Stitch’s Hernia and BOAS Surgery Help Fund

Hi, I’m Andrea and I am asking for help for my 4-year-old, male French bulldog, Stitch, the love of my life.

Stitch has been a member of my family since the end of May 2023 when his former owners decided that they didn’t want him anymore.

After taking him to the vet and doing a full work up (because we had no previous records for him) we learned that he has a severe breathing disorder that is very common in French bulldogs, allergies, a possible GI disorder, most likely a hernia, and a few teeth that need to be extracted (likely due to being crated most of his life by former owners). Most importantly, the thing we have to absolutely correct first is his breathing. Because he is brachycephalic (smoosh faced) his airway doesn’t function like a normal dog. Unfortunately, Stitch’s case is very extreme. We have been told that that only a specialist should do his surgery and those specialists are located at the Washington State University veterinary Hospital, which is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. His consultation, tests, and surgery at minimum will be $4000 but could be upwards close to $8000. 100% of the money raised here will go to WSU for the BOAS surgery. It took us weeks to get a date scheduled, but we finally got one for February 7th and 8th. We are so happy that it’s less than 2 weeks away!!!

You may or may not know that he had a seizure 3 weeks ago and I have had to stay home with him to be around 24/7 because he is so high risk. The vet said that his seizure was due to lack of oxygen most likely from his airway closing off. It was the scariest thing I have ever seen. Luckily, it only lasted about 20 seconds and we got him to snap out of it.

This has been a very humbling experience and I thank God every day that he’s still here with us. Because I haven’t been working normal hours we just don’t have the funds available for this procedure. I know there are options like Care Credit or getting a credit card, but the deposit alone for the surgery is $3000 and the balance is due when we pick him up after recovery, which will hopefully be the 10th because the facility will keep him 48 hours post surgery in the ICU for observation.

This is a congenital deformation. A lot of breeders choose to breed for a specific aesthetic of Frenchies; the super smushed face, wide set eyes, large head, etc. to play into our human nature to want to care for this “look”. But what they don’t take into consideration is the lifetime stress this puts on the animal. Not only do they not have the proper anatomy to cool their air supply so they overheat easily, they have too much tissue in their throat making breathing difficult, they have small nose holes so airflow is restricted and, eventually, this causes more damage to their trachea which delivers the oxygen to their lungs. If the trachea completely collapses, they suffocate and resuscitation is extremely unlikely.

Any little bit helps. All prayers are extremely appreciated . Any positive thoughts or vibes, we are grateful for. I have never had any children of my own so he is my fur “baby”. I’d do anything for him and I love him so much.

Thank you for reading this far and thank you for any help you can provide for us. This is only the beginning for Stitch. He has a long road ahead. But he’s a fighter and he is so, so loved. I’m pretty sure he knows it too. I will go to the ends of the earth to help this little guy. Nothing he is going through is his fault.