[Anchorman]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led Japan's perennial rulers the Liberal Democratic Party to a shattering House of Councillors defeat of unprecedented proportions because he cares more for his miniature dachshund than the welfare of the Japanese people, according to Friday (8/17).

It's well known that the childless prime minister and his wife Akie have a little dachshund called Roy, a dog they both dearly adore.

But their excessive love for the pooch has showed few limits and the enormous sums they have shelled out to keep him happy show the filthy rich couple -- one the scion of political powerbrokers, the other raised by the founder of a huge candy conglomeration -- have little understanding of what's going on in the minds of the common people, the weekly says.

"In November last year, the couple moved from their palatial home in (Tokyo's) Shibuya to the Prime Minister's Official Residence. The reason why it took them two months to move in after Abe had been appointed prime minister was Roy the dachshund," a political beat reporter for a national daily tells Friday. "Mrs. Abe treats Roy as though he was a child of her own and she wanted to bring him to the Official Residence. But there are no pets allowed in the Official Residence. Fighting over whether the dog could come with them was behind the delay in actually moving in."

The couple had no choice but to move into the Prime Minister's Official Residence, so reluctantly agreed to leave Roy in their Shibuya home where he could be looked after by the premier's mother, Yoko. Even so, Akie Abe frequently returns to the Abes' home to see the dog and take him for walks. Nonetheless, as First Lady, security concerns mean that life is not as simple as just saying "I'm going out for a walk," and she was greatly troubled about what her pampered pooch would do for exercise. The Abes responded by turning the roof of their palatial home into a huge garden for Roy the dachshund to play in.

Based on registration records, the 800 million yen Abe palace in Shibuya has about 430 square meters of roof space, of which the garden occupies about 130 square meters. The cost of creating Roy the dachshund's "walkies pen" would have been considerable.

"For a job like that nowadays, workers wouldn't consider the idea of using artificial turf. If the lawn is actually real grass, considering the cost of the grass, the dirt needed to fill the area and the cost of supplying water to it, you're probably looking at about 25,000 yen to 40,000 yen per square meter, so even a cheap estimate for 130 square meters would still put the cost at somewhere from 3.25 million yen to 5 million yen," a Tokyo rooftop landscape artist tells Friday.

But that's not all the dog's garden would cost. To make sure Roy the dachshund didn't take a flying leap, the Abes also had to dig deep to build a fence around the lawn.

"For fencing the area with aluminum you're looking at construction costs of 1.8 million yen," a Tokyo fencing expert tells Friday. "But putting a fence on a roof means it needs special work to make sure it can withstand things like earthquakes and typhoons. That ups the bill by another 1 million yen. Overall, you'd be looking at a good 3 million yen."

As much as 8 million yen just to make sure Roy the dachshund has somewhere to go for a walk? Maybe a drop in the ocean for Abe -- whose father was a foreign minister and grandfather the prime minister -- and his wife, who is the daughter of the founder of confectionary giant Morinaga Co. But for the average Japanese, the weekly says, the idea of spending 8 million yen just to keep their dog happy is "inconceivable." And it's that inability to perceive what the average Japanese -- who is working like a dog in a way Roy the dachshund could never imagine -- is thinking that saw Abe guide the LDP to one of the biggest electoral disasters in his history, Friday says. (By Ryann Connell)