This page is dedicated to my dog Dodger. An Old English Bulldog.
Hopefully with my experience it will save you health problems in your own dog. Specifically kidney failure. Everybody seems to know someone that has a dog with this problem so hopefully you are reading this before it is too late.
Excellent link on Kidney Failure. http://www.cah.com/library/caninekidney.html
This particular bread seems to be misunderstood. If you are considering a bull dog be sure to buy a book titled: Popular dog series; Bull Dogs Volume 25
They are thought to be stupid but as you can see in the picture that I taught her -with little effort on my part- to ring a bell to go outside. Probably stubborn would fit the bill better. They are thought to have health problems but more to the point they are more sensitive to modern medicine and dog food. Either way buy pet insurance as a $4000 bill comes quickly.
Consider purchasing a Bulldog from England. The low slung front, big jowls and big head have been bread into them over here. The original was an athlete, had good genes and had no health issues. The breed predates Christianity and would not have have survived if every dog had to be delivered C section. You can see some of these traits in Dodger with the thinner face and small jowls.
With your new puppy you should get a bench mark by inspecting your puppies tongue for color. Ulcers are toxins but will repair themselves very quickly. Ulcer on the tongue indicate ulcers in the stomach Twisting the skin behind her neck will give you an idea of body fluids. Ask your vet how to check the lymph nodes. This is another quick visual check that easy to do while patting your dog. Do a blood test and urine test annually. This is cheap and can be done in the vets office. Consider stopping heart worm medication after a couple of years or not at all. "It takes a lot of worms in the heart to kill a dog" Bulldogs in particular are sensitive to the over medication. Note; From what I have heard Kidney failure will not show up until it is 66% in failure
By the age two her hair would constantly fall out, inter digital cysts and she had sores on her legs. Allergies where the obvious candidate and we pursued that by changing her food many times and steroids where given to to calm the skin problems. The correct diagnoses is toxins in her body coming out through the skin. The correct cure was to change her food to home made diet with supplements. If your reread the last two sentences you cant help but to make the connection that store bought food is full of garbage -not to mention salt. Could it be that D. Ballard's good intentions were bulldozed by big money? Your vet is bound to disagree with this even if he agrees with the natural diet. I went to an allergist for my self when I had skin problems and she said that allergies are a moving target. In other words allergies are a symptom. My problem turned out to be skin irritation caused form soap and a water softener cured that. Your vet would have a homemade cooked not raw diet laid out that could be used as a guide line. Salmon, eggs and chicken are all good. It must be made like a stew to get the flavor throughout the meal. Vegetables such as carrots but not broccoli should be added. White chicken can be bought wholesale ground like hamburger for about half the price. This can be mixed with rice or oatmeal. It can be made low protein if your dog has kidney problems. A little salt should be added for flavor and electrolyte balance. Chocolate and grapes must be avoided. Raw food should be avoided as the dogs are losing there tolerance to this food not to mention that dogs in the wild don't live that long. The cost is about the same as processed dog food. There is more to know and I don't profess to be an expert but this is a guideline from my experience.
She had been going down hill for the past 6 months. Slowing down, losing weight, vomiting, shivering, change in sleeping habits and finally not eating. She never drank to excess as we had heard should happen with kidney problems. Her eyes seemed half shut. After switching diet her skin has cleared up, she perked up for a while but the other problems persist as the vet had said "this dog is sicker than she looks" Her spine is also raised at the back. This can be from weight loss but also from arching the back to relieve the pain from the kidneys.
An X-ray shows nothing wrong with the spleen. An ultra sound indicates an infection in the kidney. So now after 4 years of bad food, heart worm medicine and steroids she has Kidney (renal) failure. You can live with 25% of one kidney for a while and the kidney can bounce back from an infection if the damage is not permanent . Urine shows e coli infection. Quite common apparently. Three days of IV and a day at home to rest and she is like a pup again. We perhaps fed her too much too fast trying get her weight up. Next day she is off her food again and vomiting. This got us wondering about refeeding syndrome -see link below. Refeeding is ruled out because that would be only when there is extreme lack of food. The following day brings a new very scary problem. She has an almost epileptic fit and collapses as she walks. These seem to come and go and it makes it hard to decide what might be setting it off. Dodger is restless, wont sleep and this makes for a bad mix.
She is now back at the vet hospital for three days and put back on IV for three days. Lymphoma is suspected because of the enlarged lymph nodes and twitching in her face.. She feels better the first day and the muscle problems stop. Lymphoma is no longer suspected and Pyelonephritis is now said to be the disease. The toxic levels in her blood are about half way back to normal, about the same as where we left the clinic last time. The kidney has been treated with antibiotic by injection which works faster and we have a new medication for at home. We will feed her smaller amounts of the special canned food more often and enforce water intake. We will also check her Lymph nodes at home regularly. In dealing with multiple vets we are getting mixed opinions and they now suggest we get a test done for Lymphoma. This test isn't as bad as we had been told. A simple needle draw to collect a few cells. (Fine needle aspirate and microscopic analysis of an enlarged lymph node.) It is also decided for Dodger to spend a couple of days in the Vet clinic during the day only on IV until the levels are normal. After day two the results are back that the Lymph nodes are fine and the enlargement was actually the salivary gland. We may have to accept the fact that the Kidneys are totally shot. We have one day left on the antibiotic by injection. She is doing fairly well considering the shots is going into her real legs. Some muscle weakness. Mood is good. Water would appear to be the miracle cure at this point.
