GREAT Adventures at the Dog Park

So every day Bam Bam and I head to the dog park. Usually its Greenway Park which is out by Stapleton. The reason I go there versus heading to the one closest to our house is that regardless of the time of day, there will be dogs to play with. Today Bam Bam decided he wanted to play with a young great dane named Stella. She was very playful...the owner looked a little worried and I assured her that her dog could not harm my dog wrestling. It was sort of funny though considering their height differences!

It looks like rough play, but no one gets hurt and he is worn out by the time we get home. Beyond that Bam Bam helped James out with his day off projects like installing a shelf under the newly remodeled bathroom, and building bookshelves in the downstairs hallway. If he had thumbs he would really be a help...then he could hand James his tools!

For no reason whatsoever...

Since all my friends and family have blogs about their children, I figured it was only fair that I create a blog about my bulldog. He's the only kid I'm going to have...other than my husband. So for all of you that would like to see what my dog and I do on a regular basis...sign on and take a look at our (not) so exciting life.

So I guess I will start at the beginning and get everyone up to speed. James got Bam Bam for me for Christmas 2007. He was 11 weeks old and was the cutest thing you'd ever see. He had never been away from his mom or siblings so I think it was a bit rough for him. He had plenty of attention on his first day, so I think he acclimated quickly. James' mom, Renee was in town for Christmas and James looked like a hero. [For those of you who do not know, I had another bulldog named Chopper that passed away on May 5th, 2006. It was the most devastating loss as it was completely unexpected...I was incredibly hurt and it left a huge hole in my world]. Chopper's picture is below when he got his first bath from us as a 5 month old puppy.

So here is Bam Bam on Christmas Eve day when he came to live with us.

All he pretty much did was sleep...very unlike who he is now. Now all he ever wants to do is play...

So Bam Bam is one of the healthiest bulldogs I have ever met...the antithesis of who Chopper was. Chopper spent every other week at the vet for one thing or another. Bam Bam usually gets a clean bill of health when he goes in for his shots. The only big issue he had was when he was around 4-5 months old. He developed what is called a cherry eye...apparently dogs have 3 eye lids and one of them was not staying where it should be and protruded out...the only way to fix it would be surgery. I started thinking, "uh oh...it looks like I got another dog with issues..." thankfully that was not the case. We had the surgery done on both eyes just in case. So far, no ill affects (besides the vet bill of $500). So anyway, when things do come up for Bam Bam I am surprised because I have now grow accustomed to a not so high maintenance dog...the latest and greatest was a skin infection. Probably very common in highly wrinkled dogs. He gets his face washed every morning to make sure that his wrinkles were clean, but I started noticing that the stains under his eyes were getting worse and worse as well as the poor guy had an itch he could not get to on his tail. (Bulldog tails are odd...they are sort of a curly cue tail that submerges into their backside...also hard to keep clean). I bought some creams and started attacking that pesky itch on his tail...made sure it was clean, but to no avail. So we had our yearly check up and asked Dr. Tom when we saw him what was going on...Dr. Tom is a bulldog specialist vet. Most of his patients are bullies...very interesting when you go to the vet and see a waiting room of bulldogs. He's pretty smart when you think about all the issues that this breed has...its not like he doesn't have a full book every day. As soon as Dr. Tom saw him, he knew what was up. Apparently, his eyes were "leaking" and the moisture was causing a yeast infection in the wrinkles of his face...same idea on the tail too. So off we went with a $400 vet bill and an arsenal of medications to cure the skin problems.

Twice a day, I had to give him antibiotics, every 12 hours he needed drops placed in his eyes to stop the irritation causing the leakage, 3-4 times a day his infected areas needed to be swabbed with a medicated pad, and every other week he needed a special medicated bath. Well, we followed the rules and went back to the vet 3 weeks later when all the antibiotics were done. Dr. Tom gave him a clean bill of health and said he looked great. I pointed out a skin growth that developed in the last 3 weeks on his chin and he had it removed...apparently a development from his skin issues. He also had a 3 year rabies shot and another $75 bill...we were done. So in the scheme of bullies...Bam Bam is low maintenance. I don't recommend you get this breed of dog unless you have a lot of patience and money for vet bills.