Leaky anal glands

I'm sorry that this is quite disgusting

Recently I've noticed that Billy's anal glands have been leaking. He's been licking his rear end a lot and several times I've witnessed the stuff just freely drip out while he's lying on his side (onto my clean white bed sheets among other places!).

I noticed an increase in licking (and some scooting) a couple of months ago, so had the vet check his anal glands when I took him for his booster vaccination. He checked them again a week later when I was there and said they seemed OK; not blocked or infected and the liquid looked normal. He also said that if it continued to be a problem he could prescribe antibiotics. The visible (and frequent) leaking/dripping has started since then, I think.

Any ideas/suggestions? Could the vet have loosened something when he manually expressed them?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I should add that his poos are firm (he's had quite a bit of chicken carcass this week) so I don't think it's an issue with them being too soft and not causing the glands to empty.

Firmer poops are the only reccomendations I've ever been suggested.

My vet suggested bran, however if his poