Tell me about your small dog(s).

The only thing I really have against pugs and Boston terrors and other brachycephalic breeds (aside from the ugliness and the snorting, both of which are just personal preferences) is that they can become such spendy little buggers in such short order. They tend toward soft palate elongation, so you may be looking at a resection so the poor thing can breathe on a regular basis. Though resections are pretty rare, they’re also pretty damn expensive. Their eyeballs tend to pop out at the least provocation, and that can run a couple hundred each time. Their knees tend to go, and that’s a few hundred per leg. And the wrinkly ones are prone to skin infections, which can really mount up over the life of the dog.

Of course, just about any breed can have very expensive medical issues. That’s why it’s so important to do your research before settling on anything. I’d hate for you to wind up like so many of the clients we see in the ER, who are just utterly flabbergasted that their dog’s had some expensive issue that’s terribly common to the breed. I can’t help thinking to myself, “Well, it’s a ____, what the hell did you expect?”

Cinnamon Girl, my roommate used to have one of those. I called her a shitzapoo, but that was purely for humorous purposes. As far as vet records and such, I don’t think there’s a widely accepted term for that cross. Sasha was just down as a poodle mix. (Poor dog looked like a poodle mixed with Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, frankly. She prompted a lot of “What the hell is that?” conversations.)

Ugly? Who you calling ugly? 'tis true, though, they do snore.

Ask and you shall recieve! Any excuse to post pictures of my little goblins. They posed for a pic this morning, to show you more of their puggy goodness.

I have not had any problems with my pugs other than normal vaccinations and such. The worst thing that’s happened was that Edith had a reaction to a vaccination, requiring us to bring her back to the vet for a shot of something to stop her from puffing up. Her face puffed to about twice normal size! After that, I will always keep a close eye on her after vaccinations.

Of course, she’ll be 2 in August, so it’s not like we’ve had her a long time.

As far as the muffin smell, I don’t know why they smell so sweet, but they do. Not doggy at all. I don’t do anything special (in fact, I really oughta bathe 'em one of these days.) They just don’t have a very dog-like natural smell.

Okay, I know you didn’t mention this dog in your OP, but I would recommend for cat people Chihuahuas. I have two of them, Chico and Bella.

I always thought of myself as a big dog person, I always wanted a German Shepard. But my in-laws had a chi and we babysat her for a week and I fell in love. When we got little Chicoman, he was about 6 weeks old and too too cute. He weighed under a pound then and the grass was taller than he was! Chico is 3 now and currently weighs 3 pounds (well, he’s had a stomach virus and has been throwing up, so it could be closer to 2.5 lbs. now). Bella is around 3.5 pounds and 2 years old.

Yes, they can be mouthy, but most dogs are like that. If you have asthma, the short-haired ones don’t bother it much. They are very flexible so you can have one in an apartment with no problems. They like going outside, but the winter is harsh on them. Anything more than a couple minutes in frigid weather can cause frostbite. So we use pee-pee pads a lot.

They are really friendly despite their reputation. It’s all in how you raise them. Chico knows all our friends and relatives by name and can identify them (most of the time) in a room full of people. We didn’t raise Bella from a pup, so she’s a bit of a spaz sometimes. She has to come to you, but she LOVES the cat. They play tag a lot. Mia (the kitten) will hide behind a blanket draping on the floor and wait for Bella to walk by and she grabs her legs. It really is cute! Bella also makes some of the funniest faces. Two of my favorites: she’ll put her ears back when she’s being submissive and it looks like she has pigtails; she has a “fleshy” mouth to where she gets “snaggle lip” and this enourmous tongue that just sticks out just a little, sometimes a lot.

Overall, they eat less and poop smaller and generally are amazing companions (read: lapdogs).

If you’re looking for a particular breed, I would suggest going to a breeder. But the animal population is just staggering and you can get a pup at your local humane society fixed and all their shots for less than $100. Which, if you did that stuff on your own dime would be more than that after they get all their shots in the first year, depending on where you go of course.

Good luck finding a puppy, keep us updated and post pictures when you’ve found “the one”. :slight_smile:

I always laugh when I read that. I got the lazy one. Apparently the only lazy boxer in the world. I’ve been trying to get him out of bed for thirty minutes now. It’s a daily process of pleading and cookies to wake him up.

Sadie was quite active in her youth, but when she developed arthritis in her knees, she was lazy, too.

Fenced in yards and dog doors are your friends…

Yeah, but mine is only two! He’s been lazy since six months.

