American Bulldog Health

American Bulldogs & Hip Dysplasia

American Bulldog health is quite good, there are some common issues but if the parents of your puppies are tested you should feel confident that your puppy won’t develop one of these diseases.  The most common problem is Canine Hip Dyplasia also know as Degenerative Joint Disease.  Many large breeds suffer from the malformation of the hip socket, when the ball is not formed well or the socket is not deep enough the hip becomes unstable.  When the hip is unstable the bones start to grow in order to solidify the joint.  It’s the same as osteo arthritis in humans and it is very painful.  Here is a LINK to an article that goes into depth about osteoarthritis and hip dysplasia.

Puppy Parents Should Be Xrayed To Have Their Hips Evaluated

We xray our brood stock’s hips and use PennHIP to evaluate the xray.  American Bulldog health is very important to us.  We only keep dogs in our breeding program that have hip scores above the breed median.  Here is a link to the PennHIP website.  Please do not buy a puppy from a breeder that doesn’t xray their brood stock to check for malformed hips.

Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis 10

NCL is uncommon in American Bulldogs, all cases have gone back to a single ancestor, Boyd’s Hines’ Moleque, the problem with new breeders is that they don’t know if that dog is in their pedigree so they should test.  We test because NCL is part of the panel of 159 genetic disease markers that the Embark DNA test covers.  It’s better to buy a puppy from a breeder that screens their parents dogs for the NCL genetic marker.

Ichthyosis

ICH is an inherited skin disorder, the affected puppy will develop flaky skin and a scruffy coat between 1 – 2 weeks.  At about 6 weeks of age the abdomen skin  is red, wrinkled and scaly.  The pup is smelly and it is at higher risk of skin infections for the rest of it’s life.  The genetic disease marker for Ichthyosis is tested for in the Embark panel that we do for our breeding dogs.  So you don’t have to worry about a Rosebull puppy developing Ichthyosis, nor will you have to worry that our pups carry the ichthyosis gene.  Please do not buy a puppy from a breeder that doesn’t screen the parents for ichthyosis.

Entropian

Some American Bulldogs suffer from entropian.  Entropian is an extremely uncomfortable condition for a dog, the eyelid or eyelids curl inward causing the eyelashes to rub or scratch the eyeball.  Obviously we do not breed dogs that have entropian, sadly, there are breeders that do.  Surgery can be performed on the eyelids so that the eyelashes grow outward, giving the huge relief to the dog.  Please do not buy a puppy from a breeder that breeds parents with entropian.

Hyperuricosuria

HUU is a problem in the bladder, the disease is inheritable and the genetic disease marker can be tested for.  We test our parents dogs and only breed them if the are clear of this genetic disease marker.  The diseased american bulldog will develop bladder stones which are extremely painful and if the urinary tracked becomes completely blocked the disease is fatal.  Surgery would be required to remove the stones.  Please do not buy a puppy from a breeder that doesn’t screen for HUU.

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