Two dog trainers and their Canine Companion
Samura Miyu breaks up with his girlfriend Yuko who kicks him out of her apartment and leaves a toy poodle pup with him without waiting for an answer, leaving Miyu unprepared to start caring for a dog that has already imprinted on his ex. However, he has a chance meeting with Niwa Shinichirou, an expert Dog Trainer. Upon seeing the appalling state of Miyu's dog handling abilities, Niwa starts giving him pointers on how to properly manage a dog. Miyu is then hired on by him to help revive his failing dog training business, Proud Dog, and he begins to get to know the pup he was unexpectedly saddled with and find a new career after the breakup.
DOG SIGNAL is an on-going educational Slice of Life manga by Saya Miyauchi centering around dogs and the humans that come by to ask for help on how to properly care for their canine companions with much research behind it. The series started on July 24, 2018 and can be read in Comic walker
with an alternative link to Pixiv Comic.
An anime adaptation was announced in January 2023. It aired from October 20, 2023 to March 17, 2024 with twenty episodes.
DOG SIGNAL contains the following tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: The manga is separated into several connected stories with a focus on a dog breed and the owners that adopted them.
- Big Friendly Dog: A handful of the dogs that appear such as Uruson and Ribbon are friendly.
- Broken Pedestal: Two examples occur in the backstory of the protagonists:
- Niwa felt his admiration for his mentor Fujiwara shatter when he saw the man use physically abusive means to train the dogs under his care after he had repeatedly drilled it into him to never use corporal punishment when dealing with dogs.
- Doctor Kubo has this with his parents, whom, while they are revealed to start the breeding business to keep the family finance afloat after Mr. Kubo's company fell to bankruptcy without the then young Doctor Kubo knowing, the horrible and unsanitary state that the dogs are kept in prove to be Doctor Kubo's breaking point that he willingly turned his parents over to the police.
- The Bus Came Back: Several of the previous clients such as Ribbon and her owner makes a return in later chapters.
- Canine Companion: A literal example as the manga focuses on Miyu and Shinichirou helping people with the troubles regarding their own dogs.
- Cannot Spit It Out: A familial, platonic example occurred. One story has an elderly man whose inability to actually express himself to his daughter caused a huge rift between father and child as the daughter grew up and is about to get married, and the rift is one of the factors that led him to adopt a Pomeranian puppy. He later approached Niwa and Miyu to ask for help with training his newly adopted pup and to get it to do one trick to convey and finally mend the gap between him and his daughter on the day of her wedding.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- Samura Miyu had been subjected to parentification by his own mother due to being the eldest son and in his adulthood later, he broke up with his girlfriend who then shoved a toy poodle puppy to his way without giving him a proper time to get acquainted to it.
- Niwa Shinichirou lost a dog he used to care for in a car accident shortly after his father passed and the incident fueled him to become a dog trainer so he won't let another dog to fall under the same fate. He found a good trainer he admired... only to later learn that said mentor had resorted to abusive means to train the dogs under his care and felt his admiration shatter.
- Kubo "Nosuke" Suzunosuke, the veterinarian, used to foster poodles in his family's home and wanted to become a vet to meet the poodles that grew up with him again. Until one day, he eventually learned from a client he's helping during his intern of the unfortunate fate of one of the poodles he once fostered. Doctor Kubo eventually learn that his parents started to breed puppies to be sold to keep the family finance afloat but the unsanitary conditions that the dogs were kept in cause Doctor Kubo's respect and love for his parents to shatter.
- Dog Got Sent to a Farm: A variant. Part of Doctor Kubo's backstory is that he was told that one of the dogs he took care of and grew up with, Nana, will be adopted to another house... only for Kubo to later learn that Nana's actual fate is much, much worse a few years later.
- Everyone Went to School Together: Niwa, Ritsuka, and Dr. Nosuke all went to the same animal care college.
- Fate Worse than Death: Kubo learns that Nana, a poodle he took care of was sent to be made a breeding dog to breed other puppies by his own parents in less than sanitary conditions.
- First Pet Story: Several stories deal with new owners who recently adopted their dog and all the troubles that come up due to their inexperience.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: In Doctor Kubo's backstory, though he understood his parents' motivation, he couldn't forgive them for the state that the dogs, Nana included, were put in, and later had them arrested for it. Nevertheless, Doctor Kubo still felt heartbroken at having to turn his parents in to the police.
