About breeding & Where to get your pug

Before you breed your Pug

Some things I suggest you think about before you breed your Pug are:

Why do you think your Pug should be bred? There is an overpopulation problem with dogs in the US, and even with Pugs (lots of Pug rescue organizations). Any dog bred should be an excellent example of its breed, and this isn't something that an inexperienced fancier can tell (especially since all our Pugs are beautiful to their owners!). Unless a Pug is shown and does well, preferably earning his Championship, he should not be bred. The other option would be to have several highly successful show breeders evaluate him for you. If they believe he's worth being bred, they'll tell you.
Pugs have genetic flaws, like any other breed. You need to do some pretty extensive health checks for things that your dog may have without you knowing of it, including but not limited to leg perthes, luxated patella, cataracts, PRA, and others.
But this is not enough. If you didn't buy your Pug from a breeder who also checked all of these things (none of which are apparent to the naked eye: they require xrays or checking by a board-certified canine opthamologist), you have no way of knowing if the line you bought from carries these genetic problems. Even if your dog checks out, he could easily be "the lucky one" in his litter of genetic disasters. If you didn't buy from a reputable show breeder, your breeder almost certainly did not screen the parents of your dog, does not know the genetic background of your dog through pedigree research, and did not keep close track of your dog's siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, to see where and if genetic problems came up.
By breeding your dog, even if he checks out healthy, you are basically embarking on a genetic crap shoot, and your dog's puppies and the future owners of those puppies are the ones who will suffer if you roll wrong.
Pugs are hard to breed, as the breeder you spoke to told you regarding the small female. Those wide, flat heads and narrow pelvises do not make for easy whelping. Pug females can and do die, and an inexperienced breeder is far more likely to lose a bitch in whelp because they don't know when she's in trouble and needs the vet's assistance.
Many Pug litters are born by c-section. New show breeders often apprentice to very experienced breeders, going and helping/watching at many whelpings at the knowledgable breeder's home until they feel comfortable that they know what to look for and what to do.
And whelping isn't the end of it: many Pugs make terrible mothers, and even those devoted to their puppies often do not have enough milk, which means tube feeding. Tube feeding is running a tube down a puppy's throat to the stomach (it's really easy to miss and get into the lung by mistake, by the way, which means the puppy drowns on the milk). This has to be done every 2 hours, 24 hours per day, for 3 weeks, for each puppy. If you have a job, or if you don't have the physical stamina to lose that much sleep (tubing 4 puppies can take an hour, especially for a beginner, so you'd get an hour between feedings), you won't like being surrogate.
Then there's the problem of placing the puppies. People buy dogs for the oddest reasons. Yes, you and I love our Pugs very much, but unless you are experienced screening buyers you might well end up selling to a lot of people who are not good owners, by any standards. The rescues are full of Pugs who were dumped by these owners, the vast majority of which bought from inexperienced breeders who didn't know what to look for in a buyer (or from completely unethical backyard breeders, pet shops, or puppy mills, of course).
When you breed, you have responsibility for the lives you produce. If you don't keep close track of your puppies as they grow up, you won't know if your dogs are producing genetic problems, so you could continue breeding dogs who bring nothing but heartache and disaster. If you don't take back any puppy, or adult dog, at aby time in its life, you will be contributing to the Pug rescue problem. You'll be contributing to this same problem if you don't sell on spay/neuter contracts, and follow up on them.

All of this doesn't mean you shouldn't breed Pugs. It just means that there is an awful lot to think about. There are two ways to go about breeding dogs: responsibly or irresponsibly. The second is much easier, like a lot of things in life. If you decide to do it responsibly, I would suggest:

Study up. Go to dog shows and start talking to Pug breeders. Enter your boy in some shows and see what the judges and the other exhibitors think. If he's not up to snuff, accept him for the terrific pet he is, neuter him, and get a new dog for foundation stock.
Show your dogs. There are many reasons for this: one, you're proving your dogs' worth under an impartial and highly knowledgable source (the judges). Two, you are undergoing a sort of "peer review" from your fellow responsible breeders, which can only help all of you maintain integrity in your breeding programs. Three, you are gaining much valuable knowledge, and even more importantly a responsible professional network with other breeders, who can help you with any and all questions that come up as you do your pedigree research, look for the best area vets, and consider how and where to advertise, among a million other concerns.
Do your genetic homework. First get knowledge about hereditary problems in Pugs, then find out how to screen against them. If you do run into a problem in your line, figure out which dog(s) are responsible (more pedigree research) and spay or neuter the relatives of those dogs. Without networking with other responsible breeders, pedigree research is nearly impossible.

Where to get a Pug

There are two good places to get a Pug :

from a rescue group, shelter, or rescue individual (which will have spayed or neutered the dog, will have a contract for you to sign, and will charge you a relatively low price to keep themselves in dog food and pay their vet bills for future rescues), or
from a reputable breeder.

Now, in many breeds there are various "kinds" of reputable breeders (for instance in Border Collies you can find reputable herding breeders, reputable obedience or agility breeders, reputable show breeders). Because Pugs are a non-performance breed, the only kind of reputable breeder that exists is a show breeder. The best place to find a show breeder is at a dog show.

Why is it best to buy from a show breeder/reputable breeder? A variety of reasons :

Show breeders know the breed. They immerse themselves in it : its history, its genetic problems, its needs.
Show breeders not only want to breed responsibly, they have to breed responsibly. If a person is currently showing they are subjected to a "peer review" of their fellow show breeders. If they are behaving irresponsibly in breeding, their fellow show breeders will get a pained look on their faces when you mention their name, and won't say anything. If they are behaving responsibly in breeding, their fellow show breeders will say enthusiastically, "Oh, yes, my little Hortense is a 2nd cousin to her dog Rabscuttle!"
Show breeders do their research into pedigrees, and they screen their stock for genetic problems. If you ask a breeder "What's the incidence of luxated patella in your lines?" and they say "What's luxated patella?", run for the door.
Show breeders are careful who they place their pugs with! It can be like adopting a child, they'll ask you so many questions.
Show breeders stand behind their dogs. If the dog comes up with a genetic problem, they not only want to know about it, they may well offer you a replacement, or refund all or a portion of your purchase price. Show breeders are there, a phone call away, for advice at any time during your Pug's life.

Are there irresponsible show breeders? Yes, there are. Luckily it's a small percentage, and usually by asking yourself "Are they mostly concerned with this puppy or mostly concerned with getting my check?" you can tell when you're dealing with one.

A breeder whose Pugs aren't registered, who doesn't have dew claws done, who hasn't given the first vaccine to a 5-week or older pup, is not a responsible breeder. They're trying to "get some money back" and I guarantee if you ask them what are some of the top genetic problems in Pugs they will not know (and they certainly won't have screened against them!)

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