Newbie-Pancha and her health
Submitted by Panchasmum on December 16, 2010 - 11:55amHi! I am new to this forum, but desperately seeking some advice. We bought our english bulldog puppy in July, she was 14 weeks old and the last puppy in the litter, so she was given to us for a discounted price. We had never had dogs before so we just fell in love with her and took her home. We took her to the vet whom gave her a check up and declared her healthy. She is adorable, a great companion and has been the most wonderful addition to our family. Unfortunately she keeps getting sick..........is this normal??
First she had a bad chest infection, the vet put her on antibiotics, she had a fever and was very ill for a few day. A month later she had cherry eye and the vet performed surgery on her eye. A month later, she started out vomiting, we thought she had chewed through a piece of a croc shoe, so the vet said lets wait to see if it passes and we did. This was a friday by Monday she seemed fine. Wednesday evening she was a little tired, but by Thursday evening she was vomiting and had diaharrea again, so Friday morning we took her to the vet. They felt she had something the size of an egg in her tummy, "like a kidney" the vet said. They did an x-ray and saw something like an egg, so they decided it must be an obstruction so they preformed another surgery!!!!!!!!! Turned out it was her kdney that was dislocated but fuylly functioning. They said they cleaned her inestines, and as she was all ready under general anestisia they spayed her (with our permisssion, as she was 8 months old and we could not bear the idea of puttting her under another surgery in 2 months time).
By this time she had lost 3 kilos in weight, went from 16 kilos to 13. After the surgery she was not gaining weight so they put her on a prescriptive junior easy to digest food. Which I must admit has done wonder as she no longer farts and seems to be digest and like better than her old kibble.
A week later the feces results came back with a bacteria so she went back on antibiotics, and she was developing another chest infection so these antiobiotics were also covering that. 4 days laters we find her with a very swollen eye which turns out to be an eye ulcer.
The chest infection and tum,my problems seemed to have cleared up but the eye ulcer has not.........and the vet wanted to perform another surgery, but we refused and she now has an appointment to see an eye specialist on tuesday.
By the way, in her first set of x-rays they found she has hip displacia..........
I am so frustrated, am I doing something wrong??? I am now only feeding her this special food (very expensive) with a bit of chicken rice I make for her on top (only a tablespoon for flavour). We walk everyday, she has a pack of puppy friends who she meets up every other day at the park, we love her to bits. never eats her own poo or anybody elses, is not aggressive, she is lovely, well trained, very sweet natured puppy. But she is forever sick......................
Please any suggestions on how to build up her inmune system???? Are bulldog puppies always so sick? Will it get better with time? Were we naive to buy a puppy without seeing her siblings? the breeder seemed reputable and have kept in touch
Well, first off, welcome to the board.
I hope you can find the help you need here.
Okay, I can help in a couple of areas, but not all. I would put her on 1000 mg of glucosamine sulfate 2 times daily for 3 months, then 1000 mg Glucosamine sulfate once daily for life. This will help the hip issues and will give her overall better joint health. You can buy the capsules with powder in them and pour the Glucosamine over her feed, and mix it into the food with a tablespoon of plain, fat free yogurt. The yogurt will help with good gut bacteria, something she needs after being on antibiotics often.
What are you feeding her? If she has an eye issue, it could be allergy related. You may want to find another vet who can give you better answers than surgery. If she has allergies, a good limited ingredient food would be a good idea. There are several good brands out there that don't cost an arm and leg. Personally, I would try this before any other surgery for anything. My girl gets bad eye issues when her allergy problems are stirred up and the only way she gets relief is limited ingredient food. It helps her tremendously and at age 5, she has had no surgery other than spay.
Your vet should never have spayed your girl without permission, and I would seriously find another vet just for this reason. I understand the logic of not putting her under again to perform the spay later, but unless it was your choice he or she went way out of bounds on that. I would find a good bulldog vet...there is a list on the front page of Bully vets by state.
Hopefully you can get these things under control. Chest infections are hard to get rid of sometimes, a little longer run of antibiotics may be required. Talk to a different vet for advice on this issue.
Best of luck to you. You came to the right place for help though!
Amy and Sophia
Hi Amy and Sophia, thank you
Hi Amy and Sophia, thank you for your prompt reply, sorry if I miss posted but we did give permission for spaying her. But you are right we are looking for a new vet. Unfortunately we are based in London, UK and I have been on several UK based bulldog website and all the bulldog vets are miles away from where we are. In fact none are based in less than 2 hours drive.
The breeders had her on Purina puppy food but we had changed her to James Well Beloved which is an all natural organic, no wheat, no dairy and no something else food. She would eat it but after a while was not so keen on it and it gave her terrible gases(beyond bad). At the moment she is a vet prescribed Juniour food from Royal Canine, it is easy to diget and I admit she has not had any gases again. My mother in law who has had loads of dogs before swears by another brand called Burns, which again is no wheat, all natural, organic, no eggs.
They think the eye ulcer could be caused by a virus or it is a scratch, they are not sure. Hopefully the specialist will shed some light on it.
What is glucosamine sulfate? How will this affect her? Any secondary effects?
Has anyone tried homeopathic treatments?
I am pretty sure almost every
I am pretty sure almost every one on this forum uses the glucosamine, you can get from lost of places. The Internet, certain pet stores even the human healthfood store. People use to aid in sore joints.
A lot of your experiances are commen with bulldogs. Unfortunately your vet is surgery crazy. I bet your baby did not even need any of that, exept cherry eye surgery. Most bulldogs do need that at some point. A lot need a surgery on there soft palet in the back of the mouth. It helps them breath. So did the vet do anything with kidney? I can just imangine how scared they made you telling you something is her tummy, and right there your heart probably dropt.... Is there any way for you to find a holestic veteranian? I have been through such simular experiences. I was very young when higgins came into my life. I still was easy to convince about crazy bizzare things from the veterinarian. Some things were very important, others I wised up and started saying no.... My vet actually wanted to cut my dogs tail off because she thought it would be hard to clean. I have learned a lot in the long haul and on my next do over I am going to a holistic vet, especially one who knows a lot about nutrition....
I would keep asking your questions on this forum. People are very informative.. right now We are going through feeding issues as well. Keeping a doggy journal and noting little things also helped me.
I hope your little one starts to thrive. These are such precious years...
Regarding the hip dysplacia,
Regarding the hip dysplacia, the vet did say that if she kept her weight down and led an active lifestyle it should not bother her too much later in her life.But I will look into the glucosamine sulfate.
They did nothing about the kidney as they said it was fully functional and did not feel it needed to be moved. After all of this I did contact the breeder, who gave the "our dogs have never had any problems and noone has ever complained about one of our puppies", they were polite, but did not seem very concverned. I now feel that she was the runt of the litter, though they swear they did not have any runts and that the only reason she was discounted was because she was 14 weeks old. We dont have a problem with her being a runt, but it would have been nice to have been told and also told what the implications of this were.
I really put my foot down when the vet said they wanted to operate the eye ulcer, enough is enough, and they were fine about giving us a specialist referral.
My concern is that she may have a weak inmune system and this is why she keeps picking up chest infections, tummy bugs and other viral diseases. Any ideas? Or maybe they are like babies and toddler who are forever sick in their first few years, always picking up colds.
Welcome .... And NO they are
not all sick. If she was a runt that should have nothing to do with her getting sick now. Many puppies who were the smallest of the litter turn out to be the biggest. Now if she was a sickly runt then that could be a problem, but you have to find out why she is getting sick. Unfortunately some vets just throw antibiotics at the dog and don't find the cause. They need to culture to determine the best antibiotic to use. Also many vets are surgery happy.
Before doing the obstruction surgery did the vet do a barrium test to confirm a blockage? Sounds like you had an unneccessary surgery with that one, but it's good you had her spayed.
Don't worry about her hips. Most bulldogs would never pass the OFA standard for good hips. But it is important to keep her active and her weight down regardless.
I feed Glycoflex III http://www.entirelypets.com/glyco3soft120.html as well as Sure Grow to my puppies after 20 weeks of age http://www.entirelypets.com/suregrow100.html
Eye ulcer - Did they do a stain to see if she had an ulcer and what are you treating it with? An ulcer can be caused by a number of things. Do a Google search on Entropian and Distichia. What method of surgery did they do on the cherry eye? Has she been checked for dry eye?
