46 Fun Facts About Pugs

From which country were Pugs brought to Europe in the sixteenth century?

China had a taste for flat-faced dogs and bred several, the Pekingese among them; the Pug is the one that traders carried west.

Which two colours are Pug coats most often?

Apricot fawn and silver fawn are also recognised shades.

What shape does a Pug's tail normally take?

Curled over the hip as tightly as possible is what show judges look for, and both the British and American standards rate a double curl as the ideal.

How does the American Kennel Club's breed standard describe the Pug's personality?

Even-tempered and charming is only half of it: the same sentence of the standard asks for playfulness and dignity together, and the British standard wants dignity too.

The Pug's Latin motto, multum in parvo, translates as what?

Much in little is the standard's demand for a lot of dog in a small space: judges want compact form and hard muscle, and fault a lean, leggy Pug as much as a long, low one.

Which pet monkey is one theory for the origin of the name 'Pug'?

Marmoset monkeys were fashionable pets known as pugs, and dictionaries date that monkey sense of the word decades before the dog sense, so the flat-faced dog may simply have borrowed the name.

The theory that 'Pug' comes from Latin pugnus links the breed's head to what shape?

A closed fist is the traditional guess, which a Victorian dog writer stated as beyond doubt; modern dictionaries are less sure and list the word's origin as unknown.

What are the two recognised Pug ear shapes?

Rose and button ears only became a question once cropping stopped: early Pugs had their ears cut off close to the head, and today's judges prefer the forward-folding button.

What colour does the breed standard require a Pug's nails to be?

Black nails were essential even in 1894, when a show writer complained that judges kept overlooking them; the standard's wording on the point has not changed since.

What dental trait is normal in Pugs?

An under-bite, with the lower teeth just ahead of the upper, is what show judges expect; the jaw is so short that a full set of teeth has to crowd in crooked.

Pug breeders are said to have prized forehead wrinkles that formed the written character for which word?

Prince: three creases crossed by an upright one make the character, and legend has it that early breeders deepened the wrinkles on purpose to get it.

What is a group of Pugs called?

A grumble fits the snorts and mutters, and it echoes the breed's German name, Mops, which dictionaries link, one only tentatively, to a verb meaning to grumble.

Which trading company is credited with carrying the first Pugs to Europe?

The Dutch East India Company's ships get the credit, which is why the English first knew the breed as the Dutch pug or Dutch mastiff and took Holland for its home.

How did a new wave of Pugs reach Britain in 1860?

Looted from a palace by soldiers: British troops sacked an imperial palace and took its lapdogs home, where two of them, Lamb and Moss, became parents of the era's most influential Pug stud.

In which Asian region did Buddhist monks keep Pugs in their monasteries?

Tibet's monks kept them as monastery pets; at the imperial court they lived better still, with soldiers posted to guard them.

Of which royal dynasty did the Pug reportedly become the official dog in 1572?

The House of Orange is said to have taken up the breed after a Pug's barking warned one of its princes that attackers were closing on his camp; tellings differ on which William it was.

Which Disney film features Percy, a governor's pampered Pug who ends up befriending a raccoon?

Pocahontas gives Governor Ratcliffe a spoiled Pug; Percy starts out feuding with Meeko the raccoon and ends the film by walking out on his master to stay with his old enemy.

A Pug travelled with which royal couple when they took the English throne in 1688?

William III and Mary II arrived from Holland with their Pugs in tow, and soon after their accession the snub-nosed newcomer was the height of fashion in England.

The French call the Pug a carlin, probably after a stage star famous for playing which masked character?

Harlequin wears a black mask, and an actor nicknamed Carlin was so popular in the part that the black-masked little dog is thought to have been named in his honour.

Which Spanish painter posed a marchioness with her beribboned Pug in a portrait of the 1780s?

Goya gave the Marquesa de Pontejos a Pug at her feet, decked in ribbons and bells and standing as stiff and doll-like as its mistress; a Pug in the picture was a badge of rank.

Which English painter's 1745 self-portrait includes his Pug, Trump?

William Hogarth, a combative man, identified so closely with his pet that a 1753 caricature by Paul Sandby drew the painter himself as a Pug.

Whose Pug, Fortune, smuggled notes out of a French Revolutionary prison before she became an empress?

Josephine Bonaparte, not yet married to Napoleon, was held at Les Carmes, where the dog was her only permitted visitor; her notes went out tucked under his collar.

Which Pug colours did Queen Victoria favour?

Apricot and fawn were her choice; Queen Victoria bred her many Pugs herself and passed the passion on to her family, which helped make the breed a fixture of fashionable Victorian homes.

Which 1980s family film follows a Pug puppy searching for his best friend, a kitten swept down a river?

The Adventures of Milo and Otis was shot in Japan with real animals, and its English version has one human voice: Dudley Moore narrates and speaks for both the kitten and the Pug.

Why are a Pug's large eyes unusually easy to injure?

Their sockets are very shallow, a side effect of the short skull, so the eyes sit proud of the lids' protection; vets warn that a knock can scratch one or even pop it out of place.

