A new year and new concerns for a bulldog owner

1/5/07 We have been having a good time with our new English Bulldog, Harry. The housebreaking really hasn't improved much, and I am kind of concerned that the people I bought him from, Luv-A-Bulldog, aren't answering my emails about his housebreaking.

I am not exactly pointing fingers at them or anything, I just would like some information about how they dealt with what is obviously a problem.

Unfortunately, I am getting the picture that he may have been somewhat neglected and perhaps he lived outside. This is absolutely a tragedy for a bulldog. They mentioned they have acerage and that is great for a dog to have access to a yard, but bulldogs are people dogs. If they aren't absolutely under your feet, they will not thrive.

And it ocurrs to me thinking back on what he was like when we got him that he was a bit well 'wilted.' I wondered if he had been debarked because he absolutely never made a sound. I was thrilled, because my nerves can't exactly handle dogs barking much, but it actually seems like he might have been a bit DEPRESSED. He would never play, he slept pretty much round the clock, and we even had a hard time getting him to eat.

In the past few days he has picked up his spirits a bit and gotten very friendly with us. But one of the strange things was that he didn't like going on walks. We almost couldn't drag him out of the house. Again I emailed Luv-A-Bulldog and she said that she had NEVER TAKEN HIM ON A WALK, that she just let him run around on their property.

And the very sad thing is that maybe his whole life was just spent out in the yard. No wonder he didn't want to go outside, he probably thought he was back at his other owners.

And one of the things that we noticed lately was that he was constantly licking a few of his feet. Dogs do that stuff sometimes and we didn't notice at first that they also looked very sore. And he was even favoring those paws when he walked. It looked like this 11 month old dog was actually in pain.

That was the last straw. The dandruff was one thing, but I couldn't handle the poor gentle soul being uncomfortable so I took him to the vet. The owner discouraged this, saying 'oh don't spend money on a vet' but I am sorry he was sick.

The vet confirmed my worst fears, that he had probably just been kept out in a kennel his whole life on wet concrete. He had multiple bacterial and fungal infections all over his body, in his fur, in his skin wrinkles, on his neck (probably with some sort of really cruel collar because the fur was actually wearing away) and especially between his toes. He hadn't let us look before, but when the vet opened up his toes there were VERY angry sores between them.

We spent about 200 dollars on all of the lab work, shampoos and treatments, and medications, and he will probably need another round of treatments soon.

Did they LUV-A-Bulldog? Not this one. It is SO sad.