another concern Are anal glands an issue with labs. Axel has been licking his anal area a fair amount the last week. And started to butt scoot yesterday. And it just dawned on me, maybe it's his anal glands. I just assumed they were only problems for smaller breeds so it didn't cross my mind until now. I'm going to be calling the vet when they open but wanted to ask on here as well
Yes - they can be. Pro fibre in the diet helps a lot. Try not to give too many treats, they can cause 'less than firm' poos which causes all glands not to express naturally. Meals which are too big also can cause loose or 'not firm' poos. ...
I don't know if they are an issue with labs, but we noticed this with Quinn at around 19 weeks (she had really bad breath from it as well); vet released the glands for us and haven't had an issue since.
Quinn has also had worms we never ever noticed anything in her stool until her first heart worm treatment which must have killed them (round worms). We saw them once more following her first de-wormer. I believe it's common to see tapeworm in the stool or on the fur around their bum - small and grainy.
Funny, I was wondering just this -- if you can see the worms in the poo -- yesterday morning as I inspected Snowie's poo! He's also been licking and chewing his anus/around the area. I usually deworm him every three months because he eats raw food (and, I might add, a lot of undesirable things he finds out and about!) and three months has just come up so I dewormed his yesterday -- hoping the licking of the anus will stop now. He had a tapeworm infestation when he was 1.5 years old. Had I known what to look for, I would've recognized the tapeworm eggs on his anus. They look like tiny pieces of rice. You can also see them in the poo but, in his case, you had to see the poo immediately it came out otherwise the little white rice-things wriggled into the poo and out of sight. When Snowie had the tapeworm infestation I was walking him early in the morning before the sun had come up (it was winter) and I was picking up the poos in the semi-dark so I didn't notice anything. But one morning we happened to sleep in so that when I picked up his poo it was daylight and I noticed these odd-looking white wriggly things. I immediately came home and Googled them and realised he had tapeworm. A test at the vets confirmed this and he was dewormed. He put on 1 kilo in the week following the deworming. He had lost weight prior to that but I didn't realise it was from the worms -- all new to me as a new dog owner. However, he suffered from full anal glands for a couple of years even though he is on raw food (ie hard poos). Thankfully he doesn't seem to suffer from full anal glands anymore, although as I said, he still licks his anus from time to time -- I suspect all part of his allergies. But hoping that the deworming yesterday will stop the recent licking.
I did look at his anus to see if I could see anything, but I didn't. Also checked his recent poos and fresh poo and didn't so I don't know if it could have been the start of worms or if simply just anal glands. If it was just about glands I'm also not sure as to why. He has good firm stools so I'm not sure what caused it. Hope your deworming has stopped the licking and chewing!
Holding thumbs, touching wood, etc etc that the licking of the anus has stopped -- it seems to have. But Snowie is still licking his tummy on either side of his penis -- this has been a common problem which the vet thinks is caused by allergies, that his tummy is itchy from allergies. His allergies have been an ongoing issue since he was a puppy, and the licking around the anus might've been allergy-related rather than worm related... Our vet said that anal glands can fill up for various reasons. One reason is that if your dog is allergic, the anal glands will also overreact as will many other glands in the body, all part of the allergic response. Another reason is anxiety-related: when a dog is anxious, their anal glands fill up. In Snowie's case, when we put him onto epilepsy meds (he had seizures), it seemed to have the added benefit that his anal glands no longer got so full. We don't know if this was anxiety-related because he is usually a very confident boy, happy-go-lucky, but the epilepsy meds might've caused him to calm down in general, and with that the anal glands didn't overreact. (This is all conjecture; the vet can't give us definite answers!) One thing I do notice, though, is that when he poos, he often does a little squeeze at the end and out pops a small drop of anal gland secretion. So he's emptying them himself with the squeeze, not necessarily that the hard poo has forced them to empty. I hope Axel's anal glands get better and stop worrying him so much. They are a smelly business!! In another thread I have written about how Snowie's anal gland released while I was rubbing calendula cream onto his anus (poor boy, his anus was firey red, so itchy) and out shot anal gland secretion into my hair!! It happens to vets, too. A vet was telling me how his colleague was emptying a dog's anal glands and he was hit on the forehead. Eeuw!
