Thought it may be useful to document and share my experience..
1. I have a male purebred - 3.5 years old - AKC registered - Grandma champion and in Bulldog hall of fame, mother champion, grandpa is champion. Our dog was bred aggressively for show, but we got him as a family pet. Thought AKC known breeder would be better way to go to insure healthy dog. Found breeder via AKC.
2. Unusual bleeding - happened around 1 year - just some drops, around 2 years same thing some drops - vet has no clue (Banfield), then about 1 week ago moderate to heavy bleeding from pee area but not in urine.
3. Banfield still no clue - so I do some research (engineer, not vet) and say wow this looks exactly like prolapsed urethra - vets confirm - multiple vets
4. Surgery planned to treat urethra. My youngest daughter is honors college freshmen in pre-vet - so I am familiar with vet schools in US - found a great hospital. Happy how this is going. Discuss with surgeon concern with recovery from anesthesia. Surgeon is very experienced - tells me shouldn't be a problem, I give her background information that breeder mentioned to me he had lost other family bulldog members from anesthesia. Again surgeon is very good and I appreciate she is listening to my concerns seriously. Surgeon asks about soft palate and saccules. We're not aware of any severe breathing issues so advise to monitor but not do anything for breathing now.
5. Surgery starts - surgeon can see while bully is under the saccules and soft palate. Reports major blockages advises to operate on to help. I go with surgeons recommendation. Concern is if we didn't there was a significant probability for trach tube relatively soon in life.. Also - this is procedure is outlined well here in forum for treating brachy syndrome..
6. Surgery goes well - no surprises here.. Pull the air tube and he doesn't recover, re-insert the tube right away. Ok very consistent with breeder reporting losing family members and there's swelling because of all the work in his air pipe. Decision - try recovery again or put in a trach tube? Went for the trach tube based on history and swelling - we thought this was more a temp trach tube than a permanent one.
7. Give about 2 days with trach tube in - he's in ICU whole time at hospital - couple times it clogs- ER vet there with another tube to immediately replace and re-insert. He gets excited naturally when he can't breathe - I see him pant a lot but it's not effective with trach tube - but rather minor hyperthermia.
8. After two days pull the trach tube and he breaths through nose/mouth ok.
9. Still recovering but doing pretty well as of today
Summary:
1) Don't let vets play down bully anesthesia concerns!- make sure they have a trach tube there and are ok inserting it if bully doesn't recover. This is more an insurance policy. Obviously concern is not while under - it's when they pull the air tube out and the immediate recovery period where bully is switching to normal breathing.
2) Temp trach tubes work - doesn't necessarily have to be permanent (but can be) - just allows swelling to go down after BAS surgery..
3) Do BAS surgery when bully is young as possible - better chances for avoiding a perm trach tube and having a better/higher quality of life - will have to see how this works out for us.
4) If Bully gets a temp trach tube then don't bring home!! Leave bully in ICU so if (when!?) tube clogs ER Vet there to IMMEDIAELY replace - don't bring bully home till he's breathing normally
