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Anal Gland Question


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So I've read about anal glands being expressed, or needing to be ( :) ) Saxon being my first dog, I'd never heard of this before.

I didn't think I'd had the pleasure of experiencing anything to do with them yet, but it suddenly just occured to me that maybe I have. A couple of times when Saxon has been scared (once when he met a horse for the first time and once when he was attacked by another dog) some smelly, watery stuff came out of his bottom :thanks:

I thought it was a bit of a scared bowel movement, but maybe it was him expressing his anal glands?? Does that sound right? If so, it wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be, but it was smeeeeelly. Poor Sax :thanks:

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Hmmm.....I've never done this before. How often should this be done, and how can you tell when it needs to be emptied?

I have had dogs for getting on for 35 years and not once ever expressed an anal gland. No doubt others have different experiences and certainly some dogs have a chronic problem - but don't assume that it is a regular maintenance issue. If the dog is scooting it's butt or constantly biting/licking at the base of it's tail/anus then you might have an issue and should take the dog to a vet OR if it's not too bad, give the dog (assuming no underlying medical issues) an edible bone suitable for it's size - when the roughage comes out the other end it may well solve the problem as nature intended.

Edited by Sandra777
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What Sandra said. If the dog's worming is reglular and they have raw bones to chew, then they should be self maintaining.

Having said that, we do have quite a few of the teenyweeny dogs that have their's expressed at vaccination / checkup time.

The only dog of my own I've ever had to do, was because of a developing infection issue.

fifi

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Um, ew! We have a little boy that has had this done, but when his butt started smelling again recently I did some research and tried adding psyllium to his diet and woohoo :hug: , it appeared to do the trick! Smelly butt went away within 24 hours. I'm sure he was most happy too cause he really doesn't enjoy having his butt glands squeezed, to the point where we couldn't go anywhere near his tail for quite some time.

Edited by aj2251
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Exellent point aj2251, yes, we recommend phyllium husks for the littlies too, as they don't often don't chew bones or get enough roughage for their poos to firm up, which is what anal glands need to self maintain.

fifi

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Mokha once expressed his glands all over the front door. He got his foot stuck as the screen door was closing and the fright/pain made is glands let loose. He has an ongoing problem so I am used to the smell now, baby wipes do a good job wiping it off.

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