Prince of Pug-Republic
In the United States it is very common to see overweight dogs. It is no longer a surprise to me when I see dogs two, three, even four times their healthy weight. Some people say this is a result of how our nations eating habits have turned from what was once about sustenance to gluttony. As good and miraculous as it is to be able to get in the car and get whatever food from whatever country at whatever temperature at whatever time is…its more the lack of activity in relation to those calories our bodies just don’t know what the hell to do with.
Turning to this new western world behavior of lots of food and little work its funny how we then turn to all the illness and depression that comes afterwards and label it or worse, try to fix it with fad diets non-nutritional foods, pills and surgery. Food and sleep is great, no one can deny that; people all over the world wish they had at least 4 hours a night. People wish they could have just a hot meal and something other than a floor to sleep on or a house that didn’t have water or even worse—bombs coming through it. We have it good in the USA.
If you won the lottery would you work, drive, move your ass and labor, have to sweat or ever be anxious and tired at a job? Probably not. That’s not the reality for 99% of the world. Everybody wants to be comfortable as they deserve to be. Unfortunately our bodies haven’t evolved to be lean, strong and healthy by sitting around at a desk and eating fast food and candy. And this transitions directly to our best friends who share our lives more intimately. The reason they’re fat, unhealthy and aging quickly is based on their lifestyle. A good slice of the pie (no pun) is due to genetics but the vast majority comes from how hard you drive and what gas your putting in your tank. Your physical exertion and your diet.
This trip through the jungle in Colombia really opened my eyes to the difference in relationship between workers and non-workers—and their dogs. The difference between the physical and the lethargic. On horseback we road miles through steep rocky and slippery hills and crossed over white rivers. The entire time the man in charge of the trip had his little Pug with him following along bouncing off rocks, swimming, drudging through the mud and keeping up with eight sturdy steeds. This was no easy trip up mountain, especially for a dog whose vertical world doesn’t exceed 10 inches high.
These dogs are also known by the name “Mini-Mastiffs” and this dog represented the name better than I’ve seen. When you think of Pugs, the normal image of a hard breathing, raspy, squishy rolled pig-like funny pup comes flashing up. When you look the dog up however you’ll find descriptive words used for the standard like: Compact, Sturdy, Well muscled, Square, Deep chest; not most that I have seen. And looking at this little killer in front of me he was the book draft of pug-republic.
Our journey lasted a few hours. All the way through the jungle and all the way out. This dog, with his bull muscled legs and waist as skinny as a whippet, does this trek through different parts of the mountains about 5-6 times a day. He’s fed meat scraps leftover tamales and bread, has probably never seen a vet in his life and has the endurance and health to keep up with his owners 7 day work week. When you compare that to some of our average working hard days of starbucks, phone calls and general tsos chicken its no wonder the difference in health—mental and physical is so blatant
Our bodies, pushed to their limits, is only the beginning. And so to sit and look at problems we think we have, or troubles we cant overcome on our own is just preposterous. To quote ― Bill Bryson in “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” :
“You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average-sized adult you will contain within your modest frame no less than 7 X 10^18 joules of potential energy—enough to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point. Everything has this kind of energy trapped within it. We're just not very good at getting it out. Even a uranium bomb—the most energetic thing we have produced yet—releases less than 1 percent of the energy it could release if only we were more cunning.”
And to quote me: “I just witnessed an 18lb pug jostle with 13,000lbs of horses up a mountain and do the equivalent of an iron man race. And the one I saw last week in town couldn’t even stand up”