‘I live with 200 pugs – food and vet bills cost a fortune but I wouldn’t have it any other way’

A pug-fanatic has revealed she spends a small fortune feeding and looking after her family of more than 200 dogs – but she has no regrets.

Cheryl Gaw has devoted her life to rescuing and caring for pups, with her favourite breed being the flat-faced pug.

She currently lives with hundreds of them, running her very own shelter in her home to look after the medically-challenged pooches alongside her husband Malcolm, 71.

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It doesn’t come cheap, with 62-year-old Cheryl estimating she spends around £3,400 on vet bills, and £1,470 on high-quality food for her pugs every month.

But despite ditching her career and moving home to look after her dogs, Cheryl has no regrets.

“I just love flat-faced dogs,” she said.

“I remember one day I picked up this little pug and I said, ‘One day I’d like to have a hundred of you running around my home’.

“The universe listened and gave me exactly what I wanted.”

Cheryl, who lives in East Rand, South Africa, was working in a senior role in sales and marketing at a pharmaceutical company when a colleague told her about a pug that had been found at a local nursery.

The dog lover, who already had six pugs of her own, said she would look after him at home for a spell while the owners were contacted.

When they didn’t reclaim him, Cheryl worked with a local dog rescue to help rehome him but instead fell in love with the pooch and adopted him herself.

Impressed with her efforts, the local rescue asked if she would help with their rescue operation – and from there, Cheryl’s own rescue called Pug Rescue South Africa was born.

She and Malcolm started with 19 dogs in their house, but it quickly became too crowded.

Cheryl said: “We had to decide if we were going to continue doing this and if we were, we’d have to find another property.”

They sold their home and relocated to a larger space, with plenty of room for their four-legged residents.

As the rescue became bigger, Cheryl quit her job to run the operation full-time, reports What’s The Jam.

Now, the couple has rescued more than 2,000 dogs over the past 16 years, with breeders often dumping dogs they can no longer care for.

But it comes at a steep cost financially – particularly due to the pug breed’s medical needs.

Cheryl explained: “They’re breeding without understanding what the consequences are.

“Pugs are susceptible to health problems such as breathing difficulties, skin conditions and eye issues and it costs a lot for organisations to care for the animals.”

Pug Rescue needs to raise thousands every month through fundraising efforts and sponsors to cover the costs – with medical bills totalling around £3,442 (R80,000) a month, and food costing around £17,644 (R410,000) annually.

Cheryl said: “It’s a constant battle.

“The dogs often need specialist surgery.

“Most of our pups are on chronic medication.”

Blind dogs, dogs that can’t walk and some with dwarfism are all housed at the shelter, as well as one currently with a hole in his heart, and two with diabetes.

The breed is also prone to digestive issues and needs high-quality food.

Cheryl said: “Pugs are popular when they’re adorable puppies, but when they develop health problems, many people no longer want to look after them.

“We recently lost two pugs under the age of two – they’d been surrendered to us as puppies because they had health challenges.

“We did everything in our power to help them, but medically there’s only so much we can do.”

Cheryl and Malcolm work closely with a vet to care for the dogs, and as soon as a pug is surrendered, they see the medic within 48 hours and are sterilised, vaccinated, microchipped and dewormed.

The breed is twice as likely as others to develop health issues, according to research by the Royal Veterinary College.

Dr Myfanwy Hill, a veterinary surgeon based at the University of Cambridge, who was involved in the research, said: “The issue you’ve got is a dog with a smaller skull, but nothing else about the dog has gotten equivalently smaller.

“Their brains are squished into a box that’s too small and other soft tissues are squished into a smaller space.

“Pugs also have narrow nostrils which is like trying to breathe through a really narrow straw and makes breathing much harder work.”

The breed is also at higher risk of skin fold infections and their “attractive tail” is actually the result of malformed vertebra which can result in slipped discs.

Centuries of inbreeding to preserve a breed humans find cute has done pugs no favours – and as much as she loves the dogs, Cheryl would be the first to agree they should be bred out.

She added: “I see the problems they have and how they battle with their health.”

Despite the pugs’ challenges, Cheryl and her team of 10 do their best to ensure their charges live a comfortable life.

On weekends they run a “spoil a pug” programme where volunteers are allocated pugs to treat for the day.

An adoption programme is also run, but Cheryl and her team are strict about the process. She said: “We have to ensure the new owners are able to provide the pugs with the same comfortable life we offer them and more.”

They conduct home inspections and insist the dogs be allowed to sleep indoors.

Malcom added: “Sometimes people say our adoption process is absurd but it’s for the well-being of our puppies.”

Caring for pugs is a full-time job that doesn’t leave Cheryl much time to destress but she says she’s grateful to her husband, son Michael and family and friends for their support. More support has come in the form of a businesswoman who has donated a piece of land behind Pug Rescue’s property so they can expand the shelter.

Cheryl added: “We’re starting with our succession planning.

“My dream is that Pug Rescue will have a great and sustainable future.”

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