I watched a few videos by vets on YouTube about how to express the glands. I think I'll just let our vets do it every now and then with check ups or we need to go in for it. It's not only not something I really want to do for the mess of it but I just don't trust myself to do it right and as you said Debra it's cheap and hopefully we won't need it done more than once or twice a year if at all. So far we've had our vets do it once for each dogs in our almost 18 months of Basenji parenting…both times because the vet said they probably needed it (the likely cause of the issue and hence vet visit).
What I definitely can do is continue to make sure they eat well/healthy. Like I said before I know the full-sized solid poops are the best for more than one reason! Thankfully we've gotten them both into a routine over the last few months that really has seen them stabilize their bowel movements and help our younger new B pick up potty training real well. We'll just continue down that path.
Thankfully like I mentioned in an earlier post all the "pains in the butt" seem to be occurring less often as they age. The desire for me to post here was to try to narrow down some possible causes.
Thanks for all the input!!!