February 05 2005 Approx 1 month after we took action for what we thought was a food problem we will have to put Dodger down today. She was a trooper until the end but the symptoms have come back. Alertness, strange areas to lay down, heavy breathing but worst of all her muscles are giving out and she falls down.
Diet
Your vet will have a printed out recipe and can supply a supplement.
Foods to avoid
This is just a partial list but there are some foods you may be surprised at. Chocolate, grapes, broccoli, onion must be avoided.
Choosing a Vet
In the past 20 odd days we have had the opportunity to visit 6 different Vets. I think that gives us mystery shopper status! 3 men and 3 women. One was a homeopathic. Being a man you might surprised to hear me say that I would choose a women. All three women were to the point, honest, sincere, worked hard, compassionate, thoughtful and willing to spend time with you. Ideally the vet would be willing to play the fence between natural food and modern medicine. Sticking to a theory about allergies without trying a homemade diet is wrong.
Home check up and base
- Spine- raised protruding
- Tongue-white color and ulcers. It should be dark pink.
- Lymph nodes - Enlarged, egg shaped
- Nape - Slow rebound showing dehydration
- Stomach - Enlarged under rib cage showing enlarged kidneys
- Habits - Changed
- Hair loss and skin problems
Key Words
- Renal: Of, relating to, or in the region of the kidneys.
- Re-feeding: Re-feeding syndrome occurs when previously malnourished patients are fed with high carbohydrate loads, the result is a rapid fall in phosphate, magnesium and potassium, along with an increasing ECF volume, leading to a variety of complications. http://www.ccmtutorials.com/misc/phosphate/page_07.htm
- Lymphoma: Any of various usually malignant tumors that arise in the lymph nodes or in other lymphoid tissue. Note these can spread through out the body. http://www.petplace.com/articles/artShow.asp?artID=218&conID=14591
- Homeopathic: A system for treating disease based on the administration of minute doses of a drug that in massive amounts produces symptoms in healthy individuals similar to those of the disease itself.
- Pyelonephritis: Inflammation of the kidney and its pelvis, caused by bacterial infection http://www.dvmnewsmagazine.com/dvm/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=88236&pageID=1&sk=&date=
- Salivary gland: A gland that secretes saliva, especially any of three pairs of large glands, the parotid, submaxillary, and sublingual, whose secretions enter the mouth and mingle in saliva.
You can contact me here for an update: martin at martinblain.com
Brady
This our new addition Brady. He is from the rescue Collie group and is 8 years old.
It took us both a few weeks top settle in to a new older dog. Brady was aloof and although quiet we learned he was a dominate dog. He would curl his lip when being brushed and we found it a bit unnerving. We where told to make him move when we needed to go past to establish dominance and this seemed to make a big difference. We also try to go through a door way first. We control barking by sternly saying no and pulling up on his chain. He is now a much quieter dog and well behaved.
With the skin problems we had with our last dog Dodger we are constantly aware of this sign of poor health. Sure enough he is scratching his skin and seems to feel some discomfort. We our now in our second week as we approach the end of April 2005 and are on our way to switching over to a home made diet. Now that his under coat has been fully brushed out we see now he is a little under weight so we are also aiming for weight gain.
Week one we made up a concoction of root vegetables, and 1 chicken breast grilled on the bone and then de-boned. (never feed a dog cooked chicken bones.) He would also get two slices of toast daily. To that he gets a full treatment of supplements including wheat grass and salmon oil. We are going to mix 50/50 with dry food for a couple of days and then to 75/25.
I am not seeing an improvement with the skin yet and am a little disappointed. He had stopped begging at the table for the first week but now it has returned as we switch over to all home cooked diet. Obviously 4 cups a day is not enough. Can I really cook six cups a day for this dog?
Week two I moved up to a bigger pot. I am using a roasting pan over two elements. I grilled 10 Breasts skin-on bone-on. I did this on the BBQ at 250f for approx 1/2 hour bone side down.. I didn't want them over cooked and wanted just a little fat from the skin. The theory being we need a little fat for vitamin absorption.. After cooled a little I separated from the bone and ripped of the skin and shredded with fingers pulled apart and place meat in individual 2 cup containers. 1 beast 1 container.
In a large roasting pan I sliced with a mandolin 1 Rudebegin, 1 package of carrots (reserve some to add at the end uncooked), (I started cooking right away while chopping. Add about three cups of water and 6 tsp of sea salt - I am going to delete this next time as we will continue mixing with his store bought food) 4 Yams scrubbed, 6 Potatoes ( I am going heavy on these because I am not adding rice.), 2 beets, 2
Cook for approx 30 then add the balance of the carrots and . Continue to cook until mixture can be mashed down a little.
In a two cup storage container put one shredded chicken breast and two big scoops of veggies.
After all this work you can see how we have decided to keep his diet half home made and half store bought. I have been saying that dog food is poison as a meal but now feel that it is poison as a complete diet. Something is missing perhaps by the way the food is cooked so hot not to mention all the salt that is added and it is a processed food. People that feed the dog table scraps are do there dog a huge favor.
Week three and four...
We have now switched to a diet written by William Cusick.