Well documented is the extensive history of consanguinity and inbreeding in the Habsburg dynasty, resulting in an adverse effect on survival with some 29.4% of Habsburg children dying before age 1, and 50% before age 10. The Spanish branch, of which Carlos II was the last, in particular, had a very high degree of consanguinity. This would, of course, significantly increase the risk of recessively inherited diseases. [1]
Perhaps best known for their jutting chins—which may have had less to do, directly, with inbreeding than is commonly believed—the House of Habsburg once dominated European nobility, particularly between the 15th and 17th Centuries CE. Dominating the Holy Roman Empire in Austria for three hundred years, a branch of the family also ruled Spain, ending with the rule of Charles II, sometimes called “the Bewitched” because of his many health problems. Because of his pronounced jaw—which surviving portraiture of his immediate predecessors clearly illustrates was inherited to some degree—he could barely eat, was unable to chew, drooled constantly, and suffering stomach problems because of his swallowing of food whole and unchewed. In other words, his body didn’t work properly. His death, and in particular his lack of an heir, set off the Spanish War of Succession.
Much of the strife of that time has been placed at the feet of Charles II himself, though quite unfairly—after all, it was hardly the boy’s fault that his father and mother were uncle and niece, or that the vast majority of his most immediate forebears had entered into consanguinous unions.
His genetics were rife with vulnerabilities to recessive genes. In a very, very simplistic sense, the reason why inbreeding tends to be bad is that autosomal recessive patterns—genetic variants which often cause health problems—are much more likely appear in both copies of a gene passed on to offspring. Often, the parents may carry the altered genes but without symptoms. The issue with inbreeding is that it concentrates the potential passage of both recessive copies of the gene, which in other configurations would likely be suppressed by a “dominant” gene offered by the introduction of a broader gene pool. But in the case of parents with very similar genetics, it becomes much more likely that the recessive condition is switched “on” during their programming of the body’s proteins.
The issue is so predictable that humans have developed very strict taboos, very consistently, across a vast array of disparate cultures. To not have such a taboo around shacking up with your sibling or cousin meant entertaining the risk of creating all sorts of genetic issues. And so even now, with all our genetic knowledge, it’s still illegal in almost all countries for siblings to marry, and considered universally detestable for them to bear children. There’s a reason for that.
Charles died at 38 of “natural” causes—by which is probably meant he succumbed to some kind of slow and painful series of illnesses which, at that time, couldn’t be individually discerned. Though, it’s impossible to truly say; records were poor and medicine quite primitive in the 17th Century, and disease was rife even in the general populace. Nobody at that time enjoyed such ludicrous privilege as being able to, say, deny a vaccine which might protect them from infection on the basis of little more than an internet-fuelled hunch. Even so, think about someone you know dying at 38; it’s ludicrously young for a death other than from violence or disease. I don’t know that there was much “natural” about it at all.
Charles ultimately became a symbol of Spain’s decline—the illness of his body (and probably mind as well; some say he was merely shy, the more frequent assumption is that he was intellectually disabled) were a reflection of the decay of the Spanish Empire itself. The malformed and rotting body of the king reflecting the similar state of the decadent and incompetent monarchy, propped up by tradition, vested interests, and probably more than a few talented bureaucrats. Given how the Spanish had acted over the previous couple of centuries, it’s not at all a stretch to imagine there was a considerable degree of schadenfreude among their contemporaries, a glee at the fall of the giant. Charles was reportedly depressed most of his life, which is understandable given such strange facial features and likely being in constant discomfort, if not outright pain.
The point is, while it might be more comfortable to suffer as a king than a peasant, it would be better not to have to suffer at all. When he died, childless, after several marriages, his one remaining testicle was said to be atrophied. It might be argued that he ultimately lived longer than most anticipated, but it’s hardly a miracle to prolong the suffering of someone so stricken as to have endured such a wretched life.
