Snout Girl

Hi Pugga I'm sorry to hear what happened with Wuggles, it must be really frustrating psyching yourself and your boy up for the op only to find out he underwent antisthetic for nothing. I took bert in this morning to the specialist with bert they dont think its the soft palatte rather the arytenoids (whatever they are). the specialist was quite confused with what my vet had said was wrong, as he said bert's breathing appeared fine, so I had to leave him there and he is undergoing exploratory surgery as we speak. poor baby, 2 ops in 3 days am waiting on tenterhooks at work for a phone call- I'm praying its nothing serious, i have every finger and toe crossed thanks for your concern wuggles ;) will let you know how we go

FWT stands for 'For the Win' (sort of like hell yeah!) but i dont know about FTW. are you sure you didnt mean FTW?

here i was thinking it meant Opening Person

dont beat yourself up abc, I have been on DOL for 6 months and still havent figured out what OP stands for and to think I have a master's degree!

Hi Anne Thanks for your informative responses. Am a bit emotional at the moment, my beloved cat of 12 years passed away suddenly last saturday and I think it woke me up to the fragile nature of pets. then this happened with bert and i got really scared and couldnt breathe for a while. i love my dogs more than life itself and the thought that they wouldnt be around....well it frightened me. its just the state of mind i am in at the moment. but i do appreciate your responses, I will know more wednesday morning after we visit the specialist.

Its strange I've been reading all about the condition in various veteniary journals, and nearly all say that dogs with this problem have a awful cough, 'kind of like a goose honking'. bert never coughs and appears to have no problems breathing. guess i'll just have to wait for the specialist :p

At first they thought it was trauma to the eye (he cut his eye on a biscuit and got an ulcer) but at the last appointment he said it was in both eyes but it is now responding really well to the eye drops and has almost disappeared entirely except for the small scar where the ulcer was :p when i asked what would cause the pk he said it was just one of those things dogs with bulging eyes can suffer from and bert was lucky his eyes responded so well adn we caught it so early.

hi cavsrescue thanks for sharing your experience with your little baby- I'm glad she is on the mend ;) anne- wow your post made me doubly concerned, my vet gave me the impression that the operation would alleviate the problem completely and he would lead a normal life? he is a pedigree, and i will contact his breeder and let her know, but when i wrote and told her he had PK she replied to the email but didnt mention the PK issue at all i have my fingers crossed for my poor i love the little bugger so much :p

Hi all Bert was desexed today, all went well with his op, he is sleeping on my feet as we speak ;) i asked them to check his airways whilst under anthesetic (sp) as i know pugs can be prone to develping elongated soft palates. well it wasnt good news. we have not noticed any problems with his breathing and he doesnt have a cough, but apparently he has weak larynx muscles and they are falling into the airway of the arytenoid cartilages. the vet recommended we see a specialist and surgery will most likely be required :p have made an appointment for wednesday for a speciliast that came highly recommended as one of the best in the field. has anyone elses dogs suffered this? what can i expect? does surgery cure the problem? sorry for all the questions, am a little upset that poor little bert needs what sounds like a big operation anyone else had this experience?

slightly OT, but we've had people with purebred dogs come up to us at the beach and comment on bert, and ask if we would be interested in mating him with their xyz girl and make a lovely (insert name of fancy crossbreed here) thank god he is being desexed tomorrow, tho i have to admit i am a bit nervous! most pugs i have seen in pet shops are definently xs, but they are being sold as pure to the unsuspecting public. a lady at the beach we got chatting to had a pug x beagle and said she bought him in a pet shop and he cost $2500 i was like that is double what we paid for bert, with paperwork and medical history etc

pardon my ignorance, but what is SAD? it cant be what it sounds if such a gorgeous pug came out of it!

hi steve i dont know if they are doing the right, or wrong thing, not for me to judge, i dont have any experience in breeding and all that in entails. i also dont know if she shows or not, tho i have a feeling she does, not that is relevant to my original quesiton. i asked as i explained, we are looking at adding anopther pug to our family in the next 2 years and was doing some research on breeders. when this came up i was unsure whether it was a red flag or not to avoid the breeder, but i am realising that it depends on so many variables that it is impossible to have a yes or no answer without detailing the breeder and other information, which i am not prepared to do. but thanks for your input, everyone's replies have given me a bit to think about, so i can make the best choice for my family when the time for pug number 2 rolls around!

I'm sorry I dont know how many bitches the puppies were from, or if she is well known in the show scene i do know that most (if not all) of the puppies were for pet homes.

hi ellz i am certainly not looking to condemn anyone, it just struck me as a little odd but not having any experience with breeding etc I was unsure whether it was commonplace or not. we are starting to research breeders for our next pug (not for 18 months- 2 years, but its never too soon ) so i just wanted to get as much information as possible in order to make an informed decision the only thing i do know for sure is the breeder has about 15 adult dogs/bitches and at one time they have had about 15 puppies and another time 26 (this has been over around 7-8 months)

hi missymoo this is at one time. and i dont know if they are registered as a business or not, as i said dont know too much about them. they also breed another breed (if that makes sense) so they must keep pretty busy

i dont know anything about the capabilities of the breeder, only know their name and a little about them. just when i saw 26 pug pups for sale i was a little :D but as stated the breeder may well be a stay at home breeder with a lot of experience. i found it hard to cope with one! imagine 26!

yes they are, one of the breeders we looked at when we were getting bert

I'd say he is half cute as a button, half devil in disguise :D

the breed is pugs

aawwww how squishable is that face! :D

dont know if i can say the breed?.....

I am not a breeder (not yet anyway- but in 20-30 years time, look out pug world! :D ) so i dont know what is normal in terms of how many bitches are pregnant at any one time, or how many puppies are whelped in an average year i have one question tho- is 26 puppies a lot to have at one time? it sounds a lot to me but as i said, i'm not a breeder and i dont know if this abnormal as i know some breeders have large properties and quite a few dogs. ETA: the breed i'm asking about does not whelp large numbers of pups (for example, it is not one of the larger breeds that can have between 8-12 pups at a time)

i wish i could stand out the front of places like this with my bert and say to people looking at the pugs in the pet shop: 'look, isnt he lovely? he's a healthy boy, i have a full pedigree papers for him, he has been health tested and was reared in a loving family environment, and i got him for almost half the price of the dogs in here' i then would hand them a paper with places to find purebred dogs :D

completely agree :D kirty- i didnt mean all buyers were uninformed, i meant there was a gapping hole in the categories of people that buy from pet shops. yes, a lot know what goes on but dont care and want the puppy now, some have no idea about puppy farms, and some simpply dont know where else to buy a pet from life takes all sorts :D

Personally I would change b) to read: b) the uninformed (rather than ignorant) there are well meaning people out there who just assume you want a pet- you go to pet store. when i was 15 and was allowed a cat we purchased her from a pet store- that was just the place you went. i dont think ignorant is the right word- just uninformed :D just my opinion, of course