Schedule Your Grooming

It’s important to groom your dog. If you have a pug, there could be special grooming needs.

The following is the Snugglly Pugs grooming schedule:

• Daily – Every night before bed I use a Neutrogena sensitive skin face wipe to wipe the puggy face folds.

• Weekly – Every weekend I trim my pugs’ nails with a Dremel. I then smooth out the nails with a battery-operated Cymas Dog Nail Grinder (from Amazon).

• Weekly – After I trim my pugs’ nails, and while they are still on their backs, I stretch and contract their legs, checking their joints. I look at their paws and their tummies. I check their eyes and chins. Basically I give their bodies a once-over looking for injuries or problems.

• Weekly – Every weekend I use Q-tips to clean out the visible gunk in my pugs’ ears. My boy has giant ear canals and I usually have to get loose hair out. My girl has tight ear canals and her ears get yeasty. Sometimes I have to use ear wash to clean them out properly. I also put Genticol ointment in her ears after cleaning if they’re really gross. (Prescribed by our vet.)

• Quartely – Every 3 months or so, the pugs get a little stinky, so I give them a bath with oatmeal shampoo and dry them thorougly. I then give them a light brushing and clean up the pug-sized ball of fur scattered across the room.

From puppyhood until my boy Toby was 5, we lived in a single-family home in the suburbs with a fenced backyard.

When Toby was 5 and my girl Zanna was 4, we moved across the U.S. to Seattle where we now live in a high-rise in the city. There’s a company called Condo Pet Pals that delivers a tray of grass and replaces it every week.

Thankfully, my pugs don’t have the opportunity to get dirty. That’s why they don’t get very stinky. Plus, it’s a hassle to dry my pugs after a bath. It takes FOREVER to get those double coats dry, and before I’m done, I’m covered in hair and breathing it in. There’s dog hair in every corner of the room I use to dry them. I have occasionally used professional groomers, but they never get pug bellies clean, and have sent my dogs home with bleeding nails. Plus, I don’t like spending the money on something I can do better myself.

My dogs are accustomed to the grooming schedule, and lay on their backs calmly while I’m grooming them. I always give them treats after. Vets and professional groomers always comment on how well they behave. I guess a lot of pugs go nuts when someone takes their temperature or checks their ears and bodies.

My pugs do have their oddities. 

• My boy Toby is afraid of smooth floors. So he hates the floors in vet offices. 

• Neither of them like Halloween costumes. My girl Zanna refuses to walk with a shirt on. We recently had a “wear your pajamas to work day” to raise money for the fight against childhood cancer. Zanna refused to walk. I had to carry her to work. 

• Toby pulls on his leash, and so I have to use a harness with him. 

• Zanna doesn’t like a harness, and refuses to walk in it. She goes head-to-the-ground and won’t move.

So work around your pugs’ oddities and with persistence and lots of training treats you can keep your pugs healthy and make their vet experiences smoother.