Through Thick and Thin
Perhaps because my favourite animal is a wombat, I tend to quite like dogs which tend toward being stubby little nuggets. Despite that, my own beloved son is on the opposite end of the breadth scale, being a particularly swift and lithe little fellow without much bulk at all.
One of the reasons why a whippet was the breed of choice was thanks largely to prior research, and consultation with an experienced vet. Before getting a dog, I had little knowledge at all of the strengths and weaknesses of the vast majority of breeds—other than Labradors, who have a propensity toward being overweight (most are a classic garbage-guts) and being vulnerable to hip issues. There’s an auxiliary price to be paid for those legitimately beautiful looking faces of theirs.
Whippets, on the other hand, have very few health issues, mostly skin related, and the friend who is a vet had said she rarely saw whippets for anything more than their yearly injections or the occasional injury (high speed and thin skin, you see, aren’t always a great combination). Though whippets look like high-energy running machines, they’re actually very low-energy couch potatoes who, whilst built for running, would much prefer a life of sleepy luxury simply looking like they make an effort. My kind of dog.
While I remain quite fond of the Staffy-sized chonks who Totoro so enjoyed wrestling with as a puppy, smaller dogs have always given me pause—simply because they always seem too small for creatures which evolved as much larger iterations. Foremost of these are pugs, whose stout bodies aren’t their only problem: it’s their snub faces which I’ve always found a bit disconcerting.
His Lordship, Cookie XV, Grand Duke of Upper Brachychardia, “the Short”, whose lineage includes such luminaries as Duke Cookie the Short, first of his name; his son and first of the Grand Dukes, Cookie the Short II; and eventually his own father, Grand Duke Cookie the Short XIV, who was notable for his five surgeries, averaging one every two years of his life. Contrary to popular perception, the cognomen “the Short” refers not to the diminutive scale of the dynasty’s scions, but their relative lifespan. His more common sobriquet, “the Snorer Whilst Awake” is less frequently utilised in the annals of majestic imperial histories.
Full of Life, Just Not Oxygen
Almost certainly because they don’t know any better, pugs rarely seem miserable—in my experience they are usually lively and enthusiastic little beings. A little special, a little slow perhaps, but their attitude isn’t their problem. Yet, even after a fairly modest degree of investigation it was made abundantly clear that owning a pug (and several other similar breeds) is arguably an exercise in a kind of sadism, excused only by sheer stupidity or ignorance, or both. Whether active or not, it’s clear that to own a pug or a French bulldog, or any other flat-nosed or screw-tailed dog, means never having looked into the breed in more than the most cursory degree. Or perhaps having done so and willing nonetheless to engage in some pretty serious cognitive dissonance for the sake of, presumably, fashionably ironic aesthetics.
Ethically, breeding such animals should be considered an exercise in cruelty. Some of the most powerful European monarchs in history largely stopped a form of selective human breeding, not even because they thought it was “wrong”—there was still prestige to think of—but quite simply because it impeded their offspring to such a degree that it would almost certainly have guaranteed the expiry of their hereditary line. Perhaps if artificial insemination was around in the late middle ages, that might be a different story.
Consumers of such pets can at least argue—pathetically, given the appearance of the animals—they didn’t know any better. But the breeders? They know, either by research or first-hand observation, the vast array of health issues they’re consciously introducing by spawning these little life forms. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly and easily humans can shift their principles when it comes to money. Cognitive dissonance takes many forms and “their health issues aren’t that bad” is likely among them.
Have you ever seen a pug skull before? It’s like something out of a science fiction nightmare. Stick that thing on the body of a monster out of an Alien movie and it would not be incongruous. Any argument that this might be a legitimately healthy cranium for any mammalian creature is either mockery, or stupidity.
A stunningly common example of such cognitive dissonance is the ridiculous perception that dogs “smile” with their faces. Just because a creature’s mouth is wide and its tongue hanging out doesn’t represent the relative happiness or comfort of the animal. We may want to think that, but wanting it does not make it so. Dogs use their tongues to cool down, so their “smile” means they’re overheated. My own dog, Totoro, with his very short hair and desert-adapted physiology, is rarely too hot and so hardly ever “smiles” in the way an astounding number of people continue to view as some kind of facial expression. And yet his various luxuriating groans and lack of anxiety suggests to me that he is an extremely happy animal.
