In defense of the poorly bred pug

This gets a bit ranty... if you're not in that kind of mood, maybe stop reading when the pictures stop, ok?

As some of you may have noticed, Talos is a pug.

Her parents were pugs, and their parents were pugs, back for generations and generations. It's pugs pretty much all the way down.

She is a well trained pug.

She is a fit and in shape pug.

She is a happy pug.

Most importantly, though, she is a very, very loved pug.

She is also a poorly bred pug. By the pug breed standard, her legs and her back, proportional to her torso, are far too long. Her chest is not deep or broad enough. Her wrinkles are not pronounced enough. Her tail does not curl enough, nor is it set nice and high on her back. Her colour is less than great. She is too small over all, not big enough in absolute size, not wide enough, in a word, not as cobby as she should be had we been aiming for a well bred pug's appearance. She has an under bite too, just to round out this list.

She is definitely absolutely devoted to humans and food, rules the household, and is loving to a fault, like pugs should be. She is absolutely brilliant, which I myself think is also puggish, though many are said to be more beauty than brains. She is cautious of new people and new situations despite our best efforts at socialisation - not a puggish trait. She is energetic, and though she is still very young (19 months old), I suspect she won't slow down terribly much more than she is now until she is much older - this is also not a typically puggish trait.

Now, for the point of this navel gaze - the fact that she is not a 'well bred' pug by KUSA standards does not make her any less worthy as a dog. Insisting that the only pug that is worthy of being called a true pug, a typey pug, has a very narrowly defined set of pug attributes is perfectly fine. I am quite happy to have Talos recognised as a poorly bred pug by those standards. Making these evaluations on what a pug should look like is perfectly fine. After all, this is crucial to maintaining different dog breeds. But, that should never be a judgement on her value as a dog. An arbitrary standard of beauty should not be a reason to abandon, or to make unwanted, dogs like Talos - who, while perhaps not a standard pug, is a pretty darn amazing little creature.