My Pug Health Secrets

by Lynn
(GA)

For forty years I have rescued pug dogs from a variety of organizations and private owners. All of these pets have had some sort of health problem and this experience has given me a great deal of knowledge regarding how to keep a pet pug healthy.

Allergies were a problem with Muggs, the first pug I took from my aunt who, at age three, was going to put him down because she couldn’t be bothered caring for him any longer. She didn’t really like dogs and only took him because her husband bought him home from a department store pet department and then paid no attention to him, giving her the responsibility.

I took Muggs and realized quickly he had allergy problems that the vet said would be relieved by prednisone pills. It was, but I believe the long use of prednisone was what eventually caused him to get the liver cancer from which he died. Okay, he was thirteen at the time of his death, but I still think there is a better way to relieve a pet’s allergy symptoms than with that heavy medicine.

I experimented with a variety of things when my present thirteen year old pug, Tinkerbell, had allergy problems, too, when I got her from the ASPCA as a foundling. But now I know better how to treat canine allergies. For one thing, Tinkerbell gets nothing else to eat, and I mean nothing else, but canned canine venison and sweet potato food with no fillers.

Because yeast overgrowth on skin is a problem that causes itching, I bathe her with medicated shampoo made especially for this type of yeast problem, and there are also medicated pads that I use on the “hot spots” she licks. It took a few months, but the itching has almost entirely disappeared and she rarely licks the spots any more.

Tough love has helped, and by that I mean that when I must give her a treat, I do, but she has no idea that the “treat” is really a bit of her regular food! Because she’s on such a restricted diet, I also give her a supplement once daily in the form of oil that is an Omega-3 fatty acid.

My second pug, Maggie, whom I rescued from a pug rescue in my state, has dry eye because her fourteen-year-old eyes don’t produce enough tears. So I use artificial tears several times daily in her eyes, which helps keep them moist and will prevent ulceration.

Owning an animal is a big responsibility which must be taken seriously, especially with regard to their health. One of my pug’s, now deceased, started with a cough that was eventually diagnosed as a collapsed trachea, an apparently common problem in short-nosed dogs. I didn’t get Rocky from the dog pound until he was eight years old. His owners had left him to be euthanized but I took him and he delighted me with his presence for another seven years!

In order to reduce the coughing and inflammation from his weak trachea, I gave him a medication for the cough and also a human supplement called glucosamine and chondroitin, which I was also taking to strengthen the ligaments in my weak knee. I figured that if it strengthened ligaments, it would strengthen the cords that make up the trachea which were collapsing in Rocky. Well, the vet said I was right and it might help. It did, until he was almost sixteen years old.

So, I guess the secret to a healthy pet is to have a combination of common sense, proper medication and good nutrition.