Jennifer Peltz

NEW YORK (AP) – Labrador retrievers are still tugging hardest on United States (US) dog lovers’ heartstrings, but poodles just strutted back into the American Kennel Club’s (AKC) top five most popular dog breeds for the first time in nearly a quarter-century.

The club’s annual popularity rankings came out on Tuesday, drawn from more than 800,000 purebred puppies and older pooches that joined the nation’s oldest canine registry last year.

With 197 recognised breeds, the list ranges from such familiar furry faces as Labs – number one for an unprecedented 31 straight years – to the newly added Biewer terrier (making a strong debut at number 82) and unusual pups like the hairless Xoloitzcuintli (number 119).

For dog fans, there’s plenty to dig into (like a dachshund, number 10) and point out (like a pointer, number 120). So we’ve rounded up (like a border collie, number 31) some highlights:

TOP 10
After Labs, the top 10 are: French bulldogs, golden retrievers, German shepherds, poodles, bulldogs, beagles, Rottweilers, German shorthaired pointers and dachshunds.

OODLES OF POODLES
Poodles reigned as top dog from 1960 to 1982 before falling off somewhat in popularity. But in the new statistics, they reclaimed the fifth spot for the first time since 1997. (The standard, miniature and toy sizes are all counted as one breed).

With their proud stance and elaborate cut in the show ring, “they do have a reputation, in some circles, as just being froufrou”, said longtime poodle owner and sometime breeder Page Hinds-Athan of Roswell, Georgia. “There’s definitely more to them.”

Poodles historically were water retrievers, and they remain athletic animals renowned for their smarts, not to mention their allergy-friendly coats. Hinds-Athan’s poodles have made therapy visits in hospitals and compete in obedience. Other poodles work as guide dogs for the blind, hunt or compete in agility or other dog sports.

Their intelligence comes with some high expectations, Hinds-Athan said: In training, “if you’re going to fuss at them, you’d better be really right. Because if you’re not really fair with them, they remember it”.

AND DOODLES?
Poodles also make up part of several popular hybrids, such as Labradoodles, maltipoos and sheepadoodles. The AKC, a governing body for many dog shows, doesn’t currently recognise any of those as breeds. But AKC spokesperson Brandi Hunter said poodle-mix fans have made some inquiries about what recognition would involve.

One key requirement is articulating an ideal for the breed, in order to attain some consistency.

“The predictability is one of the things that draws people to purebred dogs,” Hunter explained.

ON THE RARE SIDE
The rarest breed last year was the Norwegian lundehund, consistently sparse in the US. The smallish dogs boast extra toes and unusual flexibility that once helped them climb Norwegian cliffs to hunt puffins nesting in narrow crevices.

BREEDS ON THE RISE
The standings often don’t change a lot from year to year, but they do over time. Eight breeds, from the low-lying Pembroke Welsh corgi (number 11) to the towering great Dane (number 17), have entered the top 25 since the start of the century.

Some have made Olympian leaps in popularity. French bulldogs, now number two and a common sight from TV commercials to cosmopolitan streets, ranked a distant 71st in 2000.

The cane corso, which wasn’t recognised until 2010, has since climbed from 51st to 21st.

The imposing, mastiff-style cane corso goes back many centuries in rural Italy as a farm guardian that also pulled small carts and hunted wild animals. Its versatility endures, said Anthony Simonski, who has owned or bred corsi (that’s the proper plural) that compete in agility, dock diving and other sports and have appeared in TV shows and music videos.

While the dogs are protective, “it’s not about being mean – it’s about understanding its job”, said Simonski, of Acworth, Georgia.

Simonski has owned corsi since 1998 and is married to Cane Corso Association of America President Rebecca Simonski. He has mixed feelings about their growing popularity, feeling that it draws questionable breeders.

“There’s a side of you going, ‘Oh, my God, the cat’s out of the bag’. But the real problem is what people are doing with that cat once it’s out of the bag,” he said.

DOG BREEDING DEBATED
Some animal-rights advocates say dog breeding itself is a problem. They argue that fanciers focus more on dogs’ appearance than their health and that promoting purebreds ends up fuelling puppy mills and stranding other dogs in shelters.

The AKC said it and its affiliated breed clubs champion and invest in dog health, including through an AKC-affiliated foundation. The club also maintains that properly done breeding has a purpose: to produce dogs with known traits, from size to sniffing ability, that fit different human needs and lifestyles. New purebred registrations, which are voluntary, have increased by 45 per cent in a decade, the club said.

