Bulldogs World

Hi, everyone,

It's been a long time since I last posted (mostly about my two four-year-old bullies' transition to a raw diet), although I've been quietly lurking and learning in the meantime. I did, however, want to post something about an experience I had last week that scared me (and in some ways, is continuing to do so). According to the approximately 10,000 cards my husband and I had received in the mail from our animal health clinic recently, our dogs were due for all of their vaccinations (parvovirus, bordetella, and rabies). So, when we brought the guys to the vet last Monday for their monthly grooming and the receptionist asked if we wanted them to receive their shots that day too, we said to go right ahead. After this, things were fine until Friday - and then one of our dogs, Eddie, started acting very bizarrely.

At times, particularly after eating or going outside, he would behave in a very agitated manner for no apparent reason. He would, for example, run back and forth through the house, then flop himself down onto a rug, roll around trying to get comfortable, and then heave himself back up and begin running again. I use words like "flop" and "heave," because his behavior was very dramatic, and he is typically a very low-key dog. We were able to calm him down if we held him in our laps and petted and cuddled him for several minutes, but we couldn't tell what was going on - was he in pain? Was he having small seizures of some kind? The first night this happened, it bothered us enough that we brought him to the emergency vet, who looked at him and said it probably wasn't a big deal, and that we should just monitor him carefully. When he was still doing it the next morning (Saturday), we called our bulldog vet, who said not to worry about it, to give Eddie 325 mg of Aspirin twice a day, and to bring him in on Monday if he was still acting erratic.

Well, over the weekend, Eddie's behavior stopped being quite as odd, as he is no longer running around, flinging himself onto and off of things. However, he is now acting pretty lethargic (at least I think so; remember, he's a pretty low-key guy, so it's a bit hard to gauge how out-of-the-ordinary this is) and is really favoring one of his hind legs (I suspect that this was the injection site, because he has been a little sore on that leg since returning from the vet last week). Right now, I'm really mad at two people, the first of whom is myself. I spent most of the weekend researching vaccination reactions and found a trove of information suggesting that it's not really all that uncommon for dogs to experience all kinds of problems in response to vaccines, including several that sound very much like what Eddie has been experiencing (and even if they have never responded this way in the past). I also found information indicating that the risk of adverse reactions goes up with the number of vaccines the dog receives at one time. I am so angry at myself for not having done the research on this prior to bringing Eddie in, and I will never forgive myself if he develops further and more chronic health issues as a result of my ignorance regarding this topic.

I am also livid with my vet. Although me not having done the research is my own fault, I do feel that he has some responsibility in informing me about the risks of any procedures he carries out with my dogs, even if those procedures are as routine as a series of vaccinations. Also, he had a vet tech call me to ask how the dogs were doing the day after they received the shots, which is something he has never done in the past. Even at the time, I felt like this was a little unusual for him and wondered at the nature of the vet tech's behavior, because she seemed concerned about something but wasn't asking me anything directly: "So, are the guys still doing okay? Nothing unusual? Oh, no reason - we just wanted to check in. Okay, great!" Obviously now, in my angry state, I am convinced that this is proof that the vet suspected the possibility of an adverse reaction to the vaccine shots but didn't feel the need to tell me prior to administering them.

I am never putting my dogs through this again, and from here on out, you can BET I'll be doing my research on everything related to their health and well being. I'm not sure what's best to do for Eddie in the time being. I'm reluctant to bring him back to the vet, whom I no longer trust (but is the only bulldog vet in my area), but I'm still worried about his limping. I read about a homeopathic remedy called Thuja that holistic vets often recommend as something helpful with vaccine reactions, so I've ordered some of this and will see if it helps at all. In the meantime, I'm probably going to research holistic vets in my area. Thank you for listening, everyone - any suggestions or thoughts are most welcome and appreciated.

Susie, Eddie, and Alex