February 12, 2024 • 17 mins
In this episode of ER VET, Dr. Justine Lee, DACVECC, DABT talks about brachycephalic syndrome in dogs (and rarely cats). If your dog snores, you'll want to tune in to learn everything you need to know about elongated soft palate, stenotic nares, everted laryngeal saccules and so much more!
SHOW NOTES: Brachycephalic Syndrome in Dogs: Nose Jobs in Dogs?
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/er-vet-stories-from-the-animal-er-pet-life-radio-original-petliferadio-com--6667836/support.
SHOW NOTES: Brachycephalic Syndrome in Dogs: Nose Jobs in Dogs?
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/er-vet-stories-from-the-animal-er-pet-life-radio-original-petliferadio-com--6667836/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to er vetam pet Lake Radio. I'm your host,
doctor Dustine Lee, and I'm a Ford to provide emergency
critical care specialists and a toxicologist. Thanks for joining us today.
We're going to be talking about break you to phallic syndrome.
This is mostly in dogs, but sometimes in cats. So
for all you French bulldogs and English bulldogs and pug
(00:47):
owners out there, you have to pay attention. If your
dog snores at night, you have to tune in. We'll
be right back after these messages.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Take a bite out of your competition. Advertise your business
with an ad in Petlife Radio podcasts and radio shows.
There is no other pet related media that is as
large and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than
pet Life Radio with over seven million monthly listeners. Pet
Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms,
(01:19):
and our live radio stream goes out to over two
hundred and fifty million subscribers on iHeartRadio, Odyssey, tune In,
and other streaming apps. For more information on how you
can advertise on the number one pet podcast and radio network,
visit Petlifradio dot com. Slash advertised today.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Let's talk pets on petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Welcome back er Veta pat like Radio. Today, I'm going
to be talking to you about all things. Knows, you're
probably thinking, what, Well, if you've never heard of break
your ccephalic syndrome, I know it's a mouth dog. Breaking
basically means short headed. So when we look at break
yourcephalic breeds, your classic breeds are the English bulldog, the
(02:23):
French bulldog, Pekinese Boston Terriers, pugs. There are some dogs
that have slightly longer heads, like the boxer. So one
in doubt, if your dog snores, you probably have a
break you ccephalic breed. Now, don't forget there's some cats
out there too, and it's a Persian cat that is
the most breakercephalic of all cat breeds out there. So
(02:46):
what do I mean about break yourcephalic syndrome. Well, first
of all, this is an airway problem, and this is
what we probably have caused by breeding these dogs to
have those adorable smushed faces. If you're gonna mes just
taking your hand or your palm and pretending to like
smush the muzzle of your dog, you can imagine evolution wise,
(03:08):
we basically bread. These dogs to have that smushed airway,
so everything that went from their nose all the way
to the back of their head basically gets condensed and
smushed into a smaller space. So when we talk about
break yourcephalic syndrome, it's usually a combination of three to
four different problems. Now, break youucephalic syndrome again is seen
(03:30):
in these breeds, and I would say the number one
breed that I see it in is typically the French
bulldog and English bulldog. Now why do you care? You
care because it makes your dog snore. Not a big deal,
But I will disclose I have a French bulldog. I
usually am a huge advocate of adopting. I always say,
you know, don't breed or buy when homeless animals die,
(03:52):
But there are some breeds I just love. I usually
am a pit bull adopter. I like to adopt pit
bull puppies because they're so hard to find homes for. Sometimes, well,
I happen to be able to find a French bulldog
when I was basically approached by a fellow veterinarian and
they had this poor French bulldog puppy who unfortunately had
(04:13):
parvo virus. Parvovirus is like almost ninety nine percent protective
with the vaccine, but your dog needs at least three
to four vaccines to be fully protected from parvo. And fortunately,
without vaccination or without more than one to two vaccines,
your puppy is really immunosuppressed and not protected from this virus.
(04:34):
So unfortunately, the French bulldog ended up getting parvovirus and
got really sick. So I ended up fostering him and
adopting him, and he's amazing. However, he also has break
us to Alex syndrome. So what exactly is it? Again?
It's four to five different problems that we see. The
first problem that we see is an elongated soft palate.