That we anthropomorphise animals to such a degree that we start believing their facial “expressions” match or even mirror our own (despite being completely different species) speaks not just to this same idiocy but to our seemingly instinctual anthropocentric worldview.
Due Diligence
In case my own direct observation of these wheezing, snorting little things wasn’t enough, I decided to do a little fact-finding exercise to see just what the current literature had to say about pugs, for better or worse. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is an interesting fact as opposed to some kind of hyperbolic exaggeration bandied about over a few beers or a kitchen table or whatever.
I certainly wasn’t willing to trust Google, given that anecdotal evidence would be unlikely to interrogate the ethical decision to buy a pug in the first place, perhaps even actively overlooking the associated issues precisely because their little schnookums lives a pampered life of adoration. That classic effort to deflect a bit of reality via expressions of undying love and an unswerving loyalty to some kind of familiar, likely familial, co-dependent animal which various forms of unhealthy human psychology naturally attach themselves to can veer into the truly self-righteous if encouraged in the right environment. Such as a forum for pug owners. And, really, that’s all beside the point—I would accept that the majority of pug owners treat their pets very well. Nor would I doubt the sincerity of owners’ genuine affection, nor the effort and expense they expend to create a life for their dog which is as comfortable as possible.
But that doesn’t make the dog’s life actually comfortable.
My guess, before I began, was that various journals would reveal a raft of data in and around the most common, and obvious, pug deformity; its laboured breathing. Turns out on that score I was completely incorrect.
There is ample literature out there about pugs, possibly because they make great case studies for extreme in-breeding. But one of the first articles I found included a few terms in its title which I noted appeared in quite a bit of contemporary study, and those terms were completely unfamiliar to me. These included myelopathy, from myelo, a prefix referring to the spinal cord, and pathy, which most people will recognise as a suffix referring to suffering.
Another, meningoencephalitis, was a real mouthful. If, like me, you’d need a hand breaking it down: here goes. The meninges are the brain and spinal cord when considered together; most people will have heard of meningitis, which is infection or inflammation of the area surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Encephalitis, derived from enkephalos, “brain”, is specific to the brain. So this mouthful of a word, meningoencephalitis, means inflammation and infection of the region around the spinal cord, but the brain in particular.
One study, which managed to get them both into the one title, referred to the “necrotising meningoencephalitis risk genotype in dogs with pug dog myelopathy”. Which, translated, means not just spinal cord problems generally but those particular to pug dogs. Yeah: it’s so prevalent it has its own category. The study explores links between the degeneration—necrotising, from nekros, “corpse”—of the brain-and-spinal-cord inflammation as a result of spinal deformation. Now, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t think it was a good sign that there were a stack of articles out there investigating just how fucked up pug spines are.
DIAMOND DOGS and their Gene-Genies
The Greek homoios, which means “one with”, or “the same as”, extends to the word homeotic in that it reflects instead a sense of assimilation or making-the-same-as. It’s the same prefix as homogenous—much of the same—or homosexual—same-sex desire—or homeopathy, the pseudoscience which suggests fighting fire with… a tiny, tiny little bit more fire.
Anyway, in genetics it essentially means “origin”—hence, homeotic genes are the ones which trigger particular developmental outcomes. Or at least, they are the genes whose purpose is (at least in part) to trigger such outcomes, notwithstanding mutation or failure of that signal. In an overly simplistic way, they might be thought of as the genes which turn on, or off, particular types of growth in the body during gestation.
In the context of pugs, they have arguably undertaken what is called a homeotic transformation—a change in the type of growth which these particular genes trigger—in relation to the thoracic vertebrae (specifically, the middle section of the spine, pertaining to the thorax—which as any insect-geek will know means the middle section of a body). In the plainest terms, their genes are now often programmed to grow them an extra pair of ribs.
