Pugs are off the cards as Moonpig purges collection

PUGS and French bulldogs are being dropped from cards sold by a leading online retailer after campaigners said they “normalised” the breeds’ suffering from breathing problems.

Peta, the animal rights lobby group, had accused greetings company Moonpig of “promoting breathing-impaired” dog breeds.

In response, Moonpig said it had removed or was in the process of pulling any such cards from its site, according to correspondence.

A spokesman told Peta the retailer would not be designing or sourcing any card designs featuring these breeds in future. Cards with images of English bulldogs, which are also flat-faced, remained on sale yesterday.

Moonpig previously sold Christmas cards featuring French bulldogs and pugs wearing festive hats. Last year, a Royal Veterinary College study suggested urgent action was needed as many health issues of pugs are associated with their extreme body shape.

The college added that the pug could “no longer be considered a ‘typical dog’ from a health perspective”.

Yvonne Taylor, Peta’s director of corporate projects, said: “Moonpig is acting responsibly and helping put an end to the promotion of dog breeds with painful, life-threatening deformities.

“Peta is celebrating this compassionate first step and will keep working with Moonpig to extend this new policy to all breathing-impaired breeds, including Boston terriers, boxers and shih tzus.”

In 2019, Moonpig pledged to stop selling cards depicting “captive great apes in unnatural situations”, following a similar intervention by Peta.