(04:55):
If you can imagine sticking your finger into your mouth,
you can feel that so part of your mouth at
the roof of your mouth, and then you feel that
hard palette which is like the ridges of the back
of your mouth. Well, that soft, fleshy part in the
very beginning part of your mouth basically helps protect food
from going into you know, like the brain cavity, but
(05:16):
also to make sure that your dog doesn't inhale the
food into their airway. If that soft palet is too long,
it often protrudes and blocks the airway and it really
interferes with air getting into the lungs. The second syndrome,
a break ofcephalic syndrome, is something called senaticinaries, and these
(05:37):
are basically when the nostrils of a dog are smushed
and they are basically inccluded and they can't breathe. So
you could hear I was basically smashing my nostrils and
I sound different. Well, if the diameter of the nostril
is small, and it's only a quarter of the size
that it should be, you can imagine how hard it
(05:58):
is for your dog to breathe through your nose. My
dog had a tiny, tiny stenaticneries where he couldn't get
a lot of airflow in, and he often couldn't smell well.
And I often noticed, you know, my pitbull could smell
lots of good things, and you know, I would put
a treat right near my French bulldog and you wouldn't
smell it. So they probably don't have as strong of
(06:19):
a sense of smell either. So not only do they
have that elongated soft pellet, but they also have a stenaticnryes.
The third part of break yourcephalic syndrome is something called
averted lryngeal sacules. Now, I know that sounds like a mouthful,
but that's basically where there's too much tissue within the
airway just in front of the vocal folds or the
(06:41):
vocal cords, and oftentimes it gets pulled into the trachea
or the windpipe and this can block the airflow. Also,
in other words, remember when I mentioned smushing your dog's muscle.
If you did that to a golden retriever, a long
nosed dog and you ended up smushing their nostril and
their muzzle, all that extra tissue sort of just folds
(07:04):
up on itself. And so with these smushed face breeds again,
all that extra tissue is in their airway and can
block their airway. The last couple of syndromes that we
can see with breakerrcephalic syndrome include a narrow trichea. And
so the trichia again is basically the tube that goes
from the mouth into the lungs. It's going to go
(07:25):
from your vocal cords and bring oxygen directly into the lung. Well,
you can imagine if you had a tube and it's
only half the normal diameter. You can't get enough oxygen in.
We can normally see this on X ray, so this
is something we worry about. Now, these are the most
common problems that we see with break yourcephalic syndrome. There's
a couple of rarer types and that's when the larynx
(07:48):
or the voice box folds or collapses completely or very rarely,
when there's paralysis of the larynx or the cartilage within
the larynx, and those are rarer. Why am I telling
you this because if you have one of these breeds
that has a history of snoring or breathing harder, they
can't breathe well. And if you notice this or you
(08:10):
can hear it, you do want to talk to your
veterinarian about potential options on what we can do to
avoid it. So what can you do? So let's talk
about signs a break your ccephalic syndrome. If your dog
wretches or has difficulties swallowing, or snores, or just gets
really tired when they're walking, gets really really tired when
(08:33):
they're overly excited, can't go for a walk in the
heat or the humidity, well, your dog may have break
your ccephalic syndrome. If you're staring at your adorable dog
and you notice that the nostrils are like tiny little
vertical slits into instead of the normal P shaped nostril,
that means your dog has stanaticnaries. And these signs have
(08:55):
to be fixed because I can't tell you how many
times I see break your ccephalic dogs presenting into the
er vet for difficulty breathe them. Now, there are other
problems that can contribute and make break yourcephalic syndrome worse,
and the first one is obesity. Now forty to sixty
up to seventy percent of pets in the United States
(09:16):
are overweight to obese and obedes we define as greater
than twenty percent the ideal body weight if you have
a pure bread My go to recommendation is to go
to the American Countl Club website, the AKC website and
see what the average weight is for that breed of dog.
Why is this important because when you actually google what
(09:36):
the ideal weight on an AKC breed is, you'll see
what the ideal weight is for you. Labrador retriever dogs.
Oftentimes Labrador retrievers are sixty to seventy pounds, and if
you have a labrador who's ninety pounds, that's not healthy, right.
All that extra weight aggravates so many problems. We know
when vetinary studies, it predisposes them to ostor threat, it
(10:00):
predisposes them to a shorter lifespan. All that extra obesity
or all that extra fat can actually cause difficulty breathing.
So it's going to aggravate the clinical signs a break
us to alex syndrome. So especially if you have an
English bulldog, you have a French bulldog. I know these
guys love to eat, but it's really really important that
(10:21):
you make sure to keep them on the skinnier side.