I was looking forward to taking him jogging with me. HA! He is behind me at the end of the retractable leash before we get 100 yards from my apartment! At a quarter mile, he stops and lays down.

I was successful in waking him up. He is now laying on my foot.

To the OP, if you guys are home a lot, then I think a boxer is a great choice. Mine is great with kids, even though I don’t have any. Loves everyone including strangers, even if they come into my apartment without me home. He cried for an hour when the guy who hooked up my cable left.

Since I forgot to mention it in my first reply, I have a weakness for just about any breed in the Mastiff family (which includes Boxers, English Bulldogs, and Great Danes), and any other breed with a mooshed nose (Pugs, Bostons).

Boxers and English Bullies are the smallest of the Mastiffs, and both have health concerns not for the squeamish. Caveat Emptor.

We have a pug/Eskimo mix (we say he’s a Peskimo). He’s a great dog with tons of personality and energy. He’s great with people, loves kids, and likes long walks on the beach and pina coladas. :wink:

The best part is that he was free! I know some people are really into one breed of dog, but I personally would rather rescue a dog that nobody else wants. Sometimes those mixed breed dogs (such as mine) turn out to be the best dogs, IMO.

So, you want pictures? You got it!
Weezer

//runs into thread, scoops up all the adorable dogs, and runs off again.

I’ll just say that Bostons need a LOT of exercise. Pugs are more home-bound, short walks, etc. They get overheated easily, though.

Pugs, I’ll repeat, are the smallest big dogs. Watch a pug at a dog park, they’ll run and tussle with the german shephard dogs and the mastiffs.

Definitely agree. I was a part-time petsitter for about 4-5 years, and pugs were some of my favorite dogs to take care of. I am a big dog person, and if I were to get a small dog, a pug would be it. Canis maximus.

Cinnamon Girl, as a first-time owner you might want to consider either getting your dog from a breeder or from a breed rescue. While some of the bigger, fancier shelters offer support to first time owners, many do not, and a good breeder or rescue group will help you if you run into problems, up to and including taking the dog back if something you can’t handle happens. If you do decide to go with a shelter dog, ask them what kinds of resources they have in place to help if you run into a behavior problem you aren’t sure how to handle.

I have two pugs and a chihuahua. The pugs have been terrific family dogs. They are sturdy and extremely sociable. They love people and were brought up with two cats without any problems. They shed, they are stubborn so can be a tad difficult to housebreak but using a crate as bob said is a terrific training aid as dogs usually don’t like to eliminate where they sleep. They do snore but using a harness rather than a collar can help with that issue. Mine have been pretty healthy with the exception of a few eye and ear infections. My girl also had an adverse reaction to the lepto vaccine like athena’s edith and getting the whole kaboodle of shots at once sends her off her feed for a week. I stagger the vaccinations now about two weeks apart. They are prone to luxating patellas (knees) but finding a “reputable” breeder would be key to avoiding that problem. Be prepared to spend over $500 if you plan to buy a puppy. Also, if you plan to go the rescue route, be advised that many rescue organizations are adverse to placing small dogs in homes where there are young children. Whatever sex you choose, remember to spay or neuter!!!

I love my little chihuahua as well but she is a rescue and does not like anyone who is not a member of the family and will bite. Plus she is a Mexican Noisemaker who can remove paint with her bark. OTOH, she is the sweetest little snuggler on Planet Earth.

I just got back from the vet with Frodo (routine maintenance, nothing bad) and the vet mentioned stinky pugs. I didn’t ask him, he just brought up that one thing to watch out for is that their face folds can get infected if they’re not cleaned regularly, and when they’re infected they stink. I haven’t seen it on my pugs, but I do plan on taking his advice and cleaning their folds with Clearisel pads. Perhaps this is the source of the stink from your friend’s pugs?

Yeah, pugs think they’re a lot bigger than they are. There’s a reason that their name is so close to the word “pugnacious”…

Anyway. Hi. I have a pug. Her name is Jasmine, and she’s about three and a half years old. I’m now totally converted to pug-ownershiphood. She’s just the cutest darn thing.

If other pugs are anything like ours, they tire easily, so no long walks, or you’ll just end up carrying your pug home. Still, they’re quite playful around the house. Every now and then, when she’s really excited (such as, when you accidentally say the word “cheese” around her), she goes “pug crazy”, which basically involves making chirpy-chuffing excited noises and running around in small circles so fast that she wipes out. Maybe I can record a short movie of that. Now that she’s older, she’s mellowed a lot, and she’s quite clingy. She likes sleeping right up against us (or on us) whenever she naps.

