One day Japanese Twitter user, @hina_shii_ver2, received a strange message from her husband.

‘There’s a dog selling sweet potatoes.’

She was confused for a moment, but then the photo evidence came.

A homey little sweet potato stall manned (or should I say dogged?) by a single member of staff, an adorable, friendly shiba inu called Ken-kun.

Roasted sweet potato is a popular street food in Japan, usually seen in the winter, and a comfort food being sold by a cute dog is surely one of the best ways to warm up on a cold winter day.

The name of the stall is ‘Dog’s Sweet Potato Shop’ and the sweet potatoes themselves are outside, stored and kept warm in a box, and the shop runs on an honesty policy whereby the customer drops 100 yen (about $1) in the box for each sweet potato. Of course, this policy is successful, who would steal from a cute dog?

Canine staff do have their drawbacks, Ken can’t give any change back because he never learned maths and is held back due to a lack of opposable thumbs, so customers need to give exact money. But any extra cash given will just go towards extra treats for Ken-kun, so maybe it’s not such a drawback after all…

The stall has been featured before on Japanese TV, and they referred to Ken-kun as the boss of the shop. He truly is an independent dog doing it all for himself.