We'll continue with this really important information right after these
messages from our sponsors. Molly, here's your dinner. See that's
not your food.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Don't let that happen to your precious cat. Elevate your
cat's eating experience with the cat tree tray. The cat
tree tray keeps your cat's food off the floor and
conveniently located on the cat tree. It's the perfect way
to eat. It's a beautiful wrought iron tray that easily
attaches to your cat tree and keeps dogs and other
critters out of your cat's dish. A must from Multi
(11:02):
Pet Households. There's a six inch trade for large bowls
and a four inch tray for smaller bulls. Er just
your cat tree trade today. Go right now to cattreetrade
dot com. That's cattreetrade dot com, c A T t
R E E t R A y dot com.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Let's talk past, let's don pet headline Radio.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Cat light radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Welcome back to ear Venom cat Life Radio. We've been
talking about the really hard to say word break your
cyphalic syndrome again. That means short headed. And so if
you have a dog that snores, and yes I'm talking
to you, French bulldog, English bulldog, Pekinese all those little
smaller dogs with smushed faces. These are when we see
that combination of medical proms where they just can't breathe well. Again.
(12:09):
That includes things like that extra long soft palate, the
snatic NAIs, the averted laryngeal sacules, to things like that
narrow trachea or even abnormal cartilage of the larynx or
voice box in the mouth. We've talked about what signs
to look for, such as noisy breathing or snoring, and
(12:29):
we talked about how obesity or being overweight can really
worsen these proms because it results in a lot of
internal body fat compressing the trachea and the airway. So
what do we do about it? Well, the reason why
I'm actually doing this episode is because my amazing adopted
a French bulldog who I ended up adopting. He just
(12:50):
had snatic naari surgery and he had break your cyphalic
surgery because I want to make sure he can breathe better.
So how do we diagnose it? Well, you can just
look at your and see if your dog has sinaticnrys.
That's really easy to see when they have those little
slits and not a normal sized nostril. But to see
if your dog actually has an elongated soft palate or
(13:11):
those averted laurential sacules, well that has to be done
under heavy sedation or anesthesia. So if you're getting your
dog spade or neutered, if it's one of those break
yourcephalic breeds, this is something your veterinarian has to evaluate, Okay,
And if you're not sure, you want to go to
a vet who specializes in the surgery because they may
(13:32):
be able to spay a new to your dog and
fix this sonaticnrries or that elongated soft palate at the
same time. With break yourcephalic breeds, we really want to
minimize anesthesia or even sedation because they have such difficulty
breathing and recovering from sedation or anesthesia. Now, I will
say most break your scephalic breeds are really hard to
(13:54):
do an oral exam on because they have huge muscles
mass or muscles of their jobs. They have a really
thick tongue, and it makes it really hard to visualize
the voice box while they're awake. So unfortunately we can't
do it while your dog is awake. It has to
be done under anesthesia. And what we're looking for is
if that soft palette extends beyond the tip of the epiglottis,
(14:17):
which is the start of the airway. If we do
find that your dog has an elongated soft palate, we'll
often do what we call a soft palette resection or trim,
where we'll actually cut that excessive tissue away. The next
thing we'll do is if we see averted laurential sacules
and that looks basically like these grayish blue masses in
(14:39):
the back of your dog's mouth in front of the
vocal folds. If that's back there, those need to be
removed also, and last, with sonaticneries, oftentimes a surgeon or
a veterinarian will do take out something called a wedge,
a piece of tissue on the side to basically open
up the diameter of the nostrils. Now one in doubt,
please no, surgery isn't necessarily curative because while it makes
(15:04):
the senatic naries less senatic and it makes them bigger,
they still have a lot of redundant tissue in the back.
But it can help significantly and really help avoid a
trip to the emergency room. One in dow talk to
a board certified veterinary surgeon or your veterinarian to see
if you're a French bulldog or English bulldog or smushed
(15:24):
face snoring dog needs his surgery. I'm a huge fan
of doing the surgery, especially if your dog's undergoing ante
SESU or sedation, because we really want to minimize any
kind of breathing problems. If you ever notice that your
dog turns blue, the gum color turns blue. They're panting
all the time, they're overheated, please bring them to the
(15:45):
er vat right away. And please also know break your
ccephalic breeds shouldn't go running. They shouldn't exercise on hot days.
I'm talking like greater than seventy eight degrees fahrenheit or
really humid days like greater than eighty percent. They can
really overheat if you need to, I always recommend walking
them on the shady side or in the cooler parts
(16:05):
of the day, either really early in the morning or
in the evening. We still want your dog to exercise
because that's a great way of keeping them in shape
and keeping that weight off, but one in doubt, if
you have one of those smushpased dogs, please make sure
to keep them healthy well. That brings me to the
end of today's show. Find me at doctor Justinelee dot com,
on Facebook or Instagram at doctor Justine Lee, or email
(16:27):
me your pet questions at doctor Justine at petlifradio dot com.
