Dear Past Me: What to Know Before Getting a Pug Puppy

Dear Jess from last October. You’re currently standing in the driveway holding a cardboard box that contains what looks like a hyperactive, three-pound baked potato with giant eyeballs, and you're entirely too confident about this life choice. I know exactly how you got here. You were sitting on the couch exhausted after a twelve-hour day, trying to type baby p into your phone to search for baby pajamas, but your brain misfired, the autocomplete took over, and suddenly you were watching Instagram reels of wrinkly dogs. Next thing I know, you’re up at 2 AM researching baby pugs and convincing yourself that getting a puppy while managing three kids under five and running a struggling Etsy shop out of a spare bedroom in rural Texas is a fabulous idea.

I’m writing this to you from the future to tell you that you're out of your actual mind, but also, you’re going to survive it. Mostly. Our local vet, Dr. Miller, warned us that bringing a baby pug into a house with toddlers requires the kind of tactical management usually reserved for air traffic controllers, and I honestly thought he was just being dramatic. My mom always said kids and dogs just figure each other out in the backyard, but my mom also let me ride in the bed of a pickup truck on the highway, so maybe we don't take all her advice. I'm just gonna be real with you—these dogs are not built like the sturdy mutts we had growing up, and if you don't want to spend your entire Tuesday crying over an emergency vet bill, there are some things you desperately need to understand about this little gremlin.

Their tiny bodies are practically made of glass

You know how our oldest, Jackson, has the spatial awareness of a dizzy rhinoceros? Yeah, bless his heart, he still thinks his body is roughly the size of a Hot Wheels car even though he’s practically as tall as me now. When you bring this puppy home, it's going to weigh roughly three pounds, and it'll constantly try to sleep directly underneath Jackson's heavy, clumsy feet. You can't just let them play on the living room rug together while you fold laundry in the other room, because the baby or the toddler will absolutely trip, fall on the dog, and break it.

Dr. Miller told me these puppies have a tendency to have their blood sugar just randomly fall off a cliff if they get too stressed out or miss a meal, which is apparently a whole thing where they get shaky and lethargic. I'm pretty sure he called it hypoglycemia, but whatever the medical term is, it basically means you’re going to be carrying around a sticky bottle of Karo syrup in your diaper bag right next to the butt paste just in case the dog decides to faint in the middle of Tractor Supply. You're going to have to physically separate the human children from the dog child with heavy-duty metal gates at all times unless you're sitting right there on the floor with them, acting as a human shield.

The breathing situation is absolutely terrifying

Look, I know those flat little squished faces are the entire reason you fell in love with the breed, but nobody tells you how stressful it's to listen to a dog breathe like a 90-year-old man who just ran a marathon. I guess their little windpipes and airways are all mashed up inside their skulls, making it incredibly hard for them to get oxygen if anything puts pressure on their neck. If you think you can just slap a cute little nylon collar from the dollar bin on this dog and take it for a stroll, you're going to end up crushing its throat and rushing to the clinic in a sheer panic.

You have to buy a chest harness, and honestly, you've to buy the expensive ones that don't ride up, which kills my budget-conscious soul but is entirely non-negotiable. And since we live in Texas, where the sun actively tries to murder us from May through October, you can't take this dog outside during the day. They don't sweat, their short noses mean they can't pant effectively to cool down, and they'll literally overheat and drop if you let them run around the backyard with the kids at two in the afternoon. We only do potty breaks in the shady grass at dawn and dusk now, and the rest of the time this dog is inside enjoying the central air conditioning that I'm struggling to pay for. Oh, and they pee every two hours, so just put down some absorbent mats in the kitchen and pray to whatever higher power you believe in.

Wrinkles are adorable until they smell like old cheese

My grandmother swore that the only grooming a short-haired dog needed was a good hose-down in the summer, but if you hose this dog down and don't dry every single crevice on its face, you're going to grow a yeast infection in its wrinkles. Their faces have these deep folds that trap dirt, eye boogers, kibble dust, and toddler drool, and if you aren't wiping them out every single day, the smell will make your eyes water. I spend more time maintaining this dog's skincare routine than I do my own, wiping out those folds with organic cotton pads and making sure it's completely dry so bacteria doesn't throw a frat party on his face.

