Bulldogs World

Firstly, please be sure to be feeding Halfback a good quality, grain free food.  That'll work miracles for allergies.  I give Winston Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream, but there are others like Canidae, Nature's Variety, Honest Kitchen, Addiction...all are good choices.  That'll take a couple months to get things "flushed" from his system, but it will be good for him in the long run.

Secondly, if you don't already give him filtered water please consider getting a Brita (or something similar) to filter his drinking water.  It's amazing what good, clean water can do to help our bullies out.

Now the "smell" issue concerns me.  I'd definitely follow the course of "treatments" that your vet has you on.  You definitely don't want to stop the antibiotics and cause a more severe problem to errupt.  Can you describe the smell at all?  Does it smell like fritos--if so that's a yeast problem and something that the antibiotics could correct for you.  Does he smell "fishy" at all--if so it might be related to either his tail pocket having an issue or his anal glands might need to be drained.

Seasonal hair loss is pretty common in bullies...it's related to not getting enough sunlight/vitamin D in the shorter Winter days.  It's worth talking about this option with your vet.  It might be that she prescribes him to take a vitamin D supplement or melatonin to help minimize the seasonal hair loss.  If you look up Seasonal Flank Alopecia on this website you'll find a lot of good information about it.  If his skin (where he's lost the hair) is smooth and healthy looking I'd tend to think that would be what is going on...if it is scaby or scaly at all you might have another cause for the hair loss.

Sorry that your poor guy has had issues with a prolapsed urethra.  Winston went through that as well.  It's almost 2 years since his surgery (March will be 2 years) and besides the first few weeks of healing he has not had any further complications from it.  So stay positive.  That will heal! :)

Please let me know about the smell and any other issues.  I'm sure others here on BDW will have some ideas to help out your sweet guy.  Also...don't be shy about posting his picture!! :)

 it can take a few weeks for it to get better.

It sounds like his immune system is weak, or weakened. Some yogurt in his food and/or acidolophis pills will help boost it, give him some Vit. C too.

and culture to determine what antibiotic to give?  What antibiotic is the dog on?  Is the vet just guessing?   The smell most likely is from a staph infection. 

What food are you feeding?  Have you recently changed? 

Someone mentioned Alopecia.  It is not that.  Seasonal Alopecia doesn't leave bald spots all over the dog. 

It's very, very, very important that your Vet is experienced with bulldogs. I can't stress how important that is. Some Vets see a bulldog come in and automatically see $$$$$.

Second, make sure your dog gets a skin scrape. A skin scrape should determine what you are dealing with.

Third, feed your dog a good quality food. I recommend feeding a grain free food. But, each dog reacts differently to dog food and it's really trail and error. You can also try different proteins. One of my dogs is allergic to chicken so I usually feed a salmon based food.

Good Luck!

Okay, so the smell is more like 'fritos' and it seems to have almost be gone. The antibiotics he is on is cephalexin 500mg 3/day. He did get a skin scraping to determine mites, which came back neg. I am on the hunt for a good diet for him, he seems very picky, of course high maintenance bullies, gotta love em! When he first came into our lives he was on science diet which i read the ingredients and decided it couldn't be good. Besides, he'd go up to three days without touching his food!! And of course the vet says 'its the best diet you can feed your dog, he'll eat when he's hungry enough' I was appalled! So rather in law recommended blue buffalo which he is on now but it's somewhat the same story. I've tried different meats but without much success. I will def try one of the foods you have suggested, immediately! And i assume to gradually switch right? I will have to inspect his nails for the discoloration. The shedding has not gotten any better, worse actually. There seems to be a constant coat of fuzzy loose fur on his back. It breaks my heart to have my lovely halfback go through all this. I wish there was a vet around who is experienced or who especializes on bulldogs!! But I've called in our area and there doesn't seem to be any, they almost get offended that i would even ask. I really appreciate all of you responding and giving advice, it means a lot to have all this input. Btw, I would love to post pics but my laptop is not working, so I'm using the iPad which doesn't give me the option to upload :( thanks again and I will keep you updated.