But that we're at a time and we want to
thank Mark Winter, our producer, for making the show possible.
See you at the next episode.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on Petlife
Radio dot com.
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to er vetam pet Lake Radio. I'm your host,
doctor Dustine Lee, and I'm a Ford to provide emergency
critical care specialists and a toxicologist. Thanks for joining us today.
We're going to be talking about break you to phallic syndrome.
This is mostly in dogs, but sometimes in cats. So
for all you French bulldogs and English bulldogs and pug
(00:47):
owners out there, you have to pay attention. If your
dog snores at night, you have to tune in. We'll
be right back after these messages.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Take a bite out of your competition. Advertise your business
with an ad in Petlife Radio podcasts and radio shows.
There is no other pet related media that is as
large and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than
pet Life Radio with over seven million monthly listeners. Pet
Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms,
(01:19):
and our live radio stream goes out to over two
hundred and fifty million subscribers on iHeartRadio, Odyssey, tune In,
and other streaming apps. For more information on how you
can advertise on the number one pet podcast and radio network,
visit Petlifradio dot com. Slash advertised today.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Let's talk pets on petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Welcome back er Veta pat like Radio. Today, I'm going
to be talking to you about all things. Knows, you're
probably thinking, what, Well, if you've never heard of break
your ccephalic syndrome, I know it's a mouth dog. Breaking
basically means short headed. So when we look at break
yourcephalic breeds, your classic breeds are the English bulldog, the
(02:23):
French bulldog, Pekinese Boston Terriers, pugs. There are some dogs
that have slightly longer heads, like the boxer. So one
in doubt, if your dog snores, you probably have a
break you ccephalic breed. Now, don't forget there's some cats
out there too, and it's a Persian cat that is
the most breakercephalic of all cat breeds out there. So
(02:46):
what do I mean about break yourcephalic syndrome. Well, first
of all, this is an airway problem, and this is
what we probably have caused by breeding these dogs to
have those adorable smushed faces. If you're gonna mes just
taking your hand or your palm and pretending to like
smush the muzzle of your dog, you can imagine evolution wise,
(03:08):
we basically bread. These dogs to have that smushed airway,
so everything that went from their nose all the way
to the back of their head basically gets condensed and
smushed into a smaller space. So when we talk about
break yourcephalic syndrome, it's usually a combination of three to
four different problems. Now, break youucephalic syndrome again is seen
(03:30):
in these breeds, and I would say the number one
breed that I see it in is typically the French
bulldog and English bulldog. Now why do you care? You
care because it makes your dog snore. Not a big deal,
But I will disclose I have a French bulldog. I
usually am a huge advocate of adopting. I always say,
you know, don't breed or buy when homeless animals die,
(03:52):
But there are some breeds I just love. I usually
am a pit bull adopter. I like to adopt pit
bull puppies because they're so hard to find homes for. Sometimes, well,
I happen to be able to find a French bulldog
when I was basically approached by a fellow veterinarian and
they had this poor French bulldog puppy who unfortunately had
(04:13):
parvo virus. Parvovirus is like almost ninety nine percent protective
with the vaccine, but your dog needs at least three
to four vaccines to be fully protected from parvo. And fortunately,
without vaccination or without more than one to two vaccines,
your puppy is really immunosuppressed and not protected from this virus.
(04:34):
So unfortunately, the French bulldog ended up getting parvovirus and
got really sick. So I ended up fostering him and
adopting him, and he's amazing. However, he also has break
us to Alex syndrome. So what exactly is it? Again?
It's four to five different problems that we see. The
first problem that we see is an elongated soft palate.
(04:55):
If you can imagine sticking your finger into your mouth,
you can feel that so part of your mouth at
the roof of your mouth, and then you feel that
hard palette which is like the ridges of the back
of your mouth. Well, that soft, fleshy part in the
very beginning part of your mouth basically helps protect food
from going into you know, like the brain cavity, but
(05:16):
also to make sure that your dog doesn't inhale the
food into their airway. If that soft palet is too long,
it often protrudes and blocks the airway and it really
interferes with air getting into the lungs. The second syndrome,
a break ofcephalic syndrome, is something called senaticinaries, and these
(05:37):
are basically when the nostrils of a dog are smushed
and they are basically inccluded and they can't breathe. So
you could hear I was basically smashing my nostrils and
I sound different. Well, if the diameter of the nostril
is small, and it's only a quarter of the size
that it should be, you can imagine how hard it
(05:58):
is for your dog to breathe through your nose. My
dog had a tiny, tiny stenaticneries where he couldn't get
a lot of airflow in, and he often couldn't smell well.
