General Question Face Wrinkles

[Mcleanb7]

My bulldog is one year old. His wrinkles on his face have been an up and down battle for a while now. He has chronic tear stains and when they look good they are a mauve color and dry. But when they are flared up they look very irritated and red. This applies to the fold above his nose too. I feel like we have been relatively diligent about wiping them several times a week. We have tried general pet bath wipes and MalAcetic wipes. For a while we thought it may be allergies. We recently have switched him from puppy chow to adult food. It seemed to get worse so we switched between two or three adult foods before we landed on Blue Freedom Grain Free. It didn't seem to get any better so we stuck with that food. It would momentarily seem a little better only to flare up again after a couple days. I just feel like nothing is working.

Any advise? Keep on with pet bath wipes? Keep on with MalAcetic wipes? Switch to just plain toilet paper? Switch food? Maybe it's just a seasonal allergy causing more tearing?

The vet said we can't allergy test him until he is two and it's pretty pricey. I don't know what else to do and his face looks so uncomfortable. He doesn't seem bothered too much by it except for the occasional attempt to rub it up against the wall.

 

[Davidh]

I'm glad you got him off puppy chow, because it is crap food. Blue Freedom isn't too bad. I would change proteins. See if the food has chicken in it, as a lot of bullies are allergic to chicken, plus companies like blue will change the source of where they get there proteins from. If you try a different protein and you still have problems, try a better food like FROMM 4 Star "Game Bird" ours do great on it. The MalAcetic wipes are usually pretty good to use when they have a problem. You can also use unscented baby wipes too.

 

[Mcleanb7]

Thanks. He is on chicken protein. We just bought a bag of lamb so hopefully that switch might help.

 

[2BullyMama]

agreed... the grain free and changing to lamb hopefully will give some clearing. I also use witch hazel to clean the folds... every other day and inbetween I use unscented baby wipes

 

[Mcleanb7]

Ok he has been on lamb (not grain free tho) blue buffalo and his face is starting to look better! Maybe it was the chicken. Hopefully it continues to look good!

 

[2BullyMama]

Ok he has been on lamb (not grain free tho) blue buffalo and his face is starting to look better! Maybe it was the chicken. Hopefully it continues to look good!

Chicken seems to be an issue for a lot of bullies

 

[Mcleanb7]

His face is looking bad again. �� I'm starting to wonder if he is allergic to something outside. I'm just not sure what else to do since we can't have him allergy tested for another year.

 

[nubonics]

It takes about a month to see changes with food. curly has one eye that stains a bit more than the other. We combat it with baby wipes, and Desitin baby rash medicine (only when he flars up). For food we feed him Fromm's pork and peas. We also give him filtered water but spring water seems to help a lot more than filtered water but it gets a bit pricey to buy him spring water all the time (we have three dogs plus a cat that go through at least a gallon of water a day).

When it is allergy season we do give him benadryl every other day because his eyes water a bit. Where are you located? Right now most outdoor environmental allergies and non existent in most of the US.

Allergy tests are pricey. We had one done on our frenchie mix because he was losing hair and we couldn't figure out what it was. After about $2K we found out he was allergic to severely allergic to our cat and dust mites. We were given pricey shots to give him but it didnt help grow his fur back. What helped were fish oil pills. I digress.

A lot of times with environmental allergies you see more than just watery eyes. Licking paws, scratching, loss of fur. If your EB has deep wrinkles they may need to be cleaned and dried out more often too. I've seen some members use goldbond to help keep the wringles dry. If its stinky it also might be a yeast infection.

 

[bullmama]

Instead of Malecetic wipes try either Douxo pads, or Malecetic otic Ultra. Or ask your vet for panalog ointment (other brands are entederm or animax ointment).

If there is a fungal or bacterial infection in those folds any of those will help tremendously.