French Bulldog Face: Cleaning the folds + more
Those outrageously cute wrinkles on a french bulldog face are definitely one of the most recognizable earmarks of the breed. Almost all frenchies have deeply pronounced facial wrinkles, called ‘folds’, as well as many other brachycephalic breeds like Boston Terriers, Pugs, and English Bulldogs. Just as you might have to remove the occasional dingle-berry from your frenchie’s fanny, you should also occasionally give their other crevices a good cleaning. For this post, we put together a video (below) on how to clean your french bulldog’s face and facial folds, as well as make a couple of recommendations on what to look for in good products to keep your french bulldog’s face and folds clean. Click here to jump to the video.
In the photos below, you can see the clearly pronounced ‘wrinkles’ that create ‘folds’ on a french bulldog’s face. A french bulldog’s incredibly short muzzle, their wiry and thick fur, and their delightful chubbiness all contribute to the formation of their facial folds. These folds need occasional cleaning. So, we put together a short guide on how to clean your french bulldog’s face and folds.
Regularly cleaning your french bulldog’s face and folds helps keep their eyes clean and free from detritus. It also reduces the build of bacteria that become trapped in their facial wrinkles. We recommend you clean your french bulldog’s face weekly, or with every bath. As you can see in the bottom photo above, not cleaning your french bulldog’s folds and face can lead to serious skin problems. You should regularly check your french bulldog’s folds for any signs of trouble.
Note: Sorry about the noise caused by the camera focusing. We’re still learning. =)
French Bulldog face cleaning products that we recommend:
These products are negligibly cheap, so we recommend keeping them around. A tear stain removing will help reduce those dark “tear stains” beneath your frenchie’s eyes. We like the sodium hydroxide-based tear stain removers. They’re gentle on your frenchie’s skin but can visibly reduce tear stains, just make sure you wash off any excess. We also use “moist wipes”, or wet wipes as some people refer to them. We use the human-variety, but there are also specialty face wipes available from Amazon and other places. It’s your call. Below (and in the video), you’ll see us reference “Snout Soother“; this is optional but it really does work wonders for your french bulldog’s nose. We can’t recommend it enough if your frenchie’s nose gets even the least bit dry.
That’s it for this post! Let us know what you do to keep your frenchie’s folds clean in the comments. Feel free to drop us a line at web [@] allaboutfrenchies.com. We hope this post has been helpful and informative.
This post is about the french bulldog face, french bulldog tear stains, and how to clean french bulldog face.
This post is about the french bulldog face, french bulldog tear stains, and how to clean french bulldog face.
This post is about the french bulldog face, french bulldog tear stains, and how to clean french bulldog face.
My French bulldog is getting eye ear and skin infections which are very costly.How can I prevent these problems occurring?Its making me really upset He is one year old.
Hey Graham,
I’m sorry to hear about your troubles. I know that can be extremely frustrating and I’m sure your frenchie just wants to feel better. Have you talked to your veterinarian about the infections? Your vet can recommend a veterinary dermatologist to help determine what might be causing the infections in your frenchie’s ears, and they might even be able to determine what’s causing their eye infections, too. Ear infections are more common in french bulldogs than eye troubles, but they’re susceptible to both.
My advice is to determine the cause of the infections. Do you live in a humid climate? Or a relatively dry area? Humid climates can cause gunky build-up of waxy material in french bulldog’s ears. This can cause some discomfort and lead to infections when detritus and debris get trapped in their ear wax. Be sure to check out this post here about cleaning your frenchie’s ears: https://allaboutfrenchies.com/how-to-clean-french-bulldog-ears/
Second, let’s talk about what your frenchie is eating. Some french bulldog’s, and really, any breed of dog, will have an annoying allergy to some food ingredient or other. The only way to diagnose a food allergy is to feed your dog a prescription or hydrolyzed protein diet exclusively for 12 weeks. The importance of not feeding your dog anything but the diet cannot be emphasized enough-that means no treats, table food or flavored medication. This diet will be free of potential allergy-causing ingredients and will ideally have ingredients your dog has never been exposed to. He’ll remain on the diet until his symptoms go away, at which time you’ll begin to reintroduce old foods to see which ones might be causing the allergic reaction. Many dogs diagnosed with a food allergy will require home-cooked meals but this must be done in conjunction with your veterinarian, as it requires careful food balancing. Allergic reactions can manifest in the form of ear infections, skin problems (see this post: https://allaboutfrenchies.com/french-bulldog-skin-problems/), and occasionally, eye problems, such as increased tear production and tear-staining. I recommend feeding your french bulldog a high-quality grain-free sweet potato and lean game-based food such as Fromm Game Bird (https://allaboutfrenchies.com/go/fromm-french-bulldog-food/) or Natural Balance Limited Ingredients (https://allaboutfrenchies.com/go/natural-balance-french-bulldog/). Many other readers have had a lot of luck on reducing french bulldog skin problems by switching to the Natural Balance Limited Ingredients food. Our frenchies loveee the Fromm brand stuff, though. They’re both a great choice. Let me know if you have trouble finding these near you and I’ll help track it down. You could also try giving your french bulldog only filtered water for a week and see if their eyes and ears begin to look better. We give our frenchies tap water and they’re just fine, but our city has pretty decent water. You might have some luck doing that, too.
