These strategies have been developed to encourage Pug breeders to work towards a Pug that more resembles the “normal dog” and is less brachycephalic. We welcome all Pug breeders to take a new path to give back health to the Pug. At present most of the Kennel Clubs work very slowly and stick to a compact Pug that is severely inbred genetically. There are some notable exceptions to this, and that is above all the German Clubs that house breeders of Old German Pugs (“altdeutsche Möpse”) and Retro Pugs. We work in line with the latter and hope to contribute to the spreading of those ways of breeding the Pug.
Footnote: Read more about the “normal dog” under “A healthy Pug standard”.

Mopszucht vom Ilexwald
Chapters in Strategies for the breeding of Healthy Pugs
- Introduction
- Hips, Elbows and Patella
- Hemivertebrae and other vertebral anomalies
- Spinal Arachnoid Diverticulum (SAD)
- Pug Myelopathy (PM)
- Degenerative Myelopathy (DM)
- PDE/NME and other non-viral induced encephalitides
- Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrom (BOAS)
- Dentition and mouth health in the Pug
- Eyes (Brachycephalic Ocular Syndrome)
- Mating and Fertility
- Mentality
- Genetic diversity
© Therese Rodin