Pug Pharmacy
Roy went to the vet yesterday. He needed his anal sacs drained and his facial folds checked out cause they were not looking good. He has an infection in his folds so he has a nice twice daily cream. Gwen too, of course, as the vet said her lint trap seems to be an infection too. Of course, they love having the cream put on their faces! Lots of extra treats being given out lately.
The vet also checked out Roy’s eyes. He has two potentially bad eye issues. First is an “incomplete blink”, which means he doesn’t blink fully all the time, so a little strip in the middle of his eye gets drier than the rest and than can lead eventually to vision problems. He also has something called entropion, in which is lower eyelid folds over into his eye and his little eyelashes irritate his eye. Roy has a nice twice daily eye ointment for these. After that for 5 days, he will be on tear replacement drops for the rest of his life. The vet said to do the same with Gwen, just for preventing any potential issues since pugs are prone to eye issues.
Finally, Roy got some antibiotics for his gnarly chin acne. It was better lately because we were using Stridex pads on his chin daily, but a few months ago it was like his chin was like a pimple minefield. He put the most pimply teenagers to shame. The vet also gave us like 10 refills of the antibiotics, so if he has a flare-up in the future we can just drop by and get some more.
Do any of you deal with these or other eye issues? I know a lot of pugs have chin acne issues, but I haven’t read much about eye issues.
March 29th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Poor Roy! You’re dealing with issues on both ends! Not fun at all! Glad you guys are getting lots of treats at least!
Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch
March 29th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
We deal with a ton of eye issues with Luna. Like Roy, Luna has an eye that has an incomplete blink. This issue went untreated for quite sometime before she was rescued and actually resulted in her eye being so dry that she lost a lot of her vision in that eye and led to other eye issues. Right now, Luna is on a slew of eye meds and it seems like we are always putting a drop in her eye.
The artificial tears really help keep her eyes moist which makes things a lot more comfortable for her.
Best of luck to Roy and Gwen!
March 29th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
we know a lady who’s chow has the same eye issue the lash one. Her dog had to have surgery we believe.
March 29th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
We clean Giggs’ nose fold once a week with isopropyl rubbing alcohol on a cotton pad (as per our breeder’s directions) and he has never in his one-and-a-half years had an infection -knock on wood. The alcohol kills any buggies in the fold, plus it evaporates and doesn’t leave any moisture for new buggies to grow. The only down-side I’ve found is that his nose gets a little dry so I give it a little teeny dab of vaseline when we’re done.
I missed a cleaning one week and his fold got a little red and crusty so I just did some extra cleanings and it cleared up completely after two days.
We were also told that pugs can be more prone to pug-acne if they eat and drink out of plastic bowls. Not sure what you use though.
We’ve been very lucky with Giggs’ eyes so far and no issues there.
March 30th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Thanks for the comments everyone. They drink out of stainless steel and eat out of paper plates or stainless steal since I know plastic can cause issues. I think Roy’s acne is mostly caused by the way he eats bones/treats and his face gets all moist and icky. Usually using baby wipes on the folds and chin has been a good routine, but I think we just need to do it more often to stay on top of it. Once we’re done with the meds, we’ll make “pug torture” a daily routine with baby wipes and tear replacement drops.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Poor Roy and Gwen! Nickey’s had infections in his lint trap quite often too. The life of a pug, sigh. Hope they get better!!
May 10th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Roy and Gwen are so lucky to have you. We found a poor black pug with horrible funky eye-spikes; dried up eye gunk that wasn’t taken care of. I’d open the door to take him for a walk and he’d head for the window, where more light was coming in.
I wonder if we should have kept poor Turbo (great name for this black chunk-o-pug). As I write this I wonder if he was neglected or if there was more to the story than I know.
There was a huge effort to find him so I know he was loved. He is a celebrity in his three-block domain.