Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image
Topics: Social Media, Instagram, Twitter, Dog, Animals
Britt Jones
Topics: Social Media, Instagram, Twitter, Dog, Animals
Pugs are cute little bug-eyed dogs and their scrunched-up noses are something that people can’t get enough of.
Like the French Bulldog, people have loved pugs for their smushed faces for years, but when an MRI of a pug went viral on X, the dark truth about it was revealed.
This pug MRI racked up well over 130,000 likes and was circulated heavily at the time it was posted by comedian, Andy Richter.
He explained that it was his friend’s pug who had gone to the vet.
Advert
The picture shows a horrific look into the skeletal structure of pugs, with its big, protruding eyes and almost condensed face.
While many thought it was just plain weird that they naturally look that way, others wanted to warn the reason behind it.
Thankfully, the little pug was later given a ‘clean bill of health’ by the vets, which was shared by Richter in a follow-up tweet.
However, experts have since shared that pugs in general are not as healthy as you’d think, and it’s because of us.
“Their faces have been shortened due to intensive breeding by humans, unfortunately,” Dr Rory Cowlam, a vet, told the Independent. “They have these massive eyes, bunched up noses . . . The condition is called brachycephalism.”
Like Frenchies, Shih Tzus also suffer from the condition, which can go on to cause some nasty breathing problems down the line.
“We have, through human selection, bred them to look more like a human baby because we find that cute,” Cowlam says. “But unfortunately, that cute look is not very good for the animal.”
“It is quite striking,” he added. “If you were to get a pug head cake and cut it to take a look down the middle, that is what you are looking at. This is a slice at the level of the eyes, looking head on at the pug, just two or three inches further back.”
These poor animals have been inbred to the point that their whole facial composition has changed.
It is thought that pugs used to have longer snouts, eyes that were not protruding and were closer together on the skull, they were also taller and did not have such round figures. But hundreds of years of selectively breeding with their own litters have changed things.
Dr Cowlam said that he often sees brachycephalic dogs at his surgery, which suffer medical issues caused by their scrunched-up physiology.
This can range from spinal problems and breathing difficulties, which happens when their breathing through their nose isn’t enough because they just don’t have the nostrils wide enough for it.
From there, they can pass out from over-exertion but also can’t cool themselves down enough in hot weather, making them at risk of heatstroke.