Pugs, the dogs, are a bit like like Juggalos: it is only once you welcome one into your life that you begin to grasp their ubiquity. They are the newfound darlings of the meme world, usurping the throne from corgis and grouchy cats, but never doubt their everpresence or durability as a cultural icon.
The pug is the hero of underdogs everywhere. They are bred to a disadvantage and still they prosper, like a worldwide sleeper cell network of whatever the hell Jabba the Hut was. They represent a natural, bred aristocracy, and carry themselves with an aloof kind of dignity that can only be wrought from some divine preference. They are our rightful rulers, our philosopher kings, our benevolent dictators, and they know it.
You see they began their history as the lap dogs of emperors – they are an ancient breed – and were reared among luxurious furnishings and a complement of armed guards. This is an expectation the dogs seem to have retained.
And good on them, I suppose, because their very existence is a cruelty. We have bred from them every defense mechanism. They cannot see, flee, or fight. Instead to survive they must, at all times, be within arm’s reach of human being, lest they be snatched away by a cougar, or coyote, or seagull.
They have been selected for distinctive looks and an authoritarian demeanor that passes for personality. They are predisposed to a slow metabolism, horrible breathing, prolapsed eyeballs, infected rolls, and we did this to them for our own comfort and amusement. Shame on us. We deserve to live beneath the mini-Machiavellis that we have created.
You see because it as been said a pug cannot be trained. In my experience this is not the case. It is not that a pug can’t be trained, as much as it won’t be trained. Sit, says you; go fuck yourself, says he. And then he turns the tables.
Make me a lap, pleb, and I will sit upon it, and you will pet me and keep me warm and safe from owls and believe that it was you who said come sit here but no, no it was I, the architect of your misery. And now I am hungry. Feed me human, feed me not only kibble but also shower me with praise not for what I have done but for who I am, your lord The Pug. You, too, will believe this soon.
The gaslighting little fuckers.
And from beneath their tiny iron fists, it is easy to forget that pugs are dogs. In spite of their ample, tender underbellies, in spite of their low position in the food chain, in spite of their intrinsic disdain for humanity, they descended from wolves once. And in spite of the thousands of generations of indignity bred to them by mankind, they have retained a strand of wildness.
Like any of us, I suppose, they have been removed from the natural order for so long, but still hold a killer instinct. Whether terrorizing dinosaurs/chickens, or gobbling ants, or simply stalking the cheese drawer from the hallway, there is a strand, a thread, an atavistic whisper of their wild and rugged heritage. A pug has been habitually ruined for the wilds for millennia, and yet here they are, a predator with what tools they have. I wonder if we all might look briefly in the mirror and see a wilder us.
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This. yes. #Frankforever