In Latin, cervicalis means “neck”, and is not to be confused with what most people would think of when hearing it: the reproductive cervix, which looks like a neck, from whence it received its medical name. In mammals, cervical vertebrae—literally, the bones of the neck—remain constant at seven, regardless of the length of the actual neck.
When you can barely fit the damn thing into a space the size of an aircraft hangar, you know it’s pretty goddamn big. That neck is somewhere in the order of 12 metres long, and has a hell of a lot more than seven vertebrae. But it’s also millions of years old and evolved to completely different climatic and atmospheric conditions, among other evolutionary pressures. Image: Wikipedia
Necks come in a great variety of shapes, sizes, and flexibilities. Among mammals, giraffes are the obvious stand-out, though among birds there are storks and cranes and flamingos, all of which all have necks of considerable length compared to the rest of their body. A long time ago, in an atmosphere humans very likely couldn’t even breathe, some sauropods had necks almost half the length of their entire body. Given that not all of them had particularly long tails to counter-lever that gigantic neck size, Mamenchisaurus was an impressively unusual, likely extraordinary, creature. An estimate of the sinocanadorum genus suggests a body length of 26 metres and a neck of about 12. It would have weighed in the order of 60 tonnes.
Returning to something a little more mammalian and contemporary, camels have a much more proportionate neck compared to their leg length than giraffes (or extinct dinosaurs), and more importantly they have one of the most flexible necks of any creature on earth. The point here is here that different types of neck clearly evolve for different purposes. Grazing different food sources, most likely. And yet in the environment we now live in, practically all mammals have exactly seven cervical vertebrae.
That there are only two natural exceptions to this rule—sloths and manatees—out of the 6,400-odd mammal species on the planet, suggests a pretty strong kind of natural selection pressure against that number changing. It must be unhealthy or deleterious in some way, or we would see more variety. So consistent is this trait that some big cats have evolved canine spacing exactly the distance between the cervical vertebrae of their prey, to effectively make their bite paralyse. If even that doesn’t encourage a deer to grow an extra vertebra, there must be a very good reason why (whether we currently understand it or not).
There’s a third exception to this rule, though it’s inconsistent—because it’s also unnatural. You guessed it, our little puggles and their other spinally-deformed, screw-tailed relatives.
There are genes in most mammals which will, occasionally, attempt to transform a cervical vertebra into a thoracic vertebra. In other words, the spine randomly becomes deformed enough for what would normally be considered a bone of the neck to become a bone of the main body—and sometimes develops the corresponding ribs. Remember how pugs have a habit of growing extra ribs? This is why. The process is called a congenital vertebral malformation. That is, it’s genetic—it happens from birth rather from trauma or mutation during the animal’s lifespan—and it creates vertebra which don’t form properly. In human bodies, this is associated with fatal traits. That is, if this same process happens to a human, they will usually also develop some other deformity which will kill them before they get a chance to reproduce. Needless to say, humans haven’t managed to squeeze an extra vertebra in there even though, like many mutations, it does occasionally manifest.
And, of course, humans also aren’t inbred to a degree whence their entire skull becomes squashed, so much so that their their eyes bulge and tend to feature amblyopia, or to the degree that their spines are regularly deformed, or to the degree that they will never breathe easily, nor to the degree that they reliably suffer lesions and often crippling arthritis at a relatively young age. Nor are any of us molly-coddled and kept as possessions by the consumer overlords of a different species who have quite literally engineered what would surely become a pitiful and uncomfortable existence. Lucky us.
In pugs, almost half of them display congenital vertebral malformation. The exact number is 46%, and that’s staggering. Of course, it has reached that point because pugs no longer compete to reproduce as most animals do. Even humans with such malformations—whether they involve vertebrae or, say, a jutting Habsburg jawline—are strongly disincentivised by both physical and social factors from breeding, and I would encourage you to think about why that is. Why shouldn’t a human—with all the rights we tend to assign to persons—be able to reproduce even if their genetics show some traits very strongly selected against up to this point? Could it be… because it is a risk to the offspring? That, by allowing such, we may be inadvertently harming to an intolerable degree the quality of life future generations would be forced to live with because of the idiotic whims of their predecessors?
