Introduction
Pugs and pigs refer to animals kept at home as domestic pets especially when they are young. The two kinds of animals boast of several similarities such as appearance and behavior. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the similarities as well as the dissimilarities that exist between pigs and pugs.
Both pigs and pugs are small in body size and have curly tails. Pugs usually weigh between 20 to 24 pounds. However, most of the pugs are susceptible to becoming overweight or obese. The two closely related animals also snort and both have wrinkles covering their bodies. Further, both pigs and pugs do sniff while breathing as they face difficulties in doing so.
A closer examination of pugs is essential in this respect. Pugs stand out as the biggest breed of toy dogs. A background story about pugs will be illuminative. A Chinese emperor had a daughter whom he liked very much. As a consequence, the emperor always kept the daughter locked away in her room in the fear that her coming out would occasion harm. Obviously, the daughter was always alone and she became lonely. As a result, a maid who worked at the emperor’s place saw how the girl used to cry and, therefore, gave her a small puppy. The emperor’s daughter fell in love with the small puppy given to her by the maid. Whenever her father came, she would hide the small puppy in the sleeves of her robes in fear. Nonetheless, one day the father came in to visit the girl while the little puppy was having trouble breathing through the sleeves of the girl’s robe. When the father heard the little pug whizzing, he demanded to see what the girl had in the sleeve of her robe. The poor puppy’s forehead was wrinkled owing to the shoving she had experienced in the sleeves of the robe. The wrinkles resembled the Chinese symbol of prince. Since in the Chinese language the name pug means prince, the puppy was named pug.
There are dissimilarities between pigs and pugs. As already outlined, pugs are a symbol of the sovereignty of the Chinese people as it refers to the Chinese prince whereas the pig does not represent any sovereignty. Again, pugs do possess squished up noses which makes breathing difficult on their part. This explains the wheezing. In addition, a closer examination reveals that the hoof of a pig is essentially different from that of a pug. More so, the paws of pigs are distinctively different from those of pugs. The pigs and pugs are believed to have shared a similar ancestor nearly 55-60 million years ago. During the Shang dynasty, pugs were kept mainly as pets of the Chinese sovereigns before 400 BC. Another significant distinction between pigs and pugs is that pigs have little eyes compared to pugs which have huge and bulgy eyes. Most of the pugs do suffer from asthma while pigs ordinarily are not susceptible to asthma diseases. More so, the fact that pugs have squished noses that make it difficult for them to breath can now be rectified by way of laser surgery on the nose while this is not the case in pigs.
Conclusion
It is clearly evident that both pigs and pugs are similar in several respects. Nonetheless, there exist subtle differences between the two kinds of animals.