FUTABA, JAPAN (AP) – Yasushi Hosozawa returned on the first day possible after a small section of his hometown, Futaba, re-opened in January – 11 years after the nuclear meltdown at the nearby Fukushima Daiichi plant.

It has not been easy.

Futaba, which hosts part of the plant, saw the evacuation of all 7,000 residents because of radiation after the March 11, 2011, quake and subsequent tsunami that left more than 18,000 people dead or missing along Japan’s northeastern coast.

Only seven have permanently returned to live in the town.

“Futaba is my home… I’ve wanted to come back since the disaster happened. It was always in my mind,” Hosozawa, 77, said during an interview with the Associated Press at his house, which is built above a shed filled with handcrafted fishing equipment.

An abandoned ramen shop sits next door, and so many houses and buildings around him have been demolished, the neighbourhood looks barren.

A retired plumber, Hosozawa had to relocate three times over the past decade. Returning to Futaba was his dream, and he patiently waited while other towns re-opened earlier.

To his disappointment, the water supply was not reconnected the day he returned. He had to fill plastic containers with water from a friend’s house in a nearby town.

The town has no clinics, convenience stores or other commercial services for daily necessities. He has to leave Futaba to get groceries or to see his doctor for his diabetes medicine.

On a typical day, he makes a breakfast of rice, miso soup and natto. In the late morning, he drives about 10 minutes to Namie, a town just north of Futaba, to buy a packed lunch and to shop.

He takes a walk in the afternoon, but “I don’t see a soul except for patrolling police”. He drops by the train station once in a while to chat with town officials. After some evening rest at home, he goes to bed early while listening to old-fashioned Japanese ‘enka’ songs.

He looks forward to the spring fishing season and likes to grow vegetables in his garden. But Hosozawa wonders if this is the best way to spend his final years.

“I won’t live much longer, and if I have three to four more years, I’d rather not be in a Futaba like this,” he said. “Coming back might have been a mistake.”

“Who would want to return to a town without a school or a doctor? I don’t think young people with children will want to come,” he said.

When massive amounts of radiation spewed from the plant, more than 160,000 residents evacuated from across Fukushima, including 33,000 who are still unable to return home.

Of the 12 nearby towns that are fully or partially designated as no-go zones, Futaba is the last one to allow some people to return to live. There are still no-go zones in seven towns where intensive decontamination is conducted only in areas set to re-open by 2023.

Many Futaba residents were forced to give up their land for the building of a storage area for radioactive waste, and Fukushima Daiichi’s uncertain outlook during its decades-long cleanup makes town planning difficult.

Futaba Project, which helps revitalise the town through tourism, new businesses and migration from outside Fukushima, sees potential for educational tourism.

“Places with scars of the disaster remain in Futaba… and visitors can see its reality and think about the future,” said Hidehiko Yamasaki, staffer at the non-profit Futaba Project.

Co-director of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre Hideyuki Ban said that those returning to the area should have health checks. He said the inhabitable radiation level is the same as for nuclear workers, and could cause increased cancer risks within five years.

In June, Futaba is set to officially re-open the 560-hectare area near the train station – about 10 per cent of the town – and an area that was once a commercial district where more than half the town’s residents once lived. Daytime visits have been allowed since 2020 ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, when train and bus services resumed and a prefecture-run disaster museum opened.

Futaba has invited 24 companies, many of which are involved in town and plant cleanup work, to start new businesses as part of an effort to revitalise local industry. A temporary town hall is set to open in August, and an 86-unit public housing complex is also being built.

The town’s goal is to have 2,000 residents within five years.

The latest surveys show that only 11.3 per cent of the 5,625 people still registered as Futaba residents want to return home to live there, with more than 60 per cent saying they will not.

But 66 per cent said they want to stay connected with the town.

Town officials set to return and live in Futaba ahead of the August town hall re-opening will have to figure out how to improve the environment so people want to return, Mayor Shiro Izawa said. “We can do it if we don’t give up.”

Atsuko Yamamoto, 50, runs a Penguin fast-food store at a food court in the Futaba business community centre, but she commutes from another Fukushima town.

“I’ve always thought I have to do something for (Futaba’s recovery), so I raised my hand” when she saw the offer of a space in the food court, which opened two years ago, the former resident said. “When I evacuated, I never imagined I could return to Futaba like this.”

Despite her deep attachment to her hometown, living here isn’t possible, she said. The only way to make her business work is to get her food supplies in Iwaki, a business hub for coastal Fukushima where she now lives, and then to commute about 60 kilometres to Futaba.

Her mother used to sell donuts and burgers from a stand near the train station, and it was a popular hangout for local students and a landmark remembered by Futaba people before the disaster.