Pugs, of course, are not humans. Nor persons. They are mere accoutrements. Toys, baubles, objects to be owned, to be looked at and fawned over by people who just happen to find their appearance cute. Ergo, they are bred for that purpose, not for any kind of function… which any observation of a pug in action will show quite evidently. They’re often blundering to the point of adorability, which I expect is the point. Their function is now singular: to look, and behave, like what a human owner expects its toy to be; a “pug dog”.
Think what you like
Ignorance is one thing, but it’s not at all difficult to get to the truth if you’re actually after it. Or, I suppose you could put your dog’s wheezing, or its little curly tail, down to an idiosyncrasy. One shared by, y’know, every other member of its breed. Ironically, after trawling through a half dozen articles or so, none had even directly addressed the very obvious problem of their laboured breathing. It seems already so thoroughly interrogated that it wasn’t even novel enough to appear in the most recent literature. It tends now to be referred to, or even just inferred, in scholarly articles. In other words, taken for granted.
When there’s so much evidence out there involving phrases like “spinal cord destruction”, discussions of the almost-certainty of incontinence (if they even live long enough, of course), constant references to what appears to be permanent inflammation and early-onset arthritis, you’d think that might give potential owners pause. Yet, I suppose when the purpose of the animal is nothing more than a consumer’s personal enjoyment, then it must be easier to overlook what that animal’s life will actually be like. Just so long as it’s a very certain kind of “cute”.
There’s such a weird kind of dissonance between the shit that pug owners are happy to throw at their own pets, coupled with the unswerving love they show for them… without a second thought about a question so considerate as “should this animal actually be alive” or “what is the consequence of this kind of inbreeding”. The loyalty is admirable, but the stupidity isn’t. Perhaps there’s some truth after all to the proverbial notion that pets are merely a reflection of their owners.
Pugs make for great memes precisely because they’re so fucked up, but that’s also the point—it is so evident that these creatures are bung, totally wrong, and yet they remain incredibly popular. Talk about sticking your head in the sand. Just think: where, exactly, is that pug even “looking”?
Pug dogs are often collated under a group more generically known as “brachycephalic screw-tailed” breeds. The screw-tail is easy enough to understand, and brachy— is a suffix meaning “short”, along with enkephalos, as before. Hence, short-headed; the distinctive “squashed” face of breeds like pugs and French bulldogs. It is a skull deformity. In other words, it’s unnatural, and a problem. Pugs get bone spurs, too—though not as humans do as a result of ageing, but because of that same spinal deformity. That is, they suffer spurs from birth.
We have reduced a living thing to a commodity. And while they are far from the only iterations of this—we treat most racing animals, like greyhounds or horses, in the same way—pugs are uniquely bred now simply for a goggle-eyed, inbred “aesthetic”. That is the only reason they continue to exist as a species, or could ever have existed in their present form. It is the imprisonment and gruelling training which we inflict on racing animals which is considered the primary cruelty in that context, and as abhorrent as it is, at least the animals themselves are genetically capable of healthy function in every other respect, as the many owners of ex-racing greyhounds will attest. I’m also certain that many racing animal breeders are just as fond of their animals as pug owners are.
So we’ve got a breed of dog now which induces a spinal deformity often associated with fatal traits in all but a statistically insignificant number of mammalian species on this planet—and I would suggest there’s likely a specific evolutionary reason why sloths and matinees are such exceptions. And don’t be fooled, pugs are still susceptible to these traits; remember the fatal neuroinflammatory disease mentioned earlier? That affliction is associated not just with rapid onset, but also with being very difficult to treat with immunosuppressive therapy. It’s almost as though we’re attempting to keep these dogs alive and breeding them with full awareness that we will inevitably lose more and more of them to a genetic process likely to kill basically half of any given generation proportionally early.
What a list! Do you think we’re even at the end of the list of deformities these things suffer yet? Nope.
That’s Not All Folks
The aforementioned issues are merely some of the most recent comorbidities associated with pugs, among other brachycephalic breeds. That is, what I personally happened to find during somewhat cursory research which hardly plumbed the depths of the field. Most infamously, severe lifelong breathing issues are what most people would likely associate with pugs and their ilk. Consider the truly tragic irony that an intubated pug dog undergoing some kind of surgery—which statistically it will do at several points in its life, due to the vast array of health problems it faces—probably breathes the best it ever will.
Pugs have endless issues with their eyes, which are proportionally excessive in size. Because their eyesight isn’t very good, and their eyes are relatively huge, and their physical coordination is somewhat lacking thanks to their skeletal structure, most pugs have difficulty avoiding scratching and irritating their eyes. Corneal surgery is almost inevitable if the dog don’t become housebound (thereby avoiding most things which are most likely to damage their eyes). Easy fix: never, ever let your dog outside.
Almost all pug dogs will require eyedrops at some point in their life, to properly lubricate eyes which are no longer capable of doing so innately. Spinal issues can paralyse their rear limbs—it’s not hard to find well-meaning vets and owners who advocate for a specially-designed type of cart to carry their backside as early as six years old (typically considered middle age for a pug), before “knuckling” and dragging of the hind legs occur and as the nerves degenerate and the condition becomes too severe to treat. Or, a pug might just become obese (to which they’re also prone), or suffer one among many skin diseases.
Are you keeping score? I’ve given up.
Their “cute” little screw-tail is a literal sign of the painful spine abnormalities discussed previously. Try finding a pug without that screw-tail and you’ll also probably find a much healthier dog (and almost certainly a crossbreed of some kind and therefore not really a “pug dog” any longer). These wretched pets are literally living lives of sickness and discomfort, just so their human owners can enjoy some form of personal satisfaction. But, y’know, capitalism and personal choice and it’s just a dog and I saw one on Instagram and they are so cuteeeee (sic) and all that.
And then there’s perhaps the most significant sign of all that pugs probably shouldn’t exist as life forms at all: they don’t give birth easily. While some pugs do give birth naturally, it’s made particularly difficult because of the enlarged size of the head—called exaggerated cranial conformation. In conjunction with their relatively small bodies, this often means their skull can’t even breach the birth canal. This makes a c-section birth far more likely, an obvious necessity often long before the actual birth approaches, and not uncommon as a safer way to deliver pups, depending on the particular size of the parent animals.
Some pug breeds now even require artificial insemination to effectively reproduce. I mean, far out, what does that tell you about their evolutionary fitness? If an entire group on animals—not the odd individual—cannot reliably impregnate, nor give birth naturally, that… kind of suggests they aren’t actually natural creatures any more. Ergo, we’ve created an entirely artificial species of animal capable of nothing other than satisfying a form of human consumptive enjoyment.
At this point it’s become exhausting listing the fucking cornucopia of problems which pug dogs frequently suffer. Sure, not every one of these afflictions affect every dog, or at least don’t until they’re a bit older, and some rare individual animals might even be lucky enough to avoid most of them (or die of something else less malign, like getting hit by a car, before anything more sinister can manifest). But statistically these poor little things will suffer illness, disability, or early death, far more than any other breed. And that’s by design. Genetic design.
At What Price?
Have you ever wondered why pugs are so expensive? Could it be because many pups have a much greater infant mortality rate? And their pitiful fertility means that litter sizes are often very small—in the realm of one or two? That will surely push up the relative price of the remaining pups. My whippet was one of thirteen in his litter. Simple mathematics suggests that breeding whippets even with a litter half that size is still better from a purely economic perspective than the best possible outcomes for pugs. And that’s before you begin applying the cost of c-sections, the higher mortality rate, and the breadth of health issues pugs are typically born with. Though you’ll note that except for the issues around birthing itself, most of those costs are borne by the consumer.
