Anal glands. Good times.

I'm a little late responding --

Daisy has to have hers emptied every 2 - 3 weeks. I hadn't heard the thing about "creating a cycle" before, but I only do it when she's scooting, so I don't think I'm doing it too much. I do hers in the bathtub, then I give her a bath, then I clean the bathtub. It is GROSS!

It took me a while to get "good" at it, but it's pretty easy now. She used to absolutely HATE it and I was so dense I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized -- long nails, bad. Poor puppy. (Man, like the last 3 things I've posted have all been about me inadvertently injuring my dog. She's going to have a lot to talk about in therapy.) Also, my vet uses a paper towel to "catch" the butt juice, but I'm not skilled enough to find the glands when I have a paper towel in my hand. I just wear latex gloves (and put cotton balls at the end of the finger tips so I'm not digging my nails into her poor butt) and make sure her butt isn't pointed toward my face

She leaks sometimes. It's gross. Everything about it is gross. It seems to only happen on my white quilt (which I guess is better than the sofa -- easier to wash).

Supposedly increasing their fiber (to make the stools firmer) is supposed to help. Also, avoiding foods that claim to "reduce the amount of waste," like Nutro. (I almost had to step outside with the Nutro rep at Petsmart. She's really condescending and when she started in on the "makes less waste" argument, I just wanted to slap her. She'll follow you around the store, too, if you let her.) I switched Daisy to diet food because it is higher in fiber and that seemed to help, but then I had to change her food again because of a potential food allergy. My vet recommended canned pumpkin (like you buy for making pumpkin pie), but she wouldn't eat it.

Okay, I'm going to shut up now. That was really long.

Hi sillymom (That's funny, my brothers and I call our mom "silly mom.")

Nutro Max claims that their food is so digestible, it reduces the amount of solid waste. (This is what their website says: "MAX uses only highly digestible rice and wheat - never any ground corn. This means higher digestibility and lower stool volume. More nutrition goes into your dog; less waste goes into your backyard!")

Dogs are supposed to express their anal glads naturally when the go potty. If a dog that already has problems doing this naturally is eating food that reduces the "stool volume" (as they say on Nutro's website), it just exacerbates the problem. Daisy's poo was always pretty soft when she ate Nutro. Switching her to diet food (higher in fiber) reduced the frequency that I needed to "squeeze her butt" (as I call it) from every 2 weeks to about every 3 -4 weeks -- which may not seem like a huge difference, but I thought it was a decent improvement. Mostly I was just mad at Nutro because I felt like I had been "tricked" into buying something that was not necessarily better for her (which is why I feel so hostile toward the Nutro Lady at Petsmart). It didn't help that right around the same time, one of my cats (also eating Nutro) developed FLUTD (feline lower urinary tract disease or disorder or something else that starts with D) and had to be switched to prescription food. I feel disillusioned.

Does Lola have anal sac problems? If not, I wouldn't worry about changing it. It is SUPPOSED to be good food. It was recommended to me by a holistic vet, so they must be doing something right. I'm not commenting on the nutritional value (which is supposed to be good) -- just that it's not the best food for dogs with anal sac problems.

Hope that helps.