These are vets giving expert opinions and you are a (former) pug owner with an anecdote.
That you had a single individual that you believe did not suffer from the issues related to extreme brachycephaly doesn't really tell us much.
The problems are only partly related to inbreeding - selecting for dogs with such squashed heads is bad in and of itself.
That's the issue!
As long as the animal is happy, I don't see the problem of a shorter lifespan.
You can simply (and sadly) have it put down in an humane way once it starts to get health issues. Plenty of pets don't make it past 8 years.
And again, your dog might have been ok. Hell, you might have got a classical pug with a longer snout and few issues.
The problem is that there are vast numbers being bred and sold that do suffer from these problems, and no amount of exercise is going to help them.
This is a solvable problem, if people stop selecting for dogs with collapsed faces.
I concede that the ethics of purebred ownership remain a live debate after this comment, but hopefully we can eliminate right now the notion you have that you can club down other commenters with the question "are you a vet?".
It's not even the ethics of purebred ownership in general - it's the ethics of selecting for known harmful traits, and people buying them in droves due to little more than fashion.
I'm not making any special pleading here, the guardian piece is backed up by publications from the British Veterinary Association. I'm not impugning any vets, it looks like the entire profession is moving this way in the UK.
You're reading things into my argument which just aren't there, and what's more it feels like you haven't fully read the article.
Also: please stop suggesting that commenters haven't read the article.
What do you think the article is advocating? Because AFAICT it's not euthanasia, it's to stop supporting breeders in their quest for ever 'cuter' brachycephaly.
I think it's totally fine to exhort people who don't have strong dog preferences to select non-compromised dogs. It also makes sense to me to advocate rescues. We own a rescue, too. Where you lose me is when you suggest that it's unethical to purchase a purebred dog.
Acquiring a rescue when you have a preference for a purebred puppy is an ethically positive action. I think few people here would disagree with that. The fallacy in your argument is that the positive outcome of acquiring a rescue does not automatically imply that a acquiring a purebred is ethically negative; it can be --- and I think usually is --- ethically neutral.
Further that purchasing from such breeders is also unethical.
I had a little red dog when I was a kid. A mutt,a little larger than a pug, with short legs.
She would run alongside me while I rode my bike, say at 15km/h.
One time she ran till she collapsed. I felt really bad for not noticing that she was running too hard.
She had so much heart I think she would have run herself nearly to death if I let her.
After that I never rode fast when she was with me.
I have a pug. I made the decision after doing a lot of research and finding a breeder that clearly understood the health issues that pugs face, and was able to explain what he and other breeders have been doing to improve the health of the breed, including what factors they look at when deciding which pugs are healthy enough to bear/sire a litter.
My pug is getting close to 4 years old now. She did have to have surgery to remove some skin and to change the shape of her lower eyelids because hair would rub against the eyes, which caused pigment to be pushed up. It's still a common problem with pugs, and breeders know it. The worst case scenario for my pug at this point is that I'll need to put an ointment containing ciclosporin in her eyes daily for the rest of her life.
Beyond that, her vet is extremely happy with her health and doesn't expect her to have any of the common health issues pugs face. Yes, I have to be careful about letting her get overheated when it's hot out, but other than that, she has no breathing issues. I watch her weight carefully since pugs are greedy little things. Many people think a pug is supposed to be fat, so a 6.3kg female pug looks very skinny to them.
There are still plenty of unscrupulous breeders who don't care about the health of pugs, but spending time to make sure you aren't getting a pug from one of them will put them out of business, and leave the breeders who are doing a good job restoring the health of the breed.