Bulldogs World

Hi all, I am new to this site but looking for help and answers.  My daughter who is 19 years old was given an English Bulldog puppy as a high school graduation gift.  They live in my home still and I have 2 other dogs as well (a mutt and a poodle).  This will be long as I try to fit everything in here.  

We brought Spike home when he was about 9 weeks old, he was born April 8th, which means he's coming up on 9 months old.  

I immediately noticed a problem upon bringing him home.. I would take him out to potty, he would pee 3-5 times, then come inside and pee another 3 times on the floor.  The breeder had sent us with a week's worth of antibiotics in case he came down with kennel cough or something, so I suspected he had a UTI and we gave him the meds.  In the meantime, let me mention, he was also having head tremors.  I had a boxer before that had head tremors (but only one episode) so I sort of knew not to panic about it.  Although Spike seemed to have a head tremor episode every day.  After the antibiotics he was still having the peeing issues so I forced my daughter to take him to the vet.  Vet said he still showed a UTI so sent home more meds.  We mentioned the head tremor and the vet seemed to have NO clue what we were talking about.  The peeing problem would get slightly better.. in the meantime Spike was showing signs of being housetrained- using our doggie door etc, but he would still have accidents.  I work from home so I am with him all the time, and my observations were that he didn't know when he was going- the only way I can describe it is that the pee would "fall out" of him.  After he finished the antibiotics again the problem became even worse.. he'd be playing and a load of pee would just fall out, for example.  We go back to the vet again, to be told he no longer has a UTI.. vet doesn't know what to do.. maybe Spike should be sent to live on a farm.  (WOW).  We also showed him a video of the head tremors we see.. he said we could go do a bunch of expensive tests but he thinks it might just be that Spike's neck muscles are still developing or something.  It does seem to happen when he's tired or he's been sleeping.  Vet then sent us home with some Proin 75, mentioning that he usually prescribes this for old female dogs who are losing bladder control, but he said we could try it out.  Well.. within 2 days, the peeing problems stopped!  Either he was magically cured, or the Proin was helping him, or something.  We kept him on the Proin for a couple of accident free months, (Spike seems completely housetrained with the doggie door), then we ran out, he started peeing again in the house.   So we updated the prescription and will keep him on this.  

He is now having some accidents again though so I'm wondering since he's bigger if the dosage needs to go up.  Spike still has head tremors, I'd say 6 days a week out of 7 at least.  Of course it doesn't seem to bother him, and stops after a few minutes.  

My other BIG issue is that my house REEKS, smells, like DOG.  I can stick my head and nose into Spike and I don't really smell the odor.  I was also thinking that with all the potty issues we really just need to get the carpet cleaned where we know he's had accidents.  However.. my daughter took him for 2 days to visit a grandparent of hers, and when he left the house, the smell was immediately gone!!  It was amazing and clean in my house and no stinky dog smell everywhere.  She brought him back 2 days later and we're back to having the smell here.  While Spike was gone I gave my other 2 dogs a good bath also, but I'm convinced something about Spike makes the house smell.  He HATES baths although of course we have bathed him but it doesn't seem to help at all.  

So now he's having a few potty accidents again, my home stinks like I can't describe, he still has head tremors.  The other noticeable thing is that his ears always seem dirty.  not infected, though, just like dirty.  We have a solution the vet gave us and we'll clean his ears then they go right back to being dirty.  They don't smell though.  He lives indoors.. uses a doggie door to go in and out, I've never seen him spend a lot of time in the yard though, so this is puzzling to me.  

My daughter has had him on about 5 different foods since we got him including Bil-Jac, Natural Balance, Merrick Salmon (this made Spike smell like a fish factory, horrible food, and he would belch and the whole house stunk of rotten fish!!),  then to Solid Gold (lamb).  

I did some googling about incontinence and found some people have said that Grain Free food helped their dogs.  So we are in process of switching him from Solid Gold to Natural Balance Grain-Free sweet potato and chicken limited ingredient food.  

We have not had Spike neutered yet, in fear of making the incontinence issue worse possibly.  My daughter says the Vet wants to ZEUTER him.. ??  Not sure about that, never heard of this exactly.  

So to summarize the issues we have:

Spike is probalby incontinent (?) but does okay most of the time on Proin

my house STINKS although Spike himself doesn't seem to smell

Dirty ears

head tremors almost daily

I apprecate all thoughts and responses.  I have owned Boxers before, I would say I am dog savvy but Spike has brought in a whole new list of issues that I don't know what to do with, and to have these when he's a puppy is just weird.  After all my complaining, let me mention that I LOVE this dog, I would never think of re-homing him or anything like that.  My daughter will be getting an apartment and Spike will be going to live with her, this will all become her concern as a young adult but in the meantime I'd love any help to help her in the long run.  

Thank you so much for listening, 

Cristy

Spike's GRANDMA!  :O)