We probably give her the equivalent of about a half a lemon every other day or so, and she bites it, licks it, plays with it until there is literally nothing left but a lemon peel. So if you are wondering how much actual lemon juice she gets - squeeze out a half a lemon into a squirt bottle and see if you can get that down your Bulldog's throat. Of course, lots of that juice comes out the sides of her mouth while she is playing with or biting the lemon.
I never cease to be amazed at the amount of phlegm she spits up after the lemon juice and a bit of activity, and how much better she sounds and feels from getting it out.
Another dilemma we are going through is whether to spay her or not. Surgery is always risky with these dogs, but with her and her extra small airway, we are especially nervous. We know its the best for her long term health, but we have run into 3 different bulldog owners in the past 3 weeks who lost their first bulldog during spay or neutering surgery. Does anyone have any thoughts or experiences with this process and decision? If so, please post. We don't have any intention of breeding her, never did, but I am really worried about an "elective" surgery, vs. just putting up with the once every 6 months heat cycle. Our vet has told us it could be detrimental to not spay her, as they can develop issues from remaining "intact" and not reproducing, which I believe. But for now, she doesn't have any surgery scheduled.
I am so excited to have found your blog! Hopefully I am not technologically challenged to the point that I can not comment to you. We are the proud parents of five year old female English Bulldog, Jo-jo and six year old male, Butch. Stella is so precious; it broke my heart to hear her breathing, she sounds just like our princess Jo-jo. We're going to give the lemons a try and hopefully have the same success you have with Stella. Also, as far as having Stella spayed- we adopted Jo-jo from a family when she was 3 years old and she was not spayed. We took her in right away to have her spayed and she had already developed pyrometria which is an infection in the uterus. According to our vet, if a female dog is not going to be bred she should be spayed for this very reason. I actually looked at the infectious tumor they removed from Jo-jo and it was absolutely awful to think she was walking around with that in her. He also said that if we ever move out of the area to find a vet familiar with the bulldog breed and their trachea issues because it is potentially fatal to put them under anesthesia. Good luck and thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi PA Bullies,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting about JO-JO. Sounds like she has lots in common with Stella, and your story about getting her spayed encourages me to keep it open as an option, especially with the great vets at Docside on the job, and very well aware of her condition. I just have to convince Stella's other parent that it's worth the risk. Definitely try the lemons, and I encourage you to try to get Jo-Jo to think of them as toys, this makes getting the lemon juice into their systems so much easier. Yes - she's a very loud girl and even more so when she's worked up or excited, you almost can't hear the TV or other noises sometimes. However, its a small price to pay for the joy she brings to our lives every day. Let us know how the lemons work out for you!
- Tracey
Hi!!! I'm Patti, from Georgia and we are the parents to an 11 year old MinPin named "Max" and a 5 year old English Bulldog named "Speckles"!!! I'm so glad to have stumbled onto your blog. Rufus is adorable, but Stella just stole my heart. You just don't know how special Bullies are until you share a house with one! I'm so sorry to hear of her troubles. Speckles has been lucky with breathing so far, and she is spayed. We are lucky enough to have a wonderful vet, who is familiar with Bulldogs and is just exceptional with her. We had to take her in last Friday, she had an allergic reation, her face swole up and she had raised hives, turns out we believe she was stung by a yellow jacket. We haven't had any problems with her and anesthesia. She was spayed and also had a benign tumor removed from her leg, it wasn't dangerous, but she kept chewing at it and keeping it raw, so he removed it. Well, she busted her stitches out one Friday night, he came into the office, sewed her back up and stayed till she came out and was awake and we took her home. We have been SO lucky. She is one of us, she's not a dog at all!!!! Anyway, hope you have a good experience also. I think as mentioned above, it makes a world of difference to have a vet familiar with bullies. Good luck and keep us posted!!!
ReplyDeletePatti
So glad I stumbled here. My 1 1/2 year old bullie Bob Barker is the the hospital. He started last night with exactly the same thing your Stella did. The vomiting, heavy breathing, I thought he was dying. Took him right in and my vet sent me right to the er. He has Pnemunia in his upper and lower bronc tubes. So now we sit and wait to here what his x-rays produce today.
ReplyDeletehe had the tie back surgery last year, due to a long pallet, we hoped it would prevent something like this happening.
Sleepless in Pa, jaime
DO NOT SPAY HER IS MY ADVICE TO YOU, AFTER A LONG STRESSFUL LABOR AND SUCCESSFUL DELIVERY OF 6HEALTHY PUPS THEY DECIDED TO SPAY MY BULLDOG AND I BELIEVE THATS WHAT KILLED HER!!!!PLEASE DONT LET THEM KILL STELLA!!! BUY A DOGGY DIAPER PLEASE!!!!! I NEVER WANT ANYONE TO ENDURE WHAT I DID.....
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