A Population in Decline

The Japanese population is in decline and there are an increasing portion of elderly people. This is of great concern. If there are fewer Japanese humans, will there also be fewer Japanese dogs? It says in the article that I have linked to that, "in some suburbs, one young mother said, it was easier to buy clothes for the latest must-have accessory - a little dog - than for a small child." While it is not bad that dogs are a must-have, there is also something fundamentally wrong to a society where you buy clothes to your dogs and treat them as accessories. Also, if the population dwindles in size, there are less people who will become dog owners, if the percentage of dog owners will no rise very much, which I doubt it will. Since the largest population of Shiba Inus in the world is Japanese, this decline in the number of Japanese humans concerns me. I hope the Japanese will find solutions to this problem. They are smart people (as showed partly by their love of Shiba Inus) and I hope and believe some solutions will come.