Hi...I would just like to ask about my french bulldog bitch who is vomiting froth after a bit of coughing...She is well otherwise and has not eaten anything to cause this. I have just recently got her and this seems to be a daily occurrence with her ...I have heard this is a bad thing with this breed. Can anyone help me out please?

what does your vet say?

Hiya

My Frenchie Eve would bring up froth after coughing, when she had kennel cough. My previous Frenchie Louis, would bring up froth during and after a walk or when he was really excited -  he had brachycephalic syndrome. The elongated palate whips up the salva until it is thick, so is hard to swallow which is why they bring it up. Is she coughing to clear her throat or has she an infection? If you know why she's coughing i.e. a respiratory infection, she needs to see the vet to get it cleared up. The froth itself is harmless, just thick saliva, which can be thinned with medicine from the vet  ( Bisolvon or simillar) or even a squirt of lemon juice. If she has an elongated palate that is interfering with her breathing, the vet needs to see her. xx

Bty the way, lungworm and many other things, makes a dog cough too, so best to check at the vet.

Get her to a vet

Where did you get her from?  Has she been doing this since she arrived?  How old is she?

Coughing isn't good at any age but a healthy adult would cope with Kennel Cough without too much bother - it can be a real problem in elderly, compromised, or very young dogs.  The difficulty is that as others have said the coughing could be caused by a number of other conditions so vet advice is the best course of action.

My first thought is kennel cough. Frothy white bile is often bought up with the cough.

Hiya Killickchick
Thanks for your answer. I have had her to the vet and he said about the Brachycephalic syndrome, I just wanted to hear a similar thing with something else. Did you have your dog operated on and if so, what was the outcome?
She dosn't have kennel cough, lungworm or an infection.
She will be having the op shortly. I just really needed to hear about this from someone else, not that I dont trust my vet, I think he is fantastic, but i just think of all these questions after I leave there.
Again, Thanks for not being patronising and helping out.

Thanks also, dogs a babe, I got her from a breeder, she has done this since she arrived and she is 18 months old. She is the sweetest little thing and we love her to bits and she is guaranteed to be made as healthy as we can. The vet said it isnt life threatening, but just for her comfort she will be having the operation. This is our first frenchie and have learnt the hard way straight from the start. He certainly saw us coming. Again, Thanks

Hello again.

My Louis was booked for a soft palate resection, opening of his nares and also they were going to check his laryngeal saccules - bit like tonsils that can evert and hang down and block the airway. We had him booked at a fantastic soft tissue specialist ( who had fixed his fractured leg the year before ) but very unexpectedly, he died at the surgery while waiting for his operation :( We were utterly devastated, he was our 1st love, our 1st Frenchie, but he made us love the breed so much. He was 22 months old. He's in my avatar.

Before we booked the op, I spoke with a few owners who had had the op - mixed results, some said the breathing and exercise intolerance had improved greatly, others said hardly any improvement. I decided that the best chance of improvement seemed to be with a younger dog before damage could be done to the organs - the heart can enlarge and thicken and the trachea can lose it's rigidity and collapse, partially or wholly. I was also advised to use the mucus thinner Bisolvon to keep the saliva thin.

If I was ever in the position again, to have the op, I would do so - even a small improvement in breathing is better than nothing.

Is your girl brindle? and a noisy breather, snorter? I've found the darker ones seem to be the most heat intolerant - we had fans going all day in the summer and often had to wet Louis' chest, tummy etc. and walk him before 7 am and after 10 pm! Our Pierre on the other hand, being pied, never felt the heat at all!

Has your vet done this surgery before? I would use someone who has done the op numerous times - there is a danger of taking too much palate away causing food and liquid to enter the lungs! Also, as with any anaethesia, there is a danger - speak to your vet and ask what is the anaesthetic protocol he is using. Some Frenchies can be intolerant to certain sedatives, drugs used etc. The web is wonderful for researching the procedure - youtube even has vids of elongated palate showing how it restricts breathing!

I do hope all goes well for you and your girl, please post updates :-) Once you're bitten by the Frenchie bug, that's it - I have 2 little monsters here with me! :-D

Brachycephalic syndrome with severe symptoms CAN be life threatening, the trachea can collapse wholly causing suffocation - if the symptoms are not severe, dogs can live with it their whole lives - you just have to manage them carefully i.e. heat, excitement ( give them time out to calm down )exercise, keeping their weight down. xxx

Hello,
Thanks for all the info. Good to be able to talk/type lol to someone with a bit of knowledge.
So sorry to hear about Louis, that must have been devastating to say the least.
My girl is a fawn. I thought I had researched the breed enough before we decided to buy. I had not actually seen a frenchie in real life before we went to look at our girl, and the state she was in was quite dire so she was coming home with us regardless. She was snuffling a bit and was very underweight. I took her to the vets the day after we got her, he said hers was not too bad and that he had heard much worse and that she could probably live with that all her life. She also had an ear infection. The vet told me there was some risk with the op but it would benefit her to have it. He has done the operation quite a few times, thankfully.
Will def look into your advice and also see about the mucus thinner too.
Will definitely do updates for sure.
Thanks again x

You're welcome :-)

