There's no choice because I have nothing else record, uh, no other research. You didn't hear one way or the other. I will watch more feature on my later today. I'm watching it again. I think I'm in the middle of like season three or something.

So throughout history, there have been a number of dogs who have lost their owners and never forgotten them. And as Taylor spoiled it, I'm going to be talking about this beautiful Akita name. It's actually Hachiko. the movie is right richard gear isn't in japan i'm going to talk about richard gear too stepping everywhere all over all at once okay

so akitos are a japanese breed protection dog and they come in all kinds of different colors i think that most of when they think of akitos like if you picture like what an eskimo dog is that's basically an akita in the case they're like bright blue eyes yeah uh so that's i think you're thinking about a

Husky. Pretty sure. I'm pretty sure you're thinking about the husky. Huskies and Akutas are different. Hachko was a white Akita, so he just looked like a snowball. He was born on November 10th, 1923,

in Akita Prefecture, Japan, which I never knew existed, which is obviously what the dog's name comes from. Cute. And we're going to jump timelines onto a parallel timeline. We also have a gentleman named

He does suburb. Bari Ino, who I will refer from here on out by his last name, Ino, because it is tremendously easier than his first name to pronounce. Yes. Eno was a professor of agricultural engineering at Imperial University, which is present-day Tokyo University. This story has multiple levels to it, and I'm going to connect the dots at the end, but it's also worth noting that Eno had a partner named Yako Sakano, but they were never

formally together together, and as a result of what ended up happening, they never formally married and were as a result never buried together after their deaths but i'm going to get that in a second i'm going to tie all the loose ends together which i bet you didn't know in your richard gear movie taylor i did not see hachi whatever to be clear i this is again not to sound heartless i'm a good person to talk about this with because like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna see a movie about a dog so for those i don't know taylor like fundamentally hates dogs i don't hate them i just like don't don't want one and I don't I don't the hype is it's just they're not for me which is fine I like like a lot of other things but I don't know I don't I feel like there's a lot of people like this and I just feel like we are told to hide in society and we don't have to we can say things like do you feel persecuted in society because you don't like dogs yeah I feel persecuted because like I don't think you should have a dog in the office okay I think we need to continue or at least maybe can start a ramping out the persecution then I think we'll and we can't say it,

but then we have to, like, sit around and I would deal with your fucking dog in the office. Like, yeah, something cute and adorable that just, like, likes you. No, I don't want to, you. Not me. And I just, I don't think I'm alone. And I think that, I think that there's a lot of us

and I think that we're afraid to talk. And we're afraid to come out of the closet. I don't think there are a lot of you. And I think that there are. I think there are a lot of people. And they're who are like, I'm not really a dog fan. I don't want your dog in my office.

But they're afraid to say it because you're not allowed to. All right, write to us to do many fell pot at g-wil.com. If you're part of this resistance that Taylor is talking about, you will not win, but you can still write in. Yeah, no, but, I mean, I'm not alone. I know I'm not alone. I don't wish any ill will towards dogs. I just, like, don't want one around me while I'm working.

Okay, we're going to get back to the story. Okay. So, back on to the main quest. In 1924, Eno acquired Hachiko is his pet and establish a reason. routine with him. Every day, Eno would go to the train station and travel the six miles or so to the university for work. And then every evening, he would come back on the same train. And the routine was for Hachigo to meet him at the train station. So this was a routine until May 21st, 2020, I wrote 2025. I think it was 2019.23. A while, several years. Yes. It's been a

wow it's been over a hundred years no no of their routine several years of routine yes yes yes um so that was routine until may 21st 1923 when ena would unfortunately suffer a cerebral hemorrhage in the middle of a class lecture and die which is also a death from the monkey which we discussed earlier oh you just spoiled that you said i'm not going to spoil it and then you spoil that that's weird so it's only kind of a spoil because when you see it happening you're going to be like what is going on like nothing making sense. It's just like a horror movie thing. And then they tell you it was a screwball hemorrhage.

You're like, okay, I don't think that's how it happens. I'm not a doctor, but I have to say it was way too played up. But anyways, so Hachko obviously would not know that his master died of a cerebral hemorrhage. And so he maintained the routine. One day, one of Eno's students, a guy named Hiro Kichi, noticed Hachiko at the station and followed him to the gardener's house who was who used to work for Eno and who was the guy who was taking care of Hachiko and this guy spoke to

the gardener and learned what happened between Eno and Hachiko's daily routine. Hachiko, sorry, Hirokachi, it's not my fault. Developed his expertise in Akitas and will publish the definitive guide on the Akita breed and the result

of his research, it was determined that Hachiko was only one of 30 pure breed Akitas in existence. Yeah. So given Hachiko's rarity in Hiro Kichi's interest in the breed, he made a point to keep tabs on the dog.

And that's when he noticed that this whole routine Hachiko had developed wasn't some weird fluke thing. It was in every single day at the exact same time. He would head over to the train station. He would sit and wait for the exact bright train that Eno was supposed to be on. And then when Eno wouldn't show up,

you just get up and walk home on his own. I think this is a plus for En for, you know, not taking his dog to work. Keep going to win this. I refuse to let you win. In 1932, Hirokiji published an article highlighting Hachiko's loyalty, which made the dog a household name in Japan. His display of loyalty became a huge cultural touchstone where parents were teaching their

kids about the dog. Stories about him were being written, artwork was being created depending him, and so were sculptures. Cute. On March 8th, 1935 at age 11, Huchko, after nine years, nine months, and 15 days arriving and leaving alone from that train station, was found dead on the street between the station in his home,

having died of cancer and heartworms. Did he even go on the weekends? I don't know. That's a good question. That's very sweet. What a good boy. He's a very, very good boy. He was cremated and his ashes were buried next to his owner.

Eno and this is where I'm going to weave some stories together about Eno's partner okay? So Yako from earlier, the partner, she would go on to actually live to age 76. She passed away in 1961.

Like I said due to cultural reasons and I think like piousness and propriety or something, she was not buried with Eno. Because they weren't together together. They were married. The cultural relevance of Hachko obviously meant there was

all this interest in his owner. And so in 2013, professors at Tokyo University, who were studying Eno in his life, found indications that Yako wait, did I mispronounce? Yeah, Yako had wished to be buried with Eno, having

never taken another partner or spouse in the 36 years after Eno's death. So with consent from both living members of the families, her remains were transferred from their initial resting place to be buried with Eno and Hachiko. Aw, that's great.

Yeah. So his dog, like, brought this, like, these corpses together, which is, like, the sweetest thing a dog can do. Yeah. It's, like, fetching bones, but, like, in real life. It is. It is a very long game for catching. It's a very, very long game.

Since Hachigo's death, again, his display of loyalty has been revered in ceremonies. There's one that happens on the day of his death, March 8th of the train station, where the community kind of comes together with their pets, they bring their dogs and show love and support for this display of loyalty

it's been part of art and media like I mentioned the Futurama episode from before and also the movie you mentioned Hachia dog sale with our our pal Richard gear interestingly enough there's two sculptures of him one a bronze one at the actual train station where you would go

the entrance was actually named after Hachigo now and because we don't know what reality and fiction are. There's one outside the train station used in the Richard Gear movie as well. Is that America? Yeah, in America. It reminds me of Sylvester Stallone's like Bronx. It's like he wasn't real. Like do we know that he doesn't matter. This doesn't matter. That's cute. And like I mentioned, this wasn't a

unique case. There's a story of a Bobby, the Sky Terrier, whose owner died at 1858. So he went to his grave every day for 14 years. I'm going to see him again. There's another story that was really, really sad. It was a dog named Kostya. It was a Russian dog and the dog

itself was a German shepherd who was writing in a car with his owner which was a young girl and her father when they got to a really bad accident

they killed everyone but the dog but then for the next seven years this thing would just like go to the site of the car crash. That's awful.

Because you got to imagine that it's probably going there because the smell is just blood and of his own you know what I mean? Also like

I don't understand don't understand I know that's the reason why it's sad you know like they just are like why wouldn't why wouldn't they come home you know and they don't give up which is very which is like the loyalty part and the sweet part that like you know

maybe after a while you'd be like okay well this isn't coming isn't happening but they kept doing it which is very sweet yeah so whenever so my mom told me forever ago that whenever I used to do a thing when I would be in Dallas my parents where if I was going to go somewhere

and they were going to watch Luna I would just like leave when she was distracted, you know, like, she'd be out playing fetched with them or something. I just, like, get in the car and leave because I didn't want to, like, you know, her to, like, be freaked down or anything. And my mom was like, when you do that, she doesn't know you're gone. And so all she does is just look for you. Yeah, she just works herself up looking for you and then starts panicking when she can't find you. And then just trying to go a new place to look for you.

And so from now on, every time I leave, I have to, like, say goodbye to her. So she knows, like, this is, I'm coming back. Like, but then what if I die? And then all, oh, my, that would be so. Yeah. And then that would definitely ruin her life. It would ruin her life. I'm definitely not going to put her in your ward.

I mean, don't. I mean, if you did, I would take care of her. But like, I know you would. But I wouldn't, but no, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. Learning boundaries. Learning boundaries today.