And the shedding! Nobody warned me about the shedding. I assumed short hair meant clean floors, but this dog sheds like a pine tree in December, leaving little beige needle hairs embedded in everything we own. This is exactly why I ended up swapping out half of my daughter's wardrobe for the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit from Kianao. I know I usually complain about buying specialty baby clothes, but I bought a few of these just to see if they would hold up, and honestly, they're mostly just okay. Don't get me wrong, the fabric is super soft and I love that it’s grown without pesticides, but the real reason I like them is that the dog hair doesn't seem to weave itself into the organic cotton the way it permanently embeds into those cheap synthetic fleece pajamas I usually buy at the big box store.

The absolute fresh hell of double teething

Right around the time the baby started cutting her first molars, the puppy started losing all twenty-eight of his razor-sharp baby teeth, plunging our house into a chaotic crossfire of chewing. The dog was trying to chew the baby's toes, the baby was trying to chew the dog's rubber Kong toy, and I was trying to pack up macrame orders while crying softly into my lukewarm coffee. You need to provide distinct, safe things for everyone to chew on before they destroy your baseboards and your sanity.

At first, I thought setting up the Wooden Baby Gym in the living room would give the baby a safe place to play while I managed the dog, but honestly, it was a mixed bag for our specific circus. The gym itself is gorgeous—it’s made of sustainable wood and has these beautiful, earthy animal toys hanging from it that look great in the background of my Etsy product photos. But the puppy immediately assumed the dangling wooden elephant was a personalized chew toy sent from heaven specifically for his gum pain. I ended up having to pack it away until the dog learns the "leave it" command, which at this rate might be never.

What actually saved my life during this phase—and I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd have lost my mind without it—was getting the baby her own dedicated, incredibly durable thing to gnaw on. If you're desperate for a moment of peace, you need to check out a teething toys collection that doesn't look like brightly colored plastic garbage. I grabbed the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Chew Toy for my youngest, and it has been the single best ten bucks I've ever spent.

It’s made of this heavy-duty, food-grade silicone that the baby can easily hold in her chubby little fists, and it has all these different textured bumps on the panda's ears that she aggressively rubs against her swollen gums. I keep it in the fridge so it’s nice and cold when the afternoon fussiness hits, and because it’s one solid piece of silicone, I don't have to worry about the dog accidentally swallowing a piece of it if he manages to steal it off the rug. Seriously, when you've a puppy chewing the furniture and a baby screaming from tooth pain, handing them both something frozen and safe to chew on is the only way you're going to get through the afternoon without a breakdown.

So, past Jess, take a deep breath. You're going to be exhausted, your house is going to smell faintly of dog shampoo for the next year, and you're going to spend way too much money on specialized chest harnesses, but when that little squishy face falls asleep on your lap while the baby naps, you won't regret it. Well, you won't regret it most days.

If you're currently drowning in the chaotic overlap of teething babies and chewing puppies, do yourself a favor and grab that panda teether right now before your kid decides the dog's rawhide bone looks appetizing.

Questions I frantically googled at 3 AM

Are pugs actually good with kids?
Okay, yes, their personalities are honestly wonderful with kids because they're basically lazy little clowns who just want to be loved. They don't have that high prey drive that makes them want to herd or nip at running toddlers. But their bodies are just so ridiculously fragile when they're puppies that the danger isn't the dog hurting the kid, it's the clumsy kid accidentally stepping on or dropping the dog.

How do I clean those face wrinkles without getting bit?
You have to make it a calm routine from day one or they'll fight you like a greased pig. I usually wait until he's half asleep on the couch, take a warm, damp organic cotton pad, and very gently swipe inside the fold above his nose. If it smells funky or looks red, our vet told us to use a specific medicated wipe, but otherwise, you just need to keep it dry and clean so they don't get a yeast infection right on their face.

What's this hypoglycemia thing everyone warns you about?
From what I understand, because these puppies are so tiny, they don't have the fat reserves to keep their blood sugar stable if they burn too much energy or miss a meal. If they start acting wobbly, confused, or lethargic, it's a huge emergency. I literally keep a tube of Karo syrup in the kitchen and rub a tiny dab on his gums if he seems shaky, which usually perks him up enough to eat his kibble.

Is the shedding really that bad for a short-haired dog?
I'm laughing just reading this because I used to be so naive. Yes, it's horrific. They have a dense double coat, which means they drop these coarse little hairs constantly all over your house, your clothes, and your baby's playmat. You will need to brush them outside every single day and invest in a really good vacuum if you ever want your house to look clean again.

Can I just use a regular collar to walk them?
Absolutely not, unless you want to end up in the emergency vet clinic. Their faces are pushed in, which means their airways are compromised and delicate. If they pull against a neck collar, it can crush their trachea or restrict their oxygen enough to make them pass out. Just spend the money on a soft, well-fitting chest harness and save yourself the panic attack.