I’m talking about the photograph where we see a French bulldog with practically no nose who won the Best in Show versus a French Bulldog that is reportedly healthier being raised by a breeder who wants a healthier standard for Bulldogs. How does the nose shape affect their health and breathing? Is there a similar thing in humans, where our respiratory health as a correlation to how our noses are shaped? How, if so?
In: Biology
TLDR: all the structures that are in a normal dog nose are still present, just crumpled up like a car after a head on collision. Crumpled and smushed tissue in the head means obstructed air flow, which in turn leads to difficulty breathing and regulating temperature.
Let’s take a golden retriever as the average dog snout. Inside the snout you find the palate, the teeth, and very importantly what we call the nasal conchae. They are spiral shaped folds of tissue that help with the dogs notorious sense of smell, but they also warm and humidity the air to make it nicer for the lungs, as well as catch the majority of bacteria and viruses.
In short-shouted breeds like bulldogs, those structures dont completely disappear, they just get smushed. And the smushing leads to significant problems!
– a shorter palate means less space for teeth. But the number and size of teeth remains the same, so it gets crowded in there, the teeth rotate sideways to fit better, and the dog gets tooth problems
– smushed conchae means less space for air to flow (picture traffic on a straight highway vs on a winding, narrow street). Reduced air flow means the dog gets less air, and has to strain more to pull the air into its lungs. Smushed issue usually also includes narrow nose holes which adds difficulty.
– a common condition is an elongated soft palate. You know when you run your tongue along the roof of your mouth towards the back, you hit a spot where it’s not hard anymore but becomes soft? That’s the soft palate. If it’s too long, it obstructs the flow of air and makes that characteristic snoring/grunting sound that bulldog owners are familiar with.
I’m a vet student and I’ve intubated many dogs for surgery. When they wake up the first things we do is remove the tube from their throat so they can breathe freely. And I swear with bulldogs when we remove them they look disappointed, because for the first time in their life they could breathe normally with a tube shoved down their throat..
Latest Answers