She’s very playful, like I said, but one very cool thing about her is, she knows what her toys are, and she doesn’t play with anything else. Not shoes, not socks, not anything else we accidentally leave on the floor. Not that it matters much, pug teeth are like little white nubs, but still.

They do shed a LOT. We could build a whole new pug out of what we’ve vacuumed out of our carpets in the last three months.

The only medical problem we’ve had with Jasmine was a bout with gastritis, brought on by her eating foam from her destroyed bed. No eye or skin problems, thank goodness. She’s about 21 pounds, just about right for a pug; her brother Pugsley (owned by my wife’s friends) is a big ol’ chubby chunk of dog sausage.

And, she seems much smarter than I thought a pug would be. She tries to trick us into letting her outside more often than she really needs to go so that she can scam a treat from us. She knows words like “cheese” and “treat”, even if you spell them (we’ve had to resort to “gouda” or “fromage”). She also knows “toy”, and can tell her toys aparts. If you say, “Where’s your bone?” she gets the bone, and “Where’s your duck?” gets the duck. She really, really likes chewing on her toys, and she can go through them quite quickly; she can chew apart the knots on a standard-size rope bone in about a day, so we have to get her the large ones she can barely get her mouth around.

And now, a picture of the “Jazmanian Devil” at her most devilish: Jaz

romansperson, you bring up an excellent point. But the rescue operations aren’t as close to me as the dog clubs (there’s a HYOOOGE pug one in Cincy). Surely, there’d be tons of support available in a dog club. Since I don’t have many friends, I also thought a dog might help get over my recent, um, social difficulties. So I had seriously considered joining a meet-up (I’ll need to have a purebred though). It seems to be working from the other end. I do enjoy talking to people about their dogs. I’m headed down to a no-kill shelter today to visit a beagle/pug puppy.

Vunderbob, I’m with you. Show me a smooshed-nose dog and I’m totally bowled over. I’m a mastiff fan too. Someday, I hope to have enough money and space for a bullmastiff, slobber and all. :slight_smile: Sadly, since I don’t have a fence surrounding my entire backyard, I won’t consider a boxer just yet. I don’t mind the idea of crating at all, but it just seems to me that a dog like that deserves to be able to go outside when it wants to.

Thanks for all the pics and info everyone. Keep it coming! Of course, when my baby finds me I’ll be back with lots of pics.

I heard somebody ask for pictures!

Here’s a morph I made between two photos of our miniature poodle. They were taken a day apart (really!) before and after her first haircut.

http://www.hevanet.com/nesbitt/haircut3.mpg

I just tried to play it in Windows Media Player 8.0 and it worked fine. I made the mpg file non-comercial piece of software so the resulting file doesn’t play in every player.

Well, that depends. If by ‘dog club’ you mean an official organized body, like a chapter of the national breed club, sometimes those folks are more concerned with petty politics than anything else, and sadly, some of the experienced people can turn their noses up at newbies. If you haven’t yet, check the club out and see what the people are like before committing yourself. If the group you are referring to is more like an activity or play group for pugs, that might work out better.

I gleaned that you’re from the Cincy area… If you think you might want a Boxer after all, I know of some rescue groups in Ohio and Indiana that you might consider calling. There is also a boxer rescue group in the Dayton area that I’d avoid like the plague.

It plays but the pic is humongous and doesn’t fit in my window! Even though I’m not much of a poodle fan, she’s a cutie. I love her color.

romansperson, I was thinking specifically of groups composed of breed fans, not necessarily snobbish official groups. The pug group here has get-togethers all the time and last fall we went to their annual pug party where they had contests and games in the middle of a town square. That’s where I fell in love with pugs in the first place.

vunderbob, I take it you’re familiar with the southwestern Ohio area? But you’re in Virginia now, right? So I don’t get to come over and play with your boxers? :frowning:
Alright, no silly remarks. I meant the dogs! :smiley:

Where I live is irrelevant. My 4-legged ones have all assumed room temperature, and I wear bikini cuts. Playing with my boxers won’t work. :wink:

I’ve been in Virginia only 2 years now, but I was a foster home for the Central Indiana Boxer Rescue group in a previous life. That was mostly fun. I thought of it as the Dog Of The Month Club…