I could hear it, the snarling struggle to live as deformed nostrils fought for each breath. A snarl of liquid flesh flapping about, then a mild grow. Such a process just for an intake of air. The weather was not too hot though it’s tongue dragged from it’s mouth. Drool and the essence of life leaving it with each and every desperate breathe. Four short legs barely carrying it’s barrel chested frame. Tied to a leash, as a human owner dragged it across the grass. Usually it was carried. Any walk over a short distance, simply too far. Too much.
“Oh, isn’t he cute.”
“I want one! So adorable.”
The helpless creature struggled to drink water as it dripped from a bottle into it’s mouth. Cute. Bat like ears that stood upwards like a bird tormented with it’s inability to fly. Though those ears are prone to infections. A smushy face that leads to obstructed airways, heat stroke and skin issues. Chronic stomach problems so that it must be fed particular food, in a certain manner. Gorgeous. That little walk of struggle often ends in hip dysplasia and joint issues. Not to mention such a distinct shape from generations of breeding leads to spine problems. Numerous eye problems are caused by it’s weeping windows of innocence. Eyes that hide all the pain from human selective breeding. A cruelty that is widely adored. The devious design of such a creature makingit prone to brain tumours and endless dental problems.
Health and self reliance not a consideration when it comes to a dependent pet. Humans picking animals out based on their preferences for such deformations and pained disfigurements. The suggestive nature of taste decides that a look or shape, is more importance than the animals health and abilities to live. Docile and dependent are much more suited for the human master. It makes the human owner feel needed, important. A fur baby. A child that is desperate in it’s constant inability to live outside of human guardianship. To be fed and medicated constantly. Not dangerous or energetic, barely alive.
The wolf, dingo and wild dogs a distant and almost unrecognisable relation. Those creatures thrive and survive. Nature is cruel in it’s demand for survival. Is humanity benevolent in creating creatures solely for the purpose of painful and sick dependence. To promote deformations and weak lines of mutation so that one can point at such a helpless critter and consider it, cute and adorable. Does that mean the healthy, the self reliant, are repulsive, ugly or not appreciated because they don’t need a master, they don’t need to surrender into sick dependency. It’s a vulgar eugenics.
A few months ago I was talking to a man whose profession was children’s health. He had spent years in opulent Western nations and in what was once called the Third World helping the young find health and to live. He said that in the past decades he had noticed an uneasy trend in regards to the health of children in Australia.
“Humanity has gone from being a wolf, but now our children are more often becoming the French Bulldog.”
Perhaps that is fitting. Much of accepted and valued society is to be dependent. To live at the expense of others. To despise health in it’s true sense. To professionalise every aspect of a child’s life to adulthood. To blanket the world in layers meant to protect, to secure and make safe so that now sicknesses and allergies are so common place. That in some perverse situations it’s now financially in a parent’s best interest to have a child with conditions with benefits attached to them. Those seeking self-reliance and health are punished, while those dependent are incentivised.
I’m sure if the ‘Frenchie’ could talk it would tell you all about it’s conditions and ailments. For now, that’s the domain of human beings to make certain each and every one of us know what tier on any given mental health spectrum they are placed, what illnesses and what conditions they have. As many acronyms as benefit schemes attached to them. The more monetarily rewarding under welfare structures and the most likely you will be told by the ‘sufferer’ or the parents. We are becoming the French Bulldog.
What will the future generations bring for the dog? No longer bred for purpose and utility and health but rather to be a lap creature and a backyard prisoner or locked away inside except for those excursions to the shops. To be a comforter for human ‘mental health’. What’s the inevitability?
And for humanity, the young and to be born. The future, what’s the ultimate ambition? To be prisoners of professionals and regulations, to shun nature and living for fear of everything. Maybe the critics of Darwin are right but for the wrong reasons. Evolution is not so much the survival of the fittest but merely the adaption to how one lives. It’s taboo to comment on the state of dogs, bred for a certain ‘aesthetic’ purpose but it’s beyond forbidden to make such an observation in relation to the health and raising of children. For a litany of reasons it is now a sacred cow or bulldog. I guess in the end, all that matters is that they are so cute and adorable.
