The Taiwan Dog
One of Taiwan’s national treasures is its indigenous dog. Sometimes called the Formosa Mountain Dog, its official name is the Taiwan Dog 台灣土狗.
It is an ancient landrace. This means it is a distinct, ecologically isolated population that adapted naturally to the geography and climate of Taiwan over thousands of years, rather than being artificially crossbred or engineered by modern humans.
Most likely it came across the land bridge connecting Taiwan to mainland Asia during the last ice age and then was stranded on the island when sea levels rose around 11,000 years ago, evolving into the current breed.
It is classified by the American Kennel Association as one of 10 oldest dog breeds in the world today, along with the New Guinea Singing Dog (worthy of another post about the Out of Taiwan hypothesis), putting its pedigree at between 10,000-20,000 years old.
The breed was almost driven to extinction through the importation of, and cross-breeding with, foreign breeds. In fact, by 1970 only 35 pure bred dogs were found in isolated indigenous villages in the Central Mountain Range.
A desperate rescue program was undertaken and the breed has come back from the brink. There are now over 4,500 registered individuals.
The Taiwan dog is known for several unique traits, the most fascinating is its internal homing/guidance system that uses the earth’s magnetic field to navigate. Another trait is its fierce loyalty to its first owner, to the point that it might never accept a new owner.
These two traits result in dogs traveling days to return to their place of origin (see next post)
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this was the purpose of the whole pilgrimage: to complete the circle from the unconscious to consciousness, from darkness to light, from death to eternity. This is the whole purpose of our being here.
-Osho
God is calling you for a long pilgrimage. Unless that pilgrimage is made, you will remain meaningless, dragging somehow, but not really living. You will not have laughter in your heart.
-Osho
Like the mythological Greek hero Theseus, we wander in a labyrinth, a labyrinth of rationality and ego in which lurks a monster that can devour us.
-The Ascent of Humanity