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Health
Concerns In The Pug
Buying a healthy pug is
important, no one wants to buy a puppy and later discover it will
need costly surgery to correct it’s problems.
Many people talk about "back yard breeders" or
those only interested in selling puppies. These breeders are not
concerned with breeding for correct pug conformation, nor any
defects their breeding stock has.
For these reasons, a person should avoid purchasing from
newspaper ads, internet websites that cater to buying and selling
pets of many breeds and so-called ‘designer’ breeds that are a
cross of two different purebred dogs.
These are places where backyard breeders and puppy-mills
usually advertise.
Breeders who
"inbreed" are not bad breeders - after all, inbreeding
is what created the Pug breed to start with.
But a breeder should be able to tell you what their reasons
were for the inbreeding that they did, what they expected to get
from the inbreeding, and what problems may also occur from the
breeding. You'll find
that being an informed purchaser will help you find caring,
conscientious pug breeders.
Responsible breeders will have
some sort of health agreement with you.
They'll want you to take your new puppy or dog to your own
vet shortly after you get it home, so that you know it's doing
okay. They should be knowledgeable or at least familiar with the
problems outlined here. Don't be afraid to ask questions of a
breeder - good ones will share information with you.
NO BREEDER can ever produce
100% healthy-for-life dogs. Just as in humans, we cannot
"breed out" certain problems in our own genetic makeup,
dog breeders can only do their best to work towards limiting
problems in a line of dogs. Line breeding and inbreeding are two
of the tools that, when used properly, can help in identifying and
reducing the health problems in the breed.
A good breeder has a purpose in mind when producing a
litter and can tell you what their goals were - something other
than, "I own both the mother and the father."
Health concerns in Pugs center
primarily on their head and their legs, although other problems do
exist, such as spinal deformities that can cause the pug to become
crippled. Pug heads cause problems because of the smashed-in faces
and large round eyes instead of having the normal elongated face
and almond-shaped eyes of most breeds of dogs.
Problems that are fairly common include:
- Cataracts
- Corneal
Ulcers
- Dry
Eye
- Eyelids
and Eyelashes
- Elongated
Soft Palate
- Pug
Dog Encephalitis
- Generalized
Progressive Retinal Atrophy
- Pinched
or Undersized Nostrils
Leg
problems that occur in Pugs include:
- Hip
Dysplasia
- Legg-Calvé-Perthes
disease
- Slipped
Stifles
Pugs
also have a high incidence of demodectic skin mites (often called
demodectic mange), especially when they are still puppies. Mange
does require a veterinarian to treat it.
Pugs
do not whelp their own puppies well and often require C-section
surgery. And many
dams may not want anything to do with their puppies the first week
of birth, so breeding a litter of fragile pug puppies is a job
that requires constant attention.
For
this reason, Caravelle Pugs will only sell breeding or show
quality pug to persons already established as a breeder, a member
of PDCA and/or their local club.
Not every Pug will have these
problems, while others may have more than one. And there are other
health problems than can and do occur within the breed, but not
often enough to go onto this list.
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