So glad your vet has experience of the op. It's great when you can find a vet you trust and have confidence in.  Fingers and paws crossed for a good result.  xxx
Snap! My Louis was the 1st Frenchie we'd ever seen too!   we loved him at first sight - small little mite he was :-) 
His breathing problem didn't start until he was nearly a year old and very mild it was. As he grew to his mature size, his condition got worse, hence us deciding on the op. We too were thrown in at the deep end, health wise. He was a bit poorly with colitis and a bit wormy too when we got him, but was soon doing great when I put him on better quality food. He then developed a funny skin condition and went on to fracture his leg at 7 months. He had a few epileptic seizures during his last year too. We were just very unlucky with him and in hindsight, believe he was living on borrowed time - he was the runt and only one left in his litter. Even his 'breeder' must have thought he was a hopeless case, going by the name they registered him!  :-(

If we could do it all again with him, we would - he taught us so much and was my little soulmate! And it didn't put us off - we went on to have Pierre, now gone to join Louis - and now the terrible twosome Eve and Taffy :-D

Unfortunately, there are breeders - I use the term loosely - out there who are only interested in churning out puppies for money and lets face it, with the cost of Frenchies, they can make loads (even with the cost of having a c section )  They have no regard for breeding from health tested, healthy adults, just put the nearest available dogs together! :-(

> Unfortunately, there are breeders - I use the term loosely - out there who are only interested in churning out puppies for money and lets face it, with the cost of Frenchies, they can make loads (even with the cost of having a c section )  They have no regard for breeding from health tested, healthy adults, just put the nearest available dogs together! :-(

Have you seen the latest BRS? It's dreadful (Frenchies) over 500 last quarter, the majority without an affix, a large number from people who we all know are in the breed for the £ signs and a tiny minority of "decent folk" who everyone knows through showing. When we got our first Frenchie nearly 12 years ago from folks we knew through showing the Boxers said that Frenchies would go the same way as Bulldogs and Pugs, here we are, they have.  Imports from eastern Europe just brought in to this country to breed from.....don't get me started....
When people phone us to ask for advice about buying a puppy and where to start we advise them to start with the two breed clubs and never to look on those awful web sites advertising puppies for sale.  It used to be normal to wait for a Frenchie, we waited 2 years (on their waiting list) for our first and three years after that for our second.  A lot of the problem now is that people won't wait, they expect one NOW.

A lot of the problem now is that people won't wait, they expect one NOW.

So true, Lorna. The problem is going to get far worse, now that Beckham has bought one! People will not be content to go on a waiting list or be grilled by the breeder and their 1st port of call will be those sites. They will do no research into the breed or  to whether the breed is suitable for them, nor care about registration or health testing.The puppy farmers/back yard breeders will be in their element as people rush to buy their icon's latest breed. So many are going to end up in rescue but more likely passed around as people find out their cute little dog has to be managed differently to the usual household mutt - no playing in the park on a hot summers day, no trips to the beach with their sun worshipping owners, no funny little jogging companion etc. Then of course, the new owner may just think, Wow! these little guys have cost so much, let's recoup the cost and breed them ourselves! :-(

Have you noticed how many Frenchies are in the TV ads now? from sausages to hand-held games!!!!!

> The problem is going to get far worse, now that Beckham has bought one!

Yes I must admit my heart sank when I saw David Beckham on the TV with their new puppy.  There's another footballer got one too, the pic was in the last edition of Bat Ears (don't have a clue who he was!!) and also a person from a former "boy band" as well as the one on the catwalk, and the tv ads for sausages, central heating boilers etc etc. Rescue are already picking up the pieces, there's been a lot already this year.

Hi all,just read all of the above and feel for you with the problems that Braccy's have, we have a Boxer and a Boston so are well aware of their many problems,but just a add on regarding puppy farms last year we were at Pup Aid which is a show to make people aware of NOT buying puppies from ads in papers,internet etc for unregistered pups or from so called Breeders saying the "paper work will follow" and buying from these people only encourages them to breed more however hard it maybe to say no,but at this show one lady was carrying a totally bald frenchie around she could not walk she had burnt pads due to urine soaked stable,her coat had fallen out due to stress and luckily for her she had Pymetra after her second litter at about 18mths so she was useless to the puppy farmer and this lady took her on,I saw the same dog at another show last week and she looks so well her coat has grown back her feet are now better so she has had a lucky escape.Also we have our name down for a Frenchie due to be born end of may beginning of june fingers crossed all goes well.x

> Have you seen the latest BRS? It's dreadful (Frenchies) over 500 last quarter,

Wow that is as many as my breed in the whole of five years.

>> Have you seen the latest BRS? It's dreadful (Frenchies) over 500 last quarter,
> Wow that is as many as my breed in the whole of five years.

That's from my post above, now we're back home and unpacked I've had a proper look at the BRS and it's 540 Frenchies registered in the 1st quarter, as I said to killickchick it's getting awful.  When we got our first Frenchie there were less than 350 registered in a year, it's heartbreaking to see what's happening to our beautiful breed.

and then the good breeders get blamed for the health issues that proliferate due to ignorant and indiscriminate breeding.

> and then the good breeders get blamed for the health issues that proliferate due to ignorant and indiscriminate breeding.

Exactly! Ours are patella tested along with the other basic tests and one so far with another two to follow being DNA tested for HC. Just a look to see how many are DNA tested in relation to how many are bred tells it all.