Vets & Anal Glands

Me & my great big mouth! I should have known to keep it shut. Here is what I said earlier

It is just that I have had multiple dogs for all of my 54 years, and (touch wood 3 times) I have never had the vets go anywhere near my dogs anal glands, nor have they needed too.

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So yesterday we go off to work leaving behind 4 healthy happy looking dogs. Nobody is scooting, everything looks just fine. We arrive home at about 4:00 pm & immediately I could tell something was wrong with Sonny. There was no exhuberant greeting, just a very sorry looking little boy. So I quickly bring him inside to examine him, and there about 1cm from his anus and at about the 8 o'clock position is this big pussy lump. At first we though it was too far away from his anus to be an anal gland, but it was clear that he was sick & in pain, so off to the vets we go.

So yes, it was a blocked, infected & chewed on anal gland. He is now on antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and had the painful experience of having his anal glands squeezed. Poor little man. I felt so sorry for him.

Anyway, hubby who doesn't mind doing the icky jobs found this web site about anal glands, so it might be of some use to those of you who don't mind a bit of hands on. This web site does require an Active-X plug in to view it, as it is an animated tutorial.

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_anal_sacs.html

Sonny is feeling a lot better this morning, and as I write is happily chewing on a pig's ear.

Caraline, just be happy that you discovered it BEFORE it exploded. That happened with Wallis and I still have the blood stains on my bed to proove it!!

We have had dogs come into Emergency with symptoms that the owner didn't know what was wrong, wasn't acting right, wouldn't hold it's tail up. Never happened to me, but my friend has many times lifted the tail to take the temp and had the glands express themselves all over her. YUCK!!

Oh Critter, that would have been horrible for both you and poor little Wallis.

The vet was telling us that the anal glands are a left-over remnant of more ancient times, and are not really needed. He said that in a dog that continues to have problems, they often surgically remove them.

I'd never heard of this. Anybody else?

Zippy's dog had this done, and while it isn't the most common surgery that you see it isn't unheard of.

The biggest draw back to the surgery is that if it isn't done properly there is a risk of doing damage to the nerve that controls the sphincter muscle. If that muscle does not have something controlling it, you have a dog that does not have control over when and where it poops. In some situations the nerve repairs itself over time.

This is what we were getting into with Wallis at the first of the year. She has a tumor in one of her anal glands and it needs to be removed, which would probably require removal of the entire gland. My vet didn't instill much confidence in me and I was really uncomfortable having him do the surgery. (He had told us in November that the tumor had grown and needed to be removed as soon as possible then when I started talking about setting up a date for surgery he thought it would be better to wait until after the first of the year. HUH?)

Just because yout dog has had this anal gland to abscess doesn't necessarily mean he'll have more problems with it. But it is uncomfortable for them during the healing process. It took Bubba and me both to do Wallis's meds, but one was a tube of ointment that we had to stick into the hole that had been made and give it a good squeeze.

Good luck, It'll be over before you know it!!

Thanks Critter