Small rescue dog bites backside of Japanese emperor (8)

I haven't cracked this one yet — but the brilliant team at Fifteensquared have:

S (small) LASSIE (rescue dog) round or ‘biting’ E (last letter or ‘backside’ of Japanese). Apparently Lassie was a fictional dog in a short story written by Elizabeth Gaskell who rescued the younger of two half brothers. The original Lassie according to Wiki saved the life of a sailor in WW1. Joyce had to research this as her only memory was of one of her favourite childhood TV series where Lassie always seemed to ‘come to the rescue’.