Finally, my best bit of advice is to reduce the airborne allergens in your home. We have a total of 3 air purifiers in our house. We keep this air purifier in our french bulldog’s play room: http://amzn.to/2fNVNvD. It’s small but it works amazingly well. We have this bigger air filter that runs in our living room and it does a great job of cutting down on air contaminants:http://amzn.to/2eVjjt9 It’s expensive but worth every cent. We also use these filters on our home AC system and the amount of dust in our home has dramatically decreased: http://amzn.to/2fNTFnN. Once we started using air purifiers, our frenchie’s had considerably less sneezing fits and even began snoring a little less. It was truly amazing. Also try to keep your home vacuumed and vacuum your frenchie’s bedding and sleeping area regularly. This will help reduce the amount of dust your frenchie is exposed to during their sleep.
Keep us in the loop and let us know if this has helped you! We want to know if your frenchie gets better!
Hello Jordan!
Kudos to you for such magnificent work you have done with this website. It has help me a lot to learn more about my beautiful 2 1/2 years young, my frenchie, Ms. Chanel. I want to thank you for your time, effort, and dedication. All the best to you and your beautiful family and keep up with the amazing work you do. God Bless you all always! On another note, How can I upload a picture of Ms. Chanel?
Billy,
Thanks so much for your kind words. I truly appreciate that. I do this for you guys and for Frenchies, the best breed in the world! All the absolute best to you and yours. Send us some photos to web [at] allaboutfrenchies.com! We’d love to see Ms. Chanel! Such a classy name!
Hi. We have found out that tear stains are mainly due to diet. Since we started our Boxers on hypoallergenic dried food and only natural treats (e.g. cheaply-bought chicken breast slices and microwaved) they have NO tear stains at all, even the white boxer I think that its the bulking ingredients added to ‘normal’ dogfood that are the culprits. (P.S. We pick up our first Frenchi pup next month – can’t wait!).
This is great information Roy! Thank you! I’m going to start trying this out tomorrow. What food are currently feeding? We’re feeding a grain-free variety from Fromm Foods. I haven’t investigated any hypoallergenic foods since our french bulldog’s don’t have any allergy problems. I may try it, regardless. Thanks for chiming in and let us know when you get your french bulldog puppy!
Thanks for the video. I have had a Frenchie for 5 months and have been a bit tentative about cleaning her folds, so it was helpful to see your cleaning technique.
Thanks for watching, Caitlin! I am humbled and happy to be of help.
Thanks so much for your videos they are so informative.
Anthony, thank you so much for watching! I am humbled and happy to have you watch my videos!
Hello Jordan!
Great job on your website.
My son has a 1 year old Frenchie named Champagne.
He is such a smart and fun loving pup, however when we do
not give 100% attention to him ,he will on purpose take his
P-Pad and tear it up! He has also chewed on the furniture .
I did purchase the spray to put on furniture etc… but it did not work.
Any suggestions?
He loves to run and be chased in the house and I read it is called the French 500
race.
I have been reading lots about their low heat tolerance and am being very careful
seeing as though we live in Florida.
I am an avid walker myself, however Champagne is not fond of walking.
Yes, he is spoiled!
Look forward to any suggestions you can send my way.
Thank you!
Stephanie
Hey Stephanie,
Thanks for reading. I love the name Champagne!
As for chewing, you can try to provide him with some antler chews to discourage him from turning to the furniture! Keep applying the anti-chew spray, especially it problem areas. It takes a little while for them to really get discouraged by it. French bulldogs are motivated chewers.
As for the potty pads, if he’s craving attention, he may actually just be bored. Does your son have a fenced yard? You could try letting him outside when he’s acting up and see if that discourages the behavior. You could also encourage your son to train him to just go outside so he doesn’t have to use the potty pads. We haven’t used them, but we also started training them to go to the door and bark when our french bulldogs were very, very young.