And I often noticed, you know, my pitbull could smell
lots of good things, and you know, I would put
a treat right near my French bulldog and you wouldn't
smell it. So they probably don't have as strong of
(06:19):
a sense of smell either. So not only do they
have that elongated soft pellet, but they also have a stenaticnryes.
The third part of break yourcephalic syndrome is something called
averted lryngeal sacules. Now, I know that sounds like a mouthful,
but that's basically where there's too much tissue within the
airway just in front of the vocal folds or the
(06:41):
vocal cords, and oftentimes it gets pulled into the trachea
or the windpipe and this can block the airflow. Also,
in other words, remember when I mentioned smushing your dog's muscle.
If you did that to a golden retriever, a long
nosed dog and you ended up smushing their nostril and
their muzzle, all that extra tissue sort of just folds
(07:04):
up on itself. And so with these smushed face breeds again,
all that extra tissue is in their airway and can
block their airway. The last couple of syndromes that we
can see with breakerrcephalic syndrome include a narrow trichea. And
so the trichia again is basically the tube that goes
from the mouth into the lungs. It's going to go
(07:25):
from your vocal cords and bring oxygen directly into the lung. Well,
you can imagine if you had a tube and it's
only half the normal diameter. You can't get enough oxygen in.
We can normally see this on X ray, so this
is something we worry about. Now, these are the most
common problems that we see with break yourcephalic syndrome. There's
a couple of rarer types and that's when the larynx
(07:48):
or the voice box folds or collapses completely or very rarely,
when there's paralysis of the larynx or the cartilage within
the larynx, and those are rarer. Why am I telling
you this because if you have one of these breeds
that has a history of snoring or breathing harder, they
can't breathe well. And if you notice this or you
(08:10):
can hear it, you do want to talk to your
veterinarian about potential options on what we can do to
avoid it. So what can you do? So let's talk
about signs a break your ccephalic syndrome. If your dog
wretches or has difficulties swallowing, or snores, or just gets
really tired when they're walking, gets really really tired when
(08:33):
they're overly excited, can't go for a walk in the
heat or the humidity, well, your dog may have break
your ccephalic syndrome. If you're staring at your adorable dog
and you notice that the nostrils are like tiny little
vertical slits into instead of the normal P shaped nostril,
that means your dog has stanaticnaries. And these signs have
(08:55):
to be fixed because I can't tell you how many
times I see break your ccephalic dogs presenting into the
er vet for difficulty breathe them. Now, there are other
problems that can contribute and make break yourcephalic syndrome worse,
and the first one is obesity. Now forty to sixty
up to seventy percent of pets in the United States
(09:16):
are overweight to obese and obedes we define as greater
than twenty percent the ideal body weight if you have
a pure bread My go to recommendation is to go
to the American Countl Club website, the AKC website and
see what the average weight is for that breed of dog.
Why is this important because when you actually google what
(09:36):
the ideal weight on an AKC breed is, you'll see
what the ideal weight is for you. Labrador retriever dogs.
Oftentimes Labrador retrievers are sixty to seventy pounds, and if
you have a labrador who's ninety pounds, that's not healthy, right.
All that extra weight aggravates so many problems. We know
when vetinary studies, it predisposes them to ostor threat, it
(10:00):
predisposes them to a shorter lifespan. All that extra obesity
or all that extra fat can actually cause difficulty breathing.
So it's going to aggravate the clinical signs a break
us to alex syndrome. So especially if you have an
English bulldog, you have a French bulldog. I know these
guys love to eat, but it's really really important that
(10:21):
you make sure to keep them on the skinnier side.
We'll continue with this really important information right after these
messages from our sponsors. Molly, here's your dinner. See that's
not your food.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Don't let that happen to your precious cat. Elevate your
cat's eating experience with the cat tree tray. The cat
tree tray keeps your cat's food off the floor and
conveniently located on the cat tree. It's the perfect way
to eat. It's a beautiful wrought iron tray that easily
attaches to your cat tree and keeps dogs and other
critters out of your cat's dish. A must from Multi
(11:02):
Pet Households. There's a six inch trade for large bowls
and a four inch tray for smaller bulls. Er just
your cat tree trade today. Go right now to cattreetrade
dot com. That's cattreetrade dot com, c A T t
R E E t R A y dot com.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Let's talk past, let's don pet headline Radio.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Cat light radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Welcome back to ear Venom cat Life Radio. We've been
talking about the really hard to say word break your
cyphalic syndrome again. That means short headed. And so if
you have a dog that snores, and yes I'm talking
to you, French bulldog, English bulldog, Pekinese all those little
smaller dogs with smushed faces. These are when we see
that combination of medical proms where they just can't breathe well. Again.
