Dog Anal Gland Blockage–aaaagh!!

Faecal Bulk For Dogs

Recurring Anal Gland Blockage In Dogs.

Is Very common. As a general rule, it is relatively easy for you vet to diagnose, and may often be noticed during a routine check up or vaccination.

Expressing, or unblocking, the gland(s) is an unpleasant job, for both dog, owner, and veterinarian. It is achieved by physically squeezing the glands, either externally, or per rectum, and manually removing the secretion build up. It can be quite painful for the dog, if the glands are very blocked, or infected. And the smell woooo ....it doesn’t get much worse than this.

Once the glands have been expressed, the signs of irritation will usually disappear quickly, unless they are all ready infected. But it is unfortunately common that they can be blocked and full again within months. If infection has occurred, there can be permanent changes and scarring of the gland and ducts, that can prevent normal emptying. These dogs end up with chronic anal gland problems, and can be regular visitors to the vet clinic

How to stop this!

Like most diseases, prevention is better than cure. But even for the badly affected dogs out there, there are a few simple tricks that can help enormously.

The key to correcting anal gland dysfunction, is to understand what is going wrong. The principle cause of dysfunction is improper emptying of the glands. It is a lack of stimulation to the glands, to fully empty. This, quite simply, is caused by a lack of faecal bulk. Without correct faecal bulk, the anal sphincter muscle is not stretched, and the glands are not forced to empty.

Raw bones can help here-like chicken necks- The digestion of raw bones produces those characteristic hard white dog motions you often see. If you feed bones every other day, your dogs are extremely unlikely to get anal gland problems. The other very simple form of faecal bulk I use, is whole grain oats and vegetables. Whole oats and vegetable fibre are indigestible, and will pass through a dog’s digestive tract and appear in the faeces.

This lack of faecal bulk has been caused by two major changes to the average domestic dog’s lifestyle. Firstly, the confinement of modern dogs, to the average back yard, has significantly reduced the normal roaming and scavenging habits of dog’s.  A wild dog will eat an incredible range of indigestible material every day, including bark, wood, vegetation, clay and soil, feathers and fur, bones...etc. A vast amount of this material is passed by the dog in it’s daily faeces. The resultant faecal motions are large and firm, and cause full stretching of the anal sphincter, and complete anal gland emptying.
The second major change to modern dog’s has been the introduction of commercial pet foods. These processed diets are extremely low in residual faecal bulk and consistency (most readers I am sure, can relate to a tin of food going in, and coming, out looking the same )

My Tip
If you ever juice carrots or celery for yourself- keep the pulp that is left,put a little of the juice back in and freeze it for later use if not using straight away-mix this with your normal biscuits ,it will get eaten believe me.You can experiment with a little Beet root and celery-I personally do not recommend fruit!---
Watch the dogs poo the next day! Always look at a dogs poo to me it is your first visual sign if something is not correct.In my job I pick a lot of dog faecal up and wrong diets smell bad-plenty of fibre or bulk makes a huge difference to the way it smells!
So the simplest answer to correcting anal gland dysfunction is to replace faecal bulk
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Please see my article written on Tumours in Dogs -You are more than welcome to reprint as long as you leave my byline and link intact.
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Tagged with: ana gland • Anal Gland in Dogs • Dog Anal Dysfunction • dog anal glands • Dog Anal Problems • Dog Blockage • Dog Diet • Dog Food • Dog Tumours • Fibre • Grains • Raw Bones

Filed under: Dog Food Diet • Dogs

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