Ask the French Bulldog Experts

bullmarketfrogs July 10th, 2008

My question is related to feeding Toby. He is about 131/2 weeks and weighs in at about 8 stock lbs.

I have been doing lots of research related to raw feeding and commercial dog food. I talked to me vet who suggested staying away from raw, but also staying away from commercial. I had him on Eagle Pak, but have now decided to make all of his meals at home.

I want to know everything he eats is natural and healthy. I have a variety of what seem to be good doggie recipes, and he loves them. He eats tuna patties with cottage cheese and veggies, also I make him a boiled chicken stew with whole grain rice and veggies ( no onion or garlic). Also I do give him the occasional  raw meaty marrow bone which he looooves.

My question in how much should he be eating. I give him two large meals a day , and he gets some kibble treats during a few obedience training sessions throughout the day. I have been portioning out his meals to about a heaping cups worth of food during each feeding.

Is this an appropriate amount of food?  I think he is going to be on the larger size as he was the only male and the largest of his litter. The little guy has lots of wrinkles to grow in to.

Any suggestions about diet content and size would be great help.

Carol writes -

I have two dogs, both of them roughly the same age.

Tula, my cream, is a slim, lithe little girl. She eats roughly two cups per day of high calorie, puppy formulated food.

Penelope, my brindle, is a chunky little thing, and prone to chubbiness. She eats one scant cup per day of adult formulated food.

This is by way of saying that, in Frenchies, one size does not equal all, and neither does one set volume of food. You have to adjust your feeding amounts - and your food - to your dog, and not the other way around.

A cup per day is good rule of thumb, but it’s not a hard and fast rule. On a single cup, some dogs will look thin, while others, like Penelope, will look like little round bowling balls. Trust your own judgement - if your dog looks thin, up their volume. If they look like sausages with legs, drop it back a bit, and make up the difference with some green beans (and cut out the snacks).

It’s easier to adjust a home made diet than it is to adjust kibble. We up the fat and protein content (ie; meat and fish and eggs and yoghurt) for slim dogs, and up the vegetable content for the Jenny Craig poster dogs.

There are lots of good books out there on home cooked diets - I personally think that home cooking is easiest done if you base it around a mix that has all the bone meal and extras added in already, like the ones from Sojos or Essex Cottage Farms. With either of these, you can cook, or feed raw.

Your ability to know your own dog is so much better than mine - or even your vet’s - could ever be. Trust yourself, and if you get worried, remember that there are still some good commercial foods on the market.

Carol

Tags: Dog Food, feeding, French Bulldog, Frenchie, home cooked, home made dog food, raw diet, raw dog food

• Dog Food , French Bulldog Miscellaneous
• Comments(0)

bullmarketfrogs June 21st, 2008

Hi there - I was going to switch my French Bulldog Angus McGoof over to raw food. I have heard a lot of good stuff about it.

But my veterinarian told me not to because she said raw food can kill my dog!! I bought a really good book called Give Your Dog a Bone and it seems reasonable but now I am afriad to.

My vet says if I feed Angus raw I should get a new vet. What should I do?

Carol writes-

Well, first off - love Angus’ name!

That said, I was personally quite surprised to learn that there are still veterinarians around who are so vehemently opposed to raw feeding. As a long time raw feeder who is acquainted with literally hundreds of other raw feeders, I’m always taken aback to learn how many misconceptions there are about raw feeding.

However, after making inquiries among the vets I speak to, I discovered that veterinarians might have a very valid reason for advising their patients against feeding raw - legal repercussions. Many veterinary associations, including the AVMA and the CVMA, have issued policy statements in which they advise their member veterinarians to not recommend raw diets to their patients. The basic suggestion in their statements is that doing so could leave veterinarians open to legal action from patients unhappy with the results of raw feeding. There’s also a subtle implication that veterinarians who recommend raw, or remain neutral on the topic when patients raise it, might be engaging in behaviour the associations consider to be professional misconduct. This has left some veterinarians, even the ones who personally feed raw and consider it to be a valid choice for pet nutrition, reluctant to leave themselves ‘hanging in the wind’ legally by recommending it to their patients.

