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When NoNienNietNon‘s friend expressed a desire to own a purebred pug, he went all out in trying to convince him otherwise – by showing him the cruel differences between a pug skull and the skulls of other, less bred dogs.
fuck intentionally breeding physical deformities into animals for the sake of vanity
There are plenty of arguments against buying a purebred doing and instead opting to rescue a pup from the shelter, but when it comes to the “squashed face” breeds (like pugs), you can add “the health of the breed” to that list.
Pugs and other dogs with smashed faces (aka brachycephaly) are prone to multiple health issues that shorten their lifespan and impair their quality of life. Dr. Rowena Packer spoke with The Guardian about some of these problems.
“The breeds that are increasing in popularity unfortunately are plagued by a plethora of different health problems – we are talking about issues from head to tail. Whenever we’ve got breeds that do have health problems increasing in popularity naturally we are really concerned about that.”
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Professor Paul McGreevy chimed in to talk about how the health problems impact their lifespan.
“These dogs are dying, we think, four years earlier than dogs of the same size with normal-shaped skulls. Because they have got all of the tissues in their head that a normal dog has, but they have less room, they get dental crowding and they also get the soft palette hanging down – that is what gives them the [breathing] sounds.”
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The wrinkles on their faces, caused by excess skin, also lead the breeds to struggle with eczema, skin disorders, and even eye problems, and the “ideal” body shape of a head larger than the waist means more and more pug mamas require c-section births.
If that’s not a way of Mother Nature telling you that something has gone awry, I don’t know what is.