Which Pugs did Lady Brassey, a round-the-world yachtswoman, first put in English show rings in 1886?

Black Pugs from her kennel soon became the fashion; she is said to have brought them home from the East aboard her yacht, the Sunbeam, though nobody at the time could confirm it.

With which breed were Pugs reportedly crossed in the 19th century to broaden the head?

The English Bulldog cross did widen the skull and shorten the face, but a Victorian judge complained that the offspring came out splay-footed and, worst of all, savage in temper.

In which show group do both the American and British kennel clubs place the Pug?

Toy, though it is the heavyweight of the group: the Kennel Club calls the Pug the most substantial of the Toy breeds, and both standards allow it up to 18 pounds (8.1 kg).

What does the Pug breed standard call the dark spot prized on the forehead?

A thumb mark, or diamond, should be as black as possible, like the cheek moles and the trace, a dark line down the back; Victorian judges gave the trace alone five points in a hundred.

Which Italian fashion designer named a clothing line after his Pug, Oliver?

Valentino Garavani kept six Pugs and called a second clothing line Oliver after one of them; when he flew by private jet, five of the dogs rode to the airport in a vehicle of their own.

In 2004 the Brazilian-owned Masterpiece became the first Pug to win Best in Show at which event?

The World Dog Show changes country every year and in 2004 came to Rio de Janeiro, so Masterpiece took its top prize on his owner's home ground.

Which country tightened its limits on breeding short-faced dogs such as the Pug in 2023?

The Netherlands had already pushed its kennel club in 2020 to restrict registration of twelve flat-faced breeds, which drew an open letter of protest from the president of the world canine federation.

What do breeders of 'retro pugs' chiefly aim to bring back?

A longer snout, as Pugs had in earlier centuries, is the aim; breeders usually get it by crossing in a Jack Russell Terrier, which makes a retro pug a crossbreed rather than a pedigree dog.

What is the veterinary term for the Pug's flat, pushed-in face?

Brachycephaly squeezes the airway so badly that short-faced dogs die in flight far more often than others, which is why many airlines will not carry Pugs in the cargo hold.

Why are Pugs especially prone to overheating?

Dogs shed heat through their airways, and Pugs' are so cramped that they cannot cool effectively by panting; vets advise keeping warm-weather walks to the early morning or evening.

Breathing trouble is the famous one, but which disorder do UK vets diagnose most often in Pugs?

Obesity is the runaway leader: Royal Veterinary College researchers found 17% of Pugs diagnosed with it each year, making them over three times as likely to be obese as other dogs, and the extra weight makes the breathing worse.

Which part of a Pug's throat, too long for its short head, is blamed for the loud snoring?

The soft palate overhangs the entrance to the windpipe, so Pugs snort when excited and snore when asleep; vets treat loud snoring as a warning sign, and in bad cases they shorten the palate surgically.

A 2008 study found the UK's 10,000 Pugs had a gene pool equivalent to how many individuals?

Just 50: the Imperial College London finding featured in a 2008 BBC documentary on pedigree dogs, and within months the BBC had dropped its coverage of Crufts, the Kennel Club's flagship show.

A fatal disease named after the Pug brings circling and blindness by inflaming what?

The brain: Pug Dog Encephalitis usually strikes young dogs; the cause is still unknown, and it can be confirmed only by examining brain tissue after death.

In which Jane Austen novel does Lady Bertram think 'more of her Pug than her children'?

Mansfield Park's Lady Bertram is Austen's portrait of indolence: she spends her days on a sofa with Pug beside her and pays not the smallest attention to her daughters' education.

Which 1984 David Lynch film features a Pug as a family pet?

Dune's House Atreides keeps a Pug that appears nowhere in the novel; Patrick Stewart, as the warrior Gurney Halleck, charges into battle with it in his arms, and Lynch never explained why.

Willy the Pug spent seven years tucked under Ethel Skinner's arm in which British soap opera?

EastEnders gave the widowed Ethel a Pug named after her late husband, William, and from 1985 to 1992 the scripts milked the name for double meanings every time she lost sight of him.

What is the name of the talking Pug in the Men in Black films?

Frank is no dog at all but a wise-cracking alien in disguise; after a brief scene in the 1997 film, the 2002 sequel gave him a much bigger part.

Which phone network took over India's Hutch and kept its mascot, a Pug named Cheeka who trailed a boy everywhere?

Vodafone inherited a star: Cheeka first trailed the boy in a 2003 Hutch film, to show a network that follows you anywhere, and breeders across India soon reported a rush of people wanting Pugs.

Which faith's members, barred from Freemasonry, founded the Order of the Pug around 1740?

Catholic Freemasons are believed to have set it up as a way round a 1738 papal ban, under a dog chosen for its loyalty; unlike the lodges it admitted women, and a man and a woman took turns in charge.

What did blindfolded novices of the Order of the Pug have to kiss under the tail?

A porcelain pug, kissed under the tail, sealed a novice's submission to the order; they had already been led in on a collar and made to scratch at the door like a dog.