Personally, I’ve been feeding my dogs raw, in one form or another, for almost 11 years now. In that time, I’ve never had an issue with salmonella or any other form of contamination (although apparently it’s unsafe to eat tomatoes in Canada or the USA right now). After all, it all comes down to proper food handling - washing hands and surfaces, not letting raw sit out at room temperature. The sorts of common sense things we should be doing when preparing our own food.

I decided to ask some other French Bulldog owners about their experiences feeding raw. In the process, I also learned some interesting facts about why Veterinary Medical associations are so adamantly against their member vets recommending it to patients.

Michelle writes -

I have been feeding raw for 8 yrs. All of my dogs are healthy. I started by reading Give your dog a bone. Great book!

Charlotte writes -

I’ve been feeding raw food for the past five years. I recently lost a French Bulldog to old age - 13 1/2 - which is quite an accomplishment for this breed, and I have two hale and hearty Frenchies at 16 months and 10 1/2, as well as a Pug, 4, who eat raw and thrive on it. As an added bonus, I have no problem with canine allergies, gas, and my dogs urinate less because they are not processing large amounts of grain. The 10 year old suffered from serious ear infections and hot spots - he has not had an ear infection or a hot spot since he went on raw 5 years ago. The 13 1/2 year old that recently died suffered from severe gastric pain and allergies, those went away when he went on raw.

I cannot imagine going back to standard dog food after feeding raw.

Shirley writes -

I have been feeding raw for years - I have never had any problems. The difference in my raw fed and raised puppies compared to kibble fed puppies is like night and day my puppies have solid hard bodies and great muscle development and the kibble kids are almost boney compared to them. I also have a 13 year old and a 9 year old and an 8 year old male all very healthy and my oldest boy sired a litter at age 10 - so yep I am a great believer of raw food.

Wendy writes -

I have a 2 year old Frenchie that has eaten raw from 8 weeks on. She has only been sick 2 times; once with an ear infection and once after eating some chicken jerky that was recalled (later). She has a tendency to swell up with vaccine administration and we prophylax her with benadryl. Other than that she never is sick, rarely needs to see the vet and is full of vim and vigor. Her coat is beautiful, she does not have skin issues and her teeth are nice and white.

I do chop the boney meat into small pieces for her.

Good point, Wendy. I grind my raw chicken on the bone - no matter what the books tell you, most Frenchies just aren’t able to chew through the bone, meat and tendon of a raw chicken piece without there being a real choking hazard.

I suppose at the end of the day that you have to weigh up what matters to you - do you want to feed raw to Angus badly enough that you’re willing to find a new veterinarian? An even better question to ask yourself, in my opinion, would be “Do I like this veterinarian enough to put up with her blackmailing me out of my personal choice in pet nutrition?”.

A veterinarian and patient should be able to engage in dialog as two equal adults, and not as ‘punishing parent, chastised child’.

Carol

Tags: BARF, choosing a dog food, commercial dog food, dog breeds, Dog Food, dog size, French Bulldog, French Bulldog Veterinary, Frenchie, Frenchies, raw diet, veterinarian

• Dog Food , French Bulldog Miscellaneous
• Comments(0)

admin June 8th, 2008

Since the writer sent this email to all of our experts, we’ve let all of them answer it. Hopefully, one of us will be able to help!

A question about a lethargic Frenchie with stomach problems -

My French bulldog is 7 years old. a couple of months ago we noticed he became extremely gassy, drive you out of the room, every other minute gas- way more than his normal Gas which we were use to.

We thought we should change his food. He was on Beneful- lamb. I thought maybe the formula had changed and we should try something without grains. Anyway we have changed his food a couple of times now with no help, it has never gotten better, only gotten worse and he has had diarrhea almost the entire two months.