While many vets are certain to prefer natural birth when possible, there’s a financial incentive here for some to deliver pups via c-section because they make more money from it (and it certainly costs the breeder more, which they will obviously pass on to the consumer). Some vets even argue that c-sections are preferable, citing safety (an argument that is sometimes made for human children too). Yet, while that aspect is debatable, it’s the financial incentive which bothers me, along with the growing dependence on surgical procedure to propagate a species.
Furthermore, it is suggested that breeders themselves might actively reinforce the notion that pugs cannot give birth naturally. Which might seem confusing or antithetical—until you realise that it might put off new breeders from joining the show, allowing the existing ones to charge what they like. Which, presently, is quite a bit indeed. If each pug pup is already high-cost, and their mark-up is significant, they can turn quite a profit while the commodity—the pug—remains in demand and has a shallow supply. Ergo, it is in the breeder’s interests to keep that supply low, using broad-sweeping claims suggesting that actually breeding pugs is expensive, risky, and laborious work (which, to be fair, it likely is).
There’s also the risk that new breeders entering the business could—hard as it might be to imagine—raise some awareness of the cruelty involved in breeding these animals and disrupt the market. And we can’t have that.
If there were more breeders, or a more accurate understanding of the process and the risks involved, more pugs might be made available, and the price of a pug would decrease. Perhaps c-sections aren’t actually as necessary as they seem and the dangers are exaggerated after all—in which case the underlying symptom here in regard to the breed itself is still about profit, not interest in the welfare of the animals themselves. For my money, no breeders at all is the actual goal we should be aspiring to. Having taken the time to consider a number of academic articles on the matter, it seems c-sections are necessary (that is, as a medical intervention—to survive at all—rather than being a choice) in about a third of pug births. Plenty more happen in due course as a precaution, I’m sure, probably pushing the overall rate to about half. But the actual numbers are hard to find.
Is it a coincidence, one might rightly ask, that this particular industry—which has a financial incentive to thrive on misinformation in order to ameliorate the ethical horrors likely experienced by most potential consumers should they become fully informed—makes gathering data or engaging in legitimate inquiry, as difficult as possible?
It is certainly safe enough to say that as a general statement, pug dogs and their brachycephalic screw-tailed kin cannot survive without human intervention. What does that say for an animal upon which we knowingly inflict a huge degree of cruel afflictions because some people happen to enjoy owning a slack-jawed, goggle-eyed genetic malignancy for a pet? If humans disappeared tomorrow, pugs and French bulldogs would disappear within a generation, in their current form. That’s how bad it is. They’d either inter-breed, thereby becoming mixed-breed, or more likely just die out entirely.
Like a certain Spanish king representing the rot and decline of his once-great empire, this kind of animal now represents the horrifically selfish apex of a culture inured to individual desire. We worship at the altar of capitalist consumption to such a degree that the thought of restricting something as cruel as the breeding of any of these kinds of dog would be seen as an infringement on the right of a consumer to consume. Might makes right… or money makes right, in this case. And the dogs—little more than slaves to the ignorant desires of their masters, are the ones who ultimately suffer. Not unlike the colonial servants of the once-vast Spanish empire; at least back then it was the oppressive monarch himself who physically suffered.
All of this isn’t to judge the animals themselves, either. I’ve actually never met a pug in person which I didn’t like—it’s the humans who breed them, and those who (perhaps) in ignorance choose to own them, that I have a problem with. Undoubtedly, the majority of people who own these types of dogs cherish their pets and treat them as well as they can, most likely spoiling them. But is that really enough? It is a reflection of our anthropocentric selfishness that the answer to that question is not universally and unequivocally “no”.
The point is, while it might be more comfortable to suffer as a king than a peasant, it would be better not to have to suffer at all.
Martin, A., Heard, R., & Fung, V. S. C. (2021). Carlos II of Spain, ‘The Bewitched’: cursed by aspartylglucosaminuria? BMJ Neurology Open, 3(2), e000072–e000072.