I currently live on the island of Boracay in the Philippines and I am a dog owner. No big deal right-you would think. I have a baby shih tzu and another puppy of the native breed called ascal. Being from America I tend to worry about dogs biting or attacking only if they are running around free and acting aggressive. In the Philippines all dogs are guilty and there is no proving them innocent. Even when people see my well groomed and well trained puppies being perfect gentleman at all times they are still hated. The Muslim lady at the market explained to me that God hates dogs and it is the duty of Muslims to hate dogs also. The children throw rocks at them and when they get older they give them the machete. The majority of the dogs are just running wild which on a tropical island means that they are very sick almost from birth. All their hair falls out and their skin is destroyed by their constant scratching and chewing. The dogs are all starved to death eventually. Once they are too old to fight for the chicken and fish bones they raid from the garbage they finally find some peace in the next life. In the Philippines and many other Asian countries there are no laws to protect animals. If I call the police about a dog being locked in a box starving to death in the neighbors yard, they will laugh at me. So I have been thinking about this for a long time trying to understand the irrational hatred Filipinos have for dogs and I think I have it figured out. In the Philippines it is normal to have between six and twelve children. The infant mortality rate is very high here so the parents crank em out like a little factory. Meanwhile the dogs are doing the exact same thing. The children are to numerous to be supervised and without all the child rapists and murderers we have in the west the parents worry little about letting the kids run free. This is the key ingredient to the whole thing. Everyone knows what toddlers do to dogs. Even a nice dog has its limit. The difference between the western babies and the Filipino babies is that the Filipino babies are taught to disrespect and even hurt dogs from the very beginning. There is no Empathy for the suffering in Asia. The people of the destitute countries simply cannot afford empathy. They need to feed all their babies and the grandpa and grandma and the old auntie and the widowed sister's nine kids and on and on. These unsupervised babies don't stop at tugging on the ears of the dogs and trying to ride them. The Filipino babies make war on them, trying to bash them with rocks and stab or beat them with sticks. Obviously the dogs reach their threshold much faster with this kind of abuse, so they end up biting the kids every now and then. It must not happen very often because all the dog haters that I know personally have never even been bit by a dog, but they all know someone who has. And so the hate is perpetuated as new generations of dog haters are cranked out on the Pinoy assembly line. I know for a fact that this behavior is also the norm in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Fiji. I have not been to all the other destitute countries of the Pacific Islands and South-East Asia but I think it's safe to say that this phenomenon has nothing to do with Pinoy and everything to do with the financial difficulties of the countries. This hatred is-in a way, a direct result of the corrupt government that leaves the Filipinos with nothing. Coming to these realizations about the dog hating has helped me to forgive the Pinoy for their cruelty. I hope this reaches some other expats struggling with the same issue and helps them to come to terms with the bigger picture.
The good thing about all this abuse-if that is possible, is that the ascal breed has had natural selection working hard on their evolution for a few hundred years. The ascal is what you get when you let all the different breeds of dogs bread on a tropical island for a few hundred years. All the long haired and short nosed dogs die off due to their inability to maintain a safe core temperature, leaving a dog that looks a lot like the dingo of Australia. This breed seems to be the most efficient design for the hot island climate. The dogs all look the same though they are a variety of colors. What is remarkable is their intelligence, my ascal misses nothing, he understands most of what I say and is very efficient at communicating his needs to me. He is very easy to train and never barks or behaves aggressively even when provoked. My dog is almost pure white and looks very similar to a whippet. He radiates health on an island that bring nearly every other breed nothing but problems. His athletic ability is amazing and when he runs at top speed he is just a blur. There are few domesticated animals that have had natural selection shaping there evolution all the way through the modern age. In the Philippines even someone's family pet eats only fish and chicken bones with a little rice from time to time-yet they live. If the ascal should be so unlucky as to find himself sick, even with a minor tummy ache, he gets the machete. That's what I mean when I say that the natural selection of the ascal breed has been ultra-efficient. If an ascal barks too much he is dead, if he gets old he is dead, if he is sick he is dead, if he cant take the sweltering heat of the equatorial island chain he is dead, if he is not fast and strong enough to compete for the table scraps he is dead. I believe the ascal to be the most impressive of breeds, based on temperament, intelligence, physical prowess and overall heartiness. I would recommend to any westerner looking for a unique and amazing breed of dog to come over to the Philippines and I will help you to acquire one of these magnificent animals. You will be saving the puppy from a life of endless torture and an untimely brutal death. Thanks
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