(12:09):
That includes things like that extra long soft palate, the
snatic NAIs, the averted laryngeal sacules, to things like that
narrow trachea or even abnormal cartilage of the larynx or
voice box in the mouth. We've talked about what signs
to look for, such as noisy breathing or snoring, and
(12:29):
we talked about how obesity or being overweight can really
worsen these proms because it results in a lot of
internal body fat compressing the trachea and the airway. So
what do we do about it? Well, the reason why
I'm actually doing this episode is because my amazing adopted
a French bulldog who I ended up adopting. He just
(12:50):
had snatic naari surgery and he had break your cyphalic
surgery because I want to make sure he can breathe better.
So how do we diagnose it? Well, you can just
look at your and see if your dog has sinaticnrys.
That's really easy to see when they have those little
slits and not a normal sized nostril. But to see
if your dog actually has an elongated soft palate or
(13:11):
those averted laurential sacules, well that has to be done
under heavy sedation or anesthesia. So if you're getting your
dog spade or neutered, if it's one of those break
yourcephalic breeds, this is something your veterinarian has to evaluate, Okay,
And if you're not sure, you want to go to
a vet who specializes in the surgery because they may
(13:32):
be able to spay a new to your dog and
fix this sonaticnrries or that elongated soft palate at the
same time. With break yourcephalic breeds, we really want to
minimize anesthesia or even sedation because they have such difficulty
breathing and recovering from sedation or anesthesia. Now, I will
say most break your scephalic breeds are really hard to
(13:54):
do an oral exam on because they have huge muscles
mass or muscles of their jobs. They have a really
thick tongue, and it makes it really hard to visualize
the voice box while they're awake. So unfortunately we can't
do it while your dog is awake. It has to
be done under anesthesia. And what we're looking for is
if that soft palette extends beyond the tip of the epiglottis,
(14:17):
which is the start of the airway. If we do
find that your dog has an elongated soft palate, we'll
often do what we call a soft palette resection or trim,
where we'll actually cut that excessive tissue away. The next
thing we'll do is if we see averted laurential sacules
and that looks basically like these grayish blue masses in
(14:39):
the back of your dog's mouth in front of the
vocal folds. If that's back there, those need to be
removed also, and last, with sonaticneries, oftentimes a surgeon or
a veterinarian will do take out something called a wedge,
a piece of tissue on the side to basically open
up the diameter of the nostrils. Now one in doubt,
please no, surgery isn't necessarily curative because while it makes
(15:04):
the senatic naries less senatic and it makes them bigger,
they still have a lot of redundant tissue in the back.
But it can help significantly and really help avoid a
trip to the emergency room. One in dow talk to
a board certified veterinary surgeon or your veterinarian to see
if you're a French bulldog or English bulldog or smushed
(15:24):
face snoring dog needs his surgery. I'm a huge fan
of doing the surgery, especially if your dog's undergoing ante
SESU or sedation, because we really want to minimize any
kind of breathing problems. If you ever notice that your
dog turns blue, the gum color turns blue. They're panting
all the time, they're overheated, please bring them to the
(15:45):
er vat right away. And please also know break your
ccephalic breeds shouldn't go running. They shouldn't exercise on hot days.
I'm talking like greater than seventy eight degrees fahrenheit or
really humid days like greater than eighty percent. They can
really overheat if you need to, I always recommend walking
them on the shady side or in the cooler parts
(16:05):
of the day, either really early in the morning or
in the evening. We still want your dog to exercise
because that's a great way of keeping them in shape
and keeping that weight off, but one in doubt, if
you have one of those smushpased dogs, please make sure
to keep them healthy well. That brings me to the
end of today's show. Find me at doctor Justinelee dot com,
on Facebook or Instagram at doctor Justine Lee, or email
(16:27):
me your pet questions at doctor Justine at petlifradio dot com.
But that we're at a time and we want to
thank Mark Winter, our producer, for making the show possible.
See you at the next episode.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on Petlife
Radio dot com.
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