He was normally 30 pounds now he is 26 lbs. I took him to the vet and they did a stool and blood work test, nothing wrong he says, just low protein from the diarrhea. He put him on 1/2 tablet of Metronidazole 2 times a day ( 250 mg) .

I have him on Dick Van pattens Natural Balance Potato & Duck Limited ingredient formula- Grain Free, now for about a week- and the gas is making me nauseous, it is constant all day. We did not gradually change him, since the other food was producing the same results, Dr. said just to switch it.

He is still playful with a wet nose and good energy, but I am very worried. I really just need to find the right diet for him but don’t know what else to try. I am worried so many diet changes has really messed him up.

Can you help with some suggestions. I really need to get some weight on him his ribs are showing.

Dr. Lori writes -

I would suggest having his pancreatic function checked as there are some pancreatic issues that can cause these symptoms. This is a special blood test which must be sent to Texas and the dog must be fasted for 18 hours before hand. While not common in frenchies, it is sometimes diagnosed and is worth checking. You may also consider a fecal culture to be sure there isn’t an unusual and/or hard to detect bacteria or organism causing the gas and diarrhea.

If those all come back normal, you may want to consider endoscopy/colonoscopy with biopsies. Frenchies can have a gastroenteritis due to Helicobacter and can be treated with heavy duty antibiotics, which can only be detected with biopsies.

Food wise, you may try a completely hypoallergenic diet such as Hills Z/D Ultra or Purina HA, or a veterinary prescribed intestinal diet such as Eukanuba Low Residue, Purina EN or Hills I/D.

Lastly, if you haven’t tried probiotics, that could be an excellent idea as well, and certainly is the cheapest option.

Lori Hunt, DVM

Carol writes -

I’ll ask some obvious questions -

Have they done a stool sample?
Does he still have diahrrea, or is it over?

If he still has diarrhea, I’d assume he has a bug - coccidia, or giardia, or something similar. Another possibility would be low grade pancreatitis, especially if the diahrrea has even been slimy or bloody. Ask your vet if they tested for parasites and/or pancreatitis (Dr. Lori has outlined this in detail above - follow her instructions on doing so).

If they did so, and the tests were negative, try switching him to a grain free RAW formula. You can either make your own, or purchase frozen patties from a local, higher end pet supply store.

In the meantime, try an elimination diet -

Lightly boiled ground chicken
Lightly steamed white rice
Canned (spice free - NOT PIE FILLING!) pumpkin

Mix in a 2/1/1 ratio, feed until his stool firms up, then slowly introduce his new raw diet. Do NOT begin changing him over until his stool is firm, or your vet gives you a concrete diagnosis.

Good luck!

Carol

Pat writes -

Interesting problem… and I am going assume that he had not been on any antibiotics before the gas started?

The food you are using seems to be a good one… (I use a high protein/high fat chicken and rice)

What I would suggest is a probiotic… you can start with plain yogurt or buttermilk… the thing I’m thinking is that for some reason the good bacteria in his gut are not there which means he is not processing his foods properly…

A tablespoon of buttermilk or yogurt on his food twice a day - you can also order Liquid Dispersable DogZymes from Nature’s Farmacy 800-733-4981 - it is a good product reasonably priced and has a shelf life of 2 years…. very simple to use.

You said that you had blood work done? were the liver enzymes at normal levels?

You might also give him 1 teaspoon of canned pumpkin (NOT pie mix) just plain pumpkin. it helps with bowel problems..

Please feel free to keep in touch with me and let us know what happens..

Good luck

Pat

(editor’s note: We’ll post a follow up to this if and when we get it, as we’d all really like to know if this little guy starts to improve)

Tags: breeder, diarrhea, Dog Food, French Bulldog, French Bulldog breeding, Frenchie, gassy, loose stools, losing weight, nauseous, probiotics, pumpkin, raw diet, veterinarian

• Dog Food , French Bulldog Breeding , French Bulldog Miscellaneous , French Bulldog Veterinary
• Comments(0)