Is she a noisey breather? Does she vomit white foam often? If Yes to these she should have her palete checked. The vet should have done that when she was under. What size of trach tube did they use? You may also want to have a trach xray done? If she has a narrowing of the trach then that could be a problem.
Having bulldogs for 15 years I've never had one that was sick all the time. I've never had any have cherry eye surgery and only 1 has had palate surgery. So really these should not be common health issues, if the breeders says these are then those breeders shouldn't be breeding bulldogs and I wouldn't buy a puppy from them.
Do the breeders show their dogs? Are they members of the UK bulldog club? What is their purpose for having puppies? How many litters a year do they have. Do they do health testing on their dogs before breeding them? Some of these questions acn help to determine if these are reputable breeders or BYB just trying to make a buck off their dogs. Just some suggestions if you decide to get another bulldog.
Really I think you are just having some bad luck.
Deb
Deb sorry I did not answer all your questions......yes when she was having her surgery they did check her palate and the vet said it was narrow, but I think they just took a quick look, they certainly did not specify anything about tube sizes. She does not make noises that much when she is awake but snores very ludly when she is sleepying. She has in the past vomited white foam, last time she did she was antibiotics for her tummy bug which the vet said should cover her chest too. It did go away. Right now she seems to have phlegm and a bit of green snot came out her nose this morning.
The breeders......well.....they are kennel club approved but to my knowledge they are not part of the UK bulldog club. The father is a show dog, but the mother is not. Here is their website:
http://www.saxongoldbulldogs.co.uk
Her mother is Honey.
Her father is Marley, and his website is: http://www.ukbull-bulldogs.co.uk/
So as I know so little on the subject they seemed fine to me...but what do I know? They only have had a couple of litters and it did not seem like a business, more like a family with a lovely pet they decided to breed.
Thanks for all of you advise, this is the place I will come when I need help!!
Hello
I'm sorry you are going through so many problems with your baby. First of all, you are doing the right thing by taking her to an Opthamologist. She may have some lashes rubbing against her eye causing trauma to the cornea. Do some research on Distichia and Entropian.
About the hip dysplasia. In my opinion she is too young to have that diagnosis. Moderate exercise and a glucosomine/chondroitin supplement are the best things you can do for her at this point.
I don't know how much experience your Vet has with bulldogs but it's extremely important to use a Vet who is very knowledgeable about bulldogs. If she's having a lot of upper respiratory problems it could be a problem with the trachea. Or, it's possible she didn't have enough antibiotics to completely kill the infection.
Bulldog vet in UK
I'm Ineke and live in the Netherlands, so fairly close to you. There used to be a list of Bulldogvets at this site: www.bulldogrescue.co.uk/health (I use it when I travel in the UK with my dog). May be you can call them, to ask a referrall to a good Bulldogvet. (I know one a very good one in the Netherlands, but you need the Rabies and the 6 month waiting period - so it must be really bad to use him).
It is fairly common to have more than average vet costs for your first dog, but your case is extreme. When a dog is starting to go from ab to ab to ab, it is time to find an alternative. I found it in homeopathy when my boy got Demodex for the 2n time (Demodex is a mite infection which shows when the dog looses his resistance). He was on different kind of drops and a prebiotica to improve his bowelbacteria. It worked very well. I now give him only some prebiotica when he had his vaccination and some ab due to a starting bronchitis.
Another option for a dog with digestionproblems is to start him on fresh meat. Google BARF and fresh meat for dogs. Lots of dogs with healthproblems do well on this food. It is quite a undertaking to have fresh meat available, but it does work.
Get well soon!
Ineke and Zorro
Ineke
Panchas Update
Thank you for all your lovely responeses. All very insightful! I just got back from the eye specialist and her eye ulcer is almost gone, she thinks another week or 10 days of eye drops and it should be cleared. The eye drops she is using are Chloramphenicol. And her eye does look much better. Apparently her eye lids are very droppy so things get into her eyes very easily, and she therefore scratches it it gets swollen, the fur starts rolling into her eye and it becomes a vicious circle, hopefully as her face grows she could grow out of it.
She now seems to have phlegm and a discharge from her nose, a bit of green snot......does this ever end?
I am about to change vets. We live very far away from any bulldog vet, but I did meet someone in the park who has had bulldogs for 15 years and they have recommended one nearby, so we will be changing to them.
Have a great Christmas and I will keep you posted on her progress