I have not yet written about the dark side of my Pugs. They do of course, like all the breeds, have their have flaws. Terriers can be terrorists, chihuahuas can be ankle biters, and Pugs can be Pigs.

The dark side of Louie was what I called his “Hog Dog” side. It came out every day not only on our walks, when he would go into a feeding frenzy looking for dog poop to eat, but any time of the night or day. That Pug was food obsessed to the point of psychosis.

Other dog owners have told me their dogs are food crazy too, but no one seems to have an obsessive, whining, crying, weeping, wailing maniac of a poop eater and pig like Louie was. I spent many an hour nursing my poor mangled fingers, bitten and chomped on while trying to pry all manner of insane stuff out that pug’s jaws so that he would not die or choke to death. One day he inhaled an entire snicker bar, wrapper and all.

He got ahold of and ate a lot of aluminum foil once because it had just a fragrance of burrito smells on it. I could not pry it out of his mouth so I had to pull it out of his butt as he strained to eliminate it. This happened far too many times, you don’t want to know. 

Louie ate his weight in dog poop over the course of his life. That would be 23 pounds! When he was young he was extremely willful and defiant about finding and scarfing down dog poop on our daily walks. He would trick me with all kinds of bait and switch tactics and he taught them all to Henry who is following in his uncle’s footsteps today.

You might ask, why didn’t I just let him eat the poop since he wanted it so badly? Here’s the awful truth. Nine times out of ten, as soon as we got home he would walk into our living room and throw it all back up on our white berber rug.

Not to mention that he was exposing himself to all manner of viral and bacterial infections. He once contracted what the Vet called the worst case of gastroenteritis she had ever seen. That is inflammation of the intestines. And Louie was the kind of Pug that did not suffer in silence.

He screeched his head off every time he had a diarrhea attack, running around the back yard at one in the morning, then two in the morning, then three in the morning, screeching and pooping and crying and moaning. You had to be there. OMG. And I had to go to work. I cannot tell you how many nights I was up at all hours with that Pug having diarrhea attacks, throwing up, screeching and crying and carrying on.

Our Vet said that Louie had an anxiety disorder and might benefit from being put on Meds to calm him down. We didn’t want to subject him to drugs so we decided to just let Louie be Louie. 

So we lived a life that was rocked 100% by a highly anxious, food and poop obsessed Pug. Louie was also so sweet and intelligent and funny and sensitive that it just took our breath away.