- Harmful to Minors: Part of Doctor Kubo's backstory has him find that the some of the poodles he took care of in the past, Nana included, not only were placed in unsanitary conditions and made a breeding dog till they can no longer birth out anymore dogs, Kubo also found some of the puppies of the dogs he raised dead and kept in a freezer.
- "Harmful to Pets" Reminder: One story involves a Variety show host who owned multiple pets that she loved... but the problem is that she doesn't encourage them to be too active and discouraged guests from directly interacting with her dogs and she overfed them to the point of near obesity. It nearly costs her when one of her dogs nearly died from a heart attack from said obesity.
- Heroes Love Dogs: A given and Justified Trope example due to the manga focusing on the relationship between the humans and their pet dogs.
- Incompetent Guard Animal: One story arc has Miyu and Niwa helping an old man with a Doberman who comes to the dog training center to ask for help to make his Doberman a proper guard dog. Though it's ultimately Played With as Niwa caught on that the reason the man's Doberman failed to be a guard dog to began with was because the Doberman is actually a Big Friendly Dog who wants to be the man's companion, with Niwa lampshading that some of the people he helped in the past who had Dobermans had their dogs become friendly and cuddly. After the lecture, the man decides to nurture a better bond with his Doberman.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Uruson and Sanju, Niwa and Miyu's Canine Companion's are modeled after Miyauchi's own pet poodles that she owned and took care of in real life. The only differences were that the real Toy Poodle Sanju is based on is the older dog of the pair who unfortunately passed away on July 26, 2023, while the real standard Poodle that Uruson is modeled after is male instead of female.
- Lost Pet Grievance:
- Played Straight in Niwa's backstory where he lost a dog in his childhood due to his mother unleashing it so the dog ended up getting hit by a car while it's on it's way to where it believes Niwa's father was at. Even years after, Niwa had a hard time getting over his grief of losing his first pet.
- Inverted Trope, one story involves a Golden Retriever whose owner, a high school boy, recently passed away from an accident and the father ask for help to get the Golden Retriever to actually leave from his spot and actually eat. But the mother refuses to let the Golden Retriever leave the spot and believed that he's grieving for her son. Niwa called the mother out brutally for her actions as it reads as if she is actually blaming the dog for not dying instead of her son and unknowingly trained the Golden Retriever to stay in that spot, and it had to be through her command that allows the Golden Retriever to actually move away so the family can have a proper closure and move forward from their son's death.
- Meaningful Name: Uruson's name is derived from French and is because she resembles a small bear.
- Meta Twist: The Shiba Inu focus chapter is the only one where the owner, a rookie manga artist, does not consult with Niwa and Miyu for his troubles until the latter part of his story. He has already fixed the issue on his own when he starts to use hand signs and lip reading to convey his commands to his dog, who has tragically gone deaf out of the blue without a clear medical reason why.
- No Hugging, No Kissing: Downplayed Trope. While the romance isn't very overt, the closest it comes to this is hugs between those established as couples.
- Old Dog: Ribbon the Giant Poodle is one as she's 12 years old by the time she was introduced in the manga. Chapters that feature her and her owner involves the owner doing his best to keep Ribbon active and healthy for as long as possible before she eventually passes on from aging, and also speak of possible issues that an aging dog may experience in contrast to its younger compatriots.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Ritsuka and Niwa. They have known each other since they were young but neither are interested in each other romantically and remain close long time friends.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Niwa and Ritsuka are childhood friends and are constantly assumed by people to be a couple, a notion both of them repeatedly deny. While telling Miyu the story of how they went to animal care college together, she says she feels more like his mom than a girlfriend.
- Shown Their Work: Each arc spans for 3-4 chapters at its longest, focusing and showing details of dog psychology, the physical health of each breed, and training methods used by dog owners and trainers at various points in history. Miyauchi herself also owned two dogs in real life and wrote about her own experiences over her years of dog training and care while doing said research about dogs.
- The Smurfette Principle: Downplayed Trope in regards to major characters. Female characters appear as guest of the day from time to time, but the only major female protagonist is Ritsuka, an old friend of Niwa.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: Kubo's focus chapters starts normal until we get into his past and we see illustrations of dogs suffering physical degeneration and horrible conditions with the female dogs kept in cramped, unsanitary spaces and losing much of their vigor due to being forced to breed many puppies to be sold.
- Training the Pet: The majority of the series arcs revolve around educational stories and tips on how to properly train your pet dogs.