“As Futaba rapidly transforms into an unfamiliar place, I hope this store helps former residents feel at home,” Yamamoto said.

Familiar buildings and houses are increasingly being torn down, and daytime visitors are predominantly new faces.

“In our view, the buildings that remind us of our hometown are disappearing, like my friends’ old houses, and it’s extremely sad,” she said, holding back her tears. She said she cannot help driving by where demolished houses, including her own, once were, as if to feel the pain and remember the past.

“It’s hard to explain,” Yamamoto said. “So I hope people will come back to visit and actually see this place.”

A worker at Futaba’s only hotel, which opened last May, Takumi Yamada is from nearby Namie town.

Yamada, 23, spent most of his teenage years outside of Namie after fleeing from his elementary school – while still wearing his indoor classroom shoes – to Saitama, near Tokyo, with his parents and two siblings.

After studying elsewhere in Fukushima and Tokyo, Yamada decided to return home to reconnect and learn about an area he hardly remembered.

Yamada said he was thrilled when he was working on the hotel’s reception desk and overheard former residents talking about the whereabouts of mutual friends.

“I think it’s great if this hotel becomes a meeting place for former residents,” Yamada said. “If there are people wondering whether to return, I think it’s best to see the situation for themselves.”

WARSAW (AFP) – Stuck to the door of one Warsaw high school is the sign “Laskavo prosimo do shkoli“, or “Welcome to school“ in Ukrainian, along with the flags of Poland and Ukraine.

Chattering in Russian and Ukrainian, teenagers who have just fled their wartorn homeland use magnetic key cards to enter and are welcomed again with a large yellow-blue flag and the slogan “Slava Ukraini“ or “Glory to Ukraine“.

It was their first day of school in Poland, where the 13 – to 15-year-olds have sought shelter since Russia invaded their country.

Divided into two groups of 20, they were greeted by their new teacher, who shuttles from one classroom to the other throughout the lesson.

From the Ukrainian city of Lviv, a refugee just like them, Mariana Druchek, laid out the plan for the day and passes out a maths test.

“Uh oh,“ came the response. “It’s on things we covered three years ago, in grade eight – I forgot it all,“ said 16-year-old Viktoria, to which the others chime in with “same“.

But they relaxed soon enough. By break time, they were all smiles, saying the atmosphere was “really good“ and “positive“ and “the class and school in general are all right“.

It is as if their mad dash out of Kyiv with barely any luggage – to the backdrop of bombs and blasts – was already fading somewhat into the distance. But the sense of danger is still there.

“We’re afraid the Russians will even make their way over here, because everything is possible,“ Viktoria told AFP.

Limanowski High School has been able to accommodate the new students and hire new teachers thanks to funding from the mayor’s office.

On day one, Renata Kozlowska, a city official for the school’s neighbourhood of Zoliborz, came to welcome the teenagers.

She told them that “all of Poland is with you“ and stressed that they have the right to “an education and peace“.

The teenagers – who come from various cities, including Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Lutsk – will follow a pared-down version of Poland’s curriculum, including English, Polish, history, maths, physics and gym.

The classes will be taught by Ukrainian teachers who themselves had fled the war, with a bilingual educator at the helm of each group.

“What’s most important is to offer them some semblance of normalcy and quiet,“ the school’s principal Andrzej Wyrozembski told AFP.

Druchek, who crossed into Poland with her three children just after the invasion, agreed.
“It’s not a matter of maintaining their knowledge levels, but to make sure they have psychological support and friends, that they know that everyone wants to help,“ she said.

A Polish student Janusz said he is all for the initiative, calling it “cool“ to have welcomed the Ukrainians into their school. “It means they can keep going to school and won’t be thinking non-stop about what’s going on in Ukraine,“ he added.

While the new students will be attending separate classes from their Polish counterparts, the school is keen on helping them integrate.

Each Ukrainian will be partnered up with a Pole their age to join for after-school activities and the like.

Limanowski is the first school in town to have launched such a programme, but others are due to follow soon.

Wyrozembski stressed that it was his teachers who took the lead on the initiative once refugees began flooding Poland.

But he too had his reasons to get involved: when Poland was attacked in September 1939, his father fled Warsaw for Lviv, which was a Polish city at the time.

Since the invasion began, nearly 54,000 Ukrainian children have been enrolled in Polish schools, Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek said.

For Wyrozembski, the most important thing now would be to set up special schools for Ukrainian students aged 16 and 17, who would normally be preparing for a final exam before college.

Were they to switch to the Polish curriculum now and prepare for the equivalent testing here, it would “put them back three or four years“, he said.