Anal Gland Explosion of the Hot Dog Kind

I swear you will learn something today if you read this blog. If you own a dog, you at least owe it to your four-legged friend to learn about it's anal glands....

....Me 'n' the wife were out eating lunch with a posse of friends yesterday, when right in the middle of our appetizer, I learned about M's dog having an anal gland explosion. Being the sick chick that I am, I asked for ALL the details. Nothing bothers my ability to eat food so I wanted the blow-by-blow....(Yes, that IS a dog's butt. What dog you will soon know. Thanks to M for sending the canine butt photo--true friends email photos like this. I just LOVE it!) I thank M also for the anal gland story and I hope to do it justice in this blog. Forgive me if I forget some of the details....

M's dog is one of those hot dog kind of dogs, only the long-haired kind; thus I will refer to this precious puppy as HotDiggity (as in hot diggity dog). Well, HotDiggity wasn't peeing and didn't seem to be pooping and seemed downright miserable. As M and family were supposed to be going on vacation, this was rather worrisome. After all, you want your dog peeing and pooping, whether in town or not. A pre-trip visit to the vet determined an impacted, infected anal gland to be the culprit. All the nasties were "expressed" outta there and all seemed as if it would be well. (Side note: Have you ever smelled a dog's anal gland stuff? Holy Cow--it makes your eyes water and I am not kidding. Freckles and Lucy both have some pretty pungent anal gland yuckies and have to have those glands "expressed" every now and then...when they do that, you have to clear the room. Really.) HotDiggity seemed no worse for the wear, M rubbed the cream on HotDiggity's butt like she was supposed to and made sure the dog took her antibiotics. One more expressed (not an espresso) squeeze, an okay from the vet and the trip was able to go on as scheduled.

Upon return from the land of Elvis, M noticed a crater on the back of HotDiggity, right next to the poop shoot. We're not talking about a little pimple--we're talking about a volcano here. This was understandably quite disturbing to M, who whooshed HotDiggity off for medical attention. Turns out that HotDiggity blew out an anal gland while M and the troops were on vacation. Exploded. Literally. Did you even know an anal gland can explode? (I would have paid money to see that happen.) It's not as unusual as you'd think, according to my "Hound Health Handbook" by Betsy Brevitz. (Yes, I do sit around and read about anal glands in my spare time--Hound Health says anal glands "produce an oily, stinky substance that is supposed to squeeze out each time the dog deficates. Told you you'd learn something. Expressing anal glands "is a stinky business involving a latex glve and petroleum jelly...") The actual word is "ruptured" but I'm sure it was much more like an explosion. Thankfully, I am told that such things heal quickly and it's not like anything fatal. Just gross. (Unless you are standing behind the dog when it explodes and the force of the explosion takes out your eye or something.) The vet just washes out the old crater, makes sure the pup is getting antibiotics and away you go. The photo is HotDiggity's backside just days after the event and you can see everything is looking pretty darned good back there. In fact, it looks beautiful. I can't even see a scar.....good job, HotDiggity!

Freckles has a great talent--she can literally SQUIRT anal gland juice! (By the way, it's normal for dogs to leave little tidbits of anal gland juice to mark their territory.) When she gets really mad (if dogs are able to get mad), she can squirt with the best of them. Stand back when the UPS delivery person comes to the door--WOOF! It only takes a drop of the goop to clear the sinuses. Freckles anal glands are better than those yellow stickies UPS or the Mail Person leaves--we can tell the minute we walk in the house they've been there--because the stench hits us before we even get the key out of the door. (Okay, so this is more than you wanted to know or learn. But, isn't it interesting? Don't lie.) Thankfully, Freckles Warrior Princess has never blown out an anal gland, but there's still time....and when it happens, I'll be there, with camera in hand....