Yeah. There was something, oh, God, there was like a, something from 30 Rock that was on, just a clip and like you watch you do our sturdy rock no not consistently i know enough i know enough like the one that one page he was like he was like he goes tracy like to like Tracy he was like you take care of my birds when i die and Tracy said I have a lot of my plate right now

every time I say it makes me laugh so yes I have a lot of my plate right now that is very very fair and understandable but yeah there was one other story that I was going to it was just one of these like sidebar ones it's a dog in spain i think it was um the dog was named conello and it used to walk with its owner to the hospital every single day for dialysis but when the owner died the dog just sat outside the hospital waiting from him to come out for 12 years it's like really sad so cool and they do stuff like find cancer and people oh yeah yeah you do all

kind of stuff down all that i'll let us interesting they're like oh yeah my dog was like sitting on my face really weirdly for a day and then i went to the doctor and i have tongue cancer or something you know you're like what so cool they knew that i know i know They should be doctors. They should go medical school. That would be so cute. If they made little doctor white coats for dogs, little lab coats in a stethoscope. Yeah, that's my story for today.

So no women serial killers, unfortunately. But I will prepare women's serial killers for next week. That's cool. No, that was cool. I do like that story. It's sweet. It is very cute and lovely. So your mom, what do you say?

your mom's obsessed with a movie or something? No, she just watches it. And we're like, when we're like, are making it from my mom and we're like, oh, mom, da-da-da-da-da. We're like, oh, wow, what do you want to do, watch Hatchie? You know, like, it's like a joke.

She just watches it over and over again. She just loves it. No, she doesn't really do that. It's like Jurassic Park for me. That's just like our example of like something that my mom would do. But like she doesn't necessarily does that. You know, it's like, it's our making fun of her thing.

It's all out of love. Love it. Love it. Tell me in two minutes. I'm almost done. Okay. and the lion is going to eat different animals and then we're going to talk about the bite pressure.

I don't really know how we're going to do it, but she's been working on it for a very long time. Sorry, so you're just talking about bite pressure for lions or you're building a mechanical lion? Both. You're building a lion. Yeah. Man, from my days of doing those science projects to now,

I remember the baking soda and vinegar volcano I made, and I was like, this is going to absolutely crush the science fair and solidify my place the most popular boy in school and it did neither of those things. I am really bad at science fairs. I'm just like,

is this not, I'm obviously not a scientist, but my part of my villain origin story is I had to do a science fair project and I was like a senior in high school and the teacher knocked down my grade by a lot because my poster board was all handwritten and like not,

and I had great handwriting and it was handwritten instead of printed out, but I didn't have to have a grade. a printer, I don't have the computer, I was poor, you know, and I felt terrible. Is that why you hate people whose parents paid for them to go to college? Yes. Okay. That was your origin story.

That is my origin story. It's just some people were very mean to me about it, and then, like, I always had to have a job the whole time, and that sucks. It made me who I am. My strength of character still sucks. Yeah, I didn't even plan to field. You know. Cool.

What are you going to do with Luna when you're away? Is she going to go to your parents' house again or to the borders? No, Rachel usually comes and stays here. Oh, good. Yeah, we hand off the dogs, but it's always at my house because I have the yard, so. Oh, that makes it. That's cool. That's nice.

See you. That's the tale. Is there any notes that you want to read out? No. Please write those in the NFL pod. I promise to try to make Luna famous if she just waits for you forever. if you crash on your way to D.C. You know what?

These jokes are getting so prevalent, like, are across, like, multiple different... You're bringing it up, too. It's, like, multiple different friend groups that are totally disparate from each other, and they're all making the exact same jokes. I'm like... You keep bringing it up as well, but I think it's, like, a coping mechanism. It's a little bit of a coping mechanism. It is a little scary.

You're going to be fine, but it is a little scary these days. And the... Is it Dulles or Reagan? Dulles? Reagan. Reagan. We should do stories on both of those guys. I've heard Dulles was a real piece of shit.

I heard Dulles was a terrifying monster. Yeah. Where, like, his, his, I think it was, like, his, his wife was originally engaged to be married to, like, some guy who turned out to be, like, a master of a killer, where, like, she's only attracted to the psychopaths. Oh, really? That's fun.

We should do that. Well, you were going to be fine. You were going to be fine. And all of that, but yeah. TBD. Are you looking at girls' wife? I am. I got distracted, but her wife isn't clickable on the thing.

That's cool. Wait, hold on. Oh, his brother looks cool, but he's probably also a piece of shit. I don't know. Well, he's only in the war for two years. Give me a break. cool thank you

yeah I know nothing else to report but thank you everyone for listening please tell your friends we are at doomed to fell pod at gmail.com

if you have any ideas please let us know and remember that I'm a good person even though I don't necessarily want to have a dog and I know there's more of us out there

solidarity hey doom to fill army prove Taylor wrong and I'm a good pod at gmail.com or just send a message on one of our many social

in the NFL pod. Please do. That's it. That's all got. Cool. Thanks, for us. Sweet. Thanks.

Bye.