Archive for July 8th, 2008

Ask the French Bulldog Vet - Struvite Crystals in Frenchie Pup’s Urine

lorihuntdvm July 8th, 2008

I came across the “Ask the Frenchie Experts” while researching the following situation:

A weekend ago, our 13 week old Frenchie suddenly started having lots of small pee-ings (as opposed to going regularly or having a normal “accident”). So my wife thought he might have a bladder infection. She got a urine sample to the vet that day, who saw — I assume under a microscope because I wasn’t there — traces of blood in his urine. So the vet put the puppy on an oral antibiotic.

This last weekend, my wife took him back to the same vet, who saw the same results. So the vet sent the most recent urine sample to a lab, which returned a result of 7.5 pH and moderate crystals in the urine (as well as an elevated white cell count…). The vet wrote a prescription for Hill’s c/d, as well as to keep the puppy on antibiotics for another week.

Concerned about the growing nutritional needs of the puppy, and to get a second opinion, today I asked the puppy’s normal/local vet what to do. He looked at the faxed lab results, and suggested that we put the puppy back on normal canned food and bottled water, and to stop the antibiotics since it’s been 10 days already.

I would like to go with the second opinion because feeding a low calcium, non-puppy food like Hill’s c/d to a growing puppy seems like a bad idea. But having struvite stones form is equally bad (never mind the return of the uncontrolled small voidings).

The one thing I failed to mention is that the water at the weekend location has a lot of water softener in it because my wife’s father adds it. Thus I am hoping that could be the culprit here. (Although our 7 year old Frenchie living with him is fine)

Any advice in general would help, and maybe a tip on the most nutritious canned puppy food to get would be great.

Dr. Lori writes -

This is a puzzling situation, but I do agree with you that c/d is not an ideal diet for a growing puppy.  I am reading all these results, and while I see mention of blood and white blood cells, I don’t actually see any evidence of bacteria or cultures being done?

I would suggest starting there to see if there actually IS an infection.  If so, a culture would be in order.  I agree with your second opinion and at this point would stop all antibiotics and go to normal food for a while.  If the problem still exists in a few weeks, I would do a culture and sensitivity at that point, and take it from there.

Crystals can be somewhat normal in male dogs especially and probably have to do more with pH than anything.  I would encourage him to drink lots of water, even if it means “flavoring” it to get him to drink more, adding chicken broth to water will do wonders to attract their interest, or ice cubs can be a fun toy as well as help hydrate them.

Give an update when you can and good luck with your little boy

Lori Hunt, DVM

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Are you the victim of a French Bulldog puppy import broker?

admin July 8th, 2008

Puppy import brokers, sometimes called puppy re-sellers, are people who purchase cheap puppies from overseas to re sell to North American buyers (at inflated North American prices).Oftentimes, they sell these puppies claiming to have bred them themselves - ‘home bred puppies’ - with buyers only finding out later that they purchased a puppy that was bred in Europe.

These pups, taken from their mothers far to early, and rarely given good veterinary care, are often sick with diseases such as parvo, coccidia and giardia. Many are infested with parasites and worms, and riddled with genetic diseases. Most of them are sick - some of them die.

Because of the high potential for profit, the breeds they sell most frequently are French Bulldogs and English Bulldogs.

If you have been the victim of a puppy import broker or re seller, attornies Charlotte Creeley and John Hoffman need your help in shutting them down. Help bring them to justice, and help to end the internationl trade in sick, under aged puppies.

Email for re distribution from Charlotte Creeley, co founder of the Wrong Puppy -

Gina Price of Rebel Ridge Kennels is currently on trial in federal court in Tennessee for abuses in connection with the sale of imported puppies and there is a very good chance of having investigations of other importers started if we can gather enough buyer complaints to show a pattern of fraud.The federal prosecution of Price and the fact that Brenda Moncrieff (BulldogRavine, APlusBulldogs, and HeavenlyFrenchBulldogs) has voluntarily surrendered her kennel license to the Pennsylania authorities and taken down her websites shows us that responsible breeders and owners and purchasers of French Bulldogs CAN make a difference. Price and Moncrieff were two of the most prolific and abusive of the puppy import brokers.

The Wrong Puppy (www.thewrongpuppy.org) is asking for your help.  We need to gather as many complaints as possible about the purchase of import puppies from each and every abusive puppy import broker still hanging out their shingle. Warren James, one of the puppy buyers from Gina Price, set up a website called RebelRidgeKennelsIsBad.com (no longer in existence), which he used to collect complaints from puppy buyers. He had more than 30 complaints when the FBI investigation against Price started and more than 200 by the time the decision to prosecute was made.

We need to gather information and documents that we can use to justify prosecution of more of the bad guys. The information we need is:

1.   What the buyers were promised, and

2.   What the buyers received.

Documentation should include:

1.   Purchase agreement and health guarantee;

2.   Registration papers;

3.   All emails and correspondence between the buyer and the seller or anyone working for the seller;

4.   Vet records, including diagnoses and invoices

Please contact Attorney John Hoffman at canada@dslextreme.com if you have available documentation, or simply mail the documentation directly to his office at John E. Hoffman, Esq., 4035 Robin Hill Road, Flintridge, California  91011-3811.

Be sure to include any envelopes in which things were mailed, and records of any wire or Internet transfers of money in connection with the purchase of their puppy, because it is necessary to show use of the mails or wire facilities (including Internet and Western Union transfers) to show fraud by mail and fraud by wire, each of which carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison.

We especially need your help if you are a former employee who has information and/or copies of records. Please contact us! The Government can promise employees lower sentences or immunity in exchange for cooperation. Former employees (and current employees) can help break the cases wide open since they have far more information as to what was really happening than do the buyers

Cases involving puppies who died or who had serious medical problems are the most important, but we also want cases in which the promised registration papers were not provided and in which a promised health certificate was not furnished.

PLEASE, CROSSPOST FAR AND WIDE, GET THE WORD OUT TO EVERY BULLETIN BOARD, EVERY BLOG, EVERY EMAIL LIST, EVERY FRENCH BULLDOG OR BULLDOG MEETUP, EVERY FRENCH BULLDOG OR BULLDOG CLUB.  WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Charlotte Creeley, Esq.
cccpups@aol.com
cccreeley@comcast.net
http://www.cccpups.com

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