I have a 5……6 yr old rescue Frenchie. Very smart dog. Her name is Babie. She was on “death row” when I saw her at the pound because she had a fright with another dog!! I couldn’t let them put her to sleep so I adopted her.. She is such a sweetheart and was well trained in most areas. One thing she does is she barks at everything especially other dogs who are walking. I live in a mobile home park and she will get her dander up when anyone walks by with or with out a dog. She acts like she wants to attach them.. but on the other hand if someone comes in she is soooo afraid she shakes so badly and goes and hides…sometimes I think she may have a heart attach from shaking so bad. She won’t walk on the leash in the Mobil home park but when I take her to a regular park she loves it and walks very good but is aleart of every noise.
I feed her chicken, vegetables etc. she will not eat dry food. She eats once a day usually around 3 or 4pm. Sometimes I feel I feed her too much but she always wants more. She’s a “pig” lol. She’s a good dog and I’m so glad I have her she is very “Special” …
Sorry I took up so much space!
BGK, my site is yours. You use as much space and share as much as you like! Yes, indeed some french bulldogs, especially dams who have had a few litters, can become very emotionally unstable. My little momma frenchie does the same stuff. She acts tough but then she’s terrified and trembles at the first sight of people coming in. My advice would be to make attempts to socialize her. Get some family or friends comfortable around her, and let her warm up to them…culminating in some pats on the head or some fanny scratchings. Preferably, you want to get some people she isn’t familiar with and try to illustrate to Babe that they aren’t inherently bad. As the adage goes “old dog, new tricks”…but I think you could really change her demeanor with enough patience and introductions. Frenchies are very sweet and loyal…just not always so brave =)
Thanks so much for the really helpful video. Our Frenchie is nine months old and she likes water very much, shower or beach. I haven’t known how to properly clean those folds but now I do!
Thanks so much for reading, Jessica. I really appreciate it!
Love your site, thank you for sharing all these helpful tips! Our 2 year old Frenchie has had red eyes for a long time and our vet hasn’t been able to say why. We tried rotating her food (both dry and raw) and protein but hasn’t helped. We do wipe her face daily with earth bath natural wipes, and read somewhere that afterwards you should be drying them off? We weren’t doing that and noticed you didn’t either in this video. Do you have any other tips we could try? She’s a brindle so we haven’t seen any stains but she does have a lot of eye gunk, hence the daily wipes. Thanks for any advice!
Thank you for your kind words, Patti. Indeed, I should have dried off his face after finishing up in this video. If the cleaner has a mild soaping or astringent agent in it, it’s best to rinse it out with plain, room temperature water, too. If you’re just using pre-made wipes, I would say a follow-up swipe with a clean dish towel is more than sufficient.
Hi, I have a 2 year old female Frenchie, her name is Khole and we are having food allergy problems. Our vet suggested omitting grains from her diet. We have tried several kinds from pet store and to no good. Any suggestions?
I was feeding my 8year old Frencie, Marcel, grain free salmon food but just read that grain free isn’t really good for dogs. I got another salmon food from purina but I see it has some chicken and meat in it. So far, about 2 weeks, he seems fine. Do you know anything about this? Thanks for this great website
Hi, my names Caitlin. I’m from Montana. My Frenchie passed away, and it has been the most grueling, agonizing pain I have ever experienced in my entire life. She was the best, most playful, and loyal little girl. I lucked out with her and she was also the most beautiful blue fawn little Frenchie. One thing I learned with my experience in the Frenchie kingdom is that it is worth spending the money and the time to find a truly pure breeder. I have always followed your blog and I feel like you guys are the ideal Frenchie breeder/owners- it’s clear how much you love your dogs. When I’m ready for another puppy I was hoping you had some recommendations for good breeders (possibly who you’ve gotten yours from), or are you regularly breeding litters as well?
Hi, I also was told by my vet and even the breeder that a grain-free diet is not good for Frenchies at all. I feel like I’m hearing a lot of contradictions lately about what’s best for them! I have a 9 week old puppy and am learning how to best care for her, so any advice is appreciated. My vet got really upset with me when I asked him if the Lepto vaccine was safe for Frenchies – the breeder had been very against it, but didn’t really provide me with info around it. Any insight around diet, vaccines, and anything else would be great. Thanks!
The same way us humans clean our face daily should apply to frenchies as well. I clean Milo’s face with water and make sure to properly dry all the folds. Afterwards, I apply wrinkle cream from natural dog company. His face looks and smells great. For tear stains, I sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of Angel Eyes to his food daily.