Happy Endings - "Disabled Pup Finds a Loving Home"

Though disabled, Bruiser has a good life
with his family.

“He walks on an angle with his rear end in the air,” says Kelly Peters about the two and a half year old pug, Bruiser, she and partner Don Henry adopted. Bruiser has a condition called “swimming puppy syndrome.”

Although more research needs to be done, swimming puppy syndrome appears to be a genetic abnormality present at birth. A deformity to the front legs and chest, the bones in the front legs fuse together and lock in a 90 degree angle. Many puppies that suffer from it don't survive more than a few months. Swimming puppy survivors are so called because when they walk their front legs make the dog look like he is swimming.

At about four months old Bruiser was found wandering around the streets of Los Angeles, California, and was taken to a local shelter. He was soon adopted but returned twenty-four hours later. Enter All Angels Pug Rescue. Bruiser became one of the fifteen to thirty pugs the organization rescues a month from area shelters.

“We were going to foster him but he was so special that we ended up keeping him,” says Peters, a volunteer with Henry at All Angels Pug Rescue.

Although swimming puppy syndrome makes it hard for Bruiser to walk -- and when he does his face is only inches off the ground -- he has adapted well. “He sits like a prairie dog so he can see what is going on,” says Peters, laughing. He has no spring in his front legs, but his back legs are very strong. Of dogs with disabilities Peters says, “Once they get used to their deformity they are like a normal dog.”

Bruiser has clearly swum himself into a loving home. “He is the joy of our lives,” says Kelly. “He is just so special.”

First published in Dog Fancy, March 2005

For more information on rescuing pugs, please visit www.allangelspugrescue.com

A version of this piece originally published in Dog Fancy, March 2005

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