Would changing his food help?

[MaxBooBooBear]

@MaxBooBooBear:

Hi, Jenn: how old is Chase? My Max's glands pretty much stopped working on their own when he was about 7 or 8. I don't want to sound discouraging, but nothing we did helped. He also had mild inflammatory bowel disease–so I always wondered if that might have affected his anal glands. Since I did not want to put him through the procedure of having them removed, for the last half of his life I took him in to the vet to have them manually epressed every two weeks--this kept them from getting infected. The food he was on for his IBD was Low Residue (I think that was Eukanuba)--and it really helped for the IBD.

Jenn–just wanted to mention one other thing--Max's glands would fill up very quickly if he had an infection. You might want to have your vet express them and do a slide smear to take a look for infection.

[lvoss]

Many people have had good results adding canned pumpkin to their dog's food to help with anal gland issues.

[Basenji_Boy]

@lvoss:

Many people have had good results adding canned pumpkin to their dog's food to help with anal gland issues.

We mix mashed sweet potato with the food from time to time.

[ChaseandZahrasmom]

Chase is a year and a half.

I take him to the vet to get them expressed and it seems like only days later he is scooting, licking or I can smell it.

[MaxBooBooBear]

@ChaseandZahrasmom:

Chase is a year and a half.

I take him to the vet to get them expressed and it seems like only days later he is scooting, licking or I can smell it.

Jenn: that is exactly what I went through for months with Max (and we had seen several different vets at the same practice) until finally I went to a different practice, and the vet (the one we stuck with after that) took a sample of his fluid when he expressed him, did a slide, and saw evidence of infection. Because I was getting him expressed every time he started licking, that kept the glands from getting swollen, etc., so none of the vets prior thought they were infected. Then the vet put him on antibiotics, and it cleared up the infection, and he stopped licking. In our case, it turned out that his glands had stopped working on their own–but as long as they weren't infected and I had them expressed every couple of weeks--he wouldn't lick.

[ChristyRutherford]

You can also ask your vet to show you how to do this so you can do this at home when needed. That is if you want to :)
I have also heard about the pumpkin, worth a try

[Dee]

Yes, it is very easy to do yourself. Every dog I groomed, had their anal glands excreated too. It's not SO bad once you get used to it!! :)

[dash]

It is easy but definately smelly. We used to have a spray you sprayed on their butt to kill the smell. You may need someone to help hold as well for obvious reasons.

[jys1011]

Jenn are you feeding wet food?? Our B had this problem because he was getting too much wet food so now we feed 3 to 1 kibble to wet.

[ChaseandZahrasmom]

JYS,

They only get wet food occasionally. I want to try to add the canned pumpkin to their diet but I keep forgetting to pick it up when I am at the grocery store! :rolleyes: