Anal Glands!!!

Moonraker68

Well-Known Member
My 4 year old cocker bitch has a long standing problem with her glands, which isn't pleasant for anyone involved. I recently put her on Skinners Muesli, which has helped to a degree, but are there any other complete foods worth trying? Would adding bran or raw carrots to her diet be of help?
 
My 4 year old cocker bitch has a long standing problem with her glands, which isn't pleasant for anyone involved. I recently put her on Skinners Muesli, which has helped to a degree, but are there any other complete foods worth trying? Would adding bran or raw carrots to her diet be of help?
We use complete dry foods like Omega and MACS from Jollyes on our Springers having previously had problems with soft tinned foods. I understood from our vets that insufficient dietary fibre causes the problem so I would guess the bran could help
 
Anal Glands

I’m assuming she’s either scooting, licking a lot or very smelly. Two theories as to the cause of this:

1. The glands are full because they have not emptied properly owing to a stool that is too soft. This assumes the gland is emptied each time faeces is passed. You can either bulk the diet with fibre to make the faeces bigger, or use a more digestible one to get harder faeces– chappie for instance.
2. The glands are a red herring and the real problem is the skin of the anal and perianal area, which is inflammed owing to a more widespread skin problem. The general coat may look OK (tho possible more greasy). So treat the skin

Most of the time vets will give antibiotics and steroid or other anti-inflammatories and they will work in both of the above cases.

I tend to the latter having seen many dogs dragging their backsides with normal glands. The colour and consistency of what comes out seems irrelevant (someone has written a paper on this!!).

So to answer your question, I’d look at the overall skin – flea control or how greasy the skin is. As she’s a spaniel, she’ll probably have slightly greasy skin and I’m guessing her ears aren’t great – the inflammation in the ear is part of the same skin problem.

This is not to trivialise anal sac disease as they can develop into nasty abscesses and anal gland cancers are not easy to treat.
 
My spaniel suffered for ages with this numerous trips to the vets to get them cleaned out and packed with antibiotics in the end changing from beta dog food to wagg complete worker has worked no trip to vets for over a year now !
 
I find an index finger helpful to clear the glands :old: - tho mine are Wolfhounds so you might need to use a little finger ............ and dont forget the rubber gloves :scared:
 
My sprocker had it for a while and through deliberation, different foods wet, dry half and half and the vets, now she is fed on tesco dried food and has never looked back since we changed to that, no smellie dog, brilliant coat and full steam ahead. works like a trojan all day.

Many Years ago my 5 labs (all same line) were fed on a mix of nubblimix and tripe, 4 out of 5 loved it the other was a disaster when fed on a mix, it run out of her, tripe on its own ( the proper stuff ) fantastic, ended up she had wild rice and tripe all of her life and never had any further problems, vet said her stomach didn't like it full stop, perhaps it was rough on the lining as it had maize and stuff in the mix - who knows ? another one of the mysteries of life

I'm thinking with spaniels you have just got to find the right roughage the dog can handle and maintain the balance and the glands at the rear end.
 
Give her a regular fair proportion of uncooked bones. When it comes out the other end will be whitish but hard, may have slight trouble passing but will empty glands.It will also keep teeth and gums healthy. Treat both ends same time.
 
I find an index finger helpful to clear the glands :old: - tho mine are Wolfhounds so you might need to use a little finger ............ and dont forget the rubber gloves :scared:
Actually my vet charged me a tenner when she did this for my dog, given the 4 A grades at A level and 6 years at university that she did to qualify I thought that this was excellent value for money:rofl:
 
Thanks for the replies, gents. I will try and track down the foods suggested, and try and add some raw bones and vegetables to supplement her diet. Are raw poultry bones OK, as I will have a few theremnants of breated-out pheasants around for a couple of months?

I'm not sure if she's just taking the p*ss; her favourite trick is to scoot along the pavement whenever someone comes in sight....could be worth submitting a clip to pets do the funniest things!
 
BARF..............Google it

I'm not having a go but... How would a BARF diet help? Surely as Morena said just the odd bone to produce a few stiff powdery stools?

I did write a load of waffle here but I've deleted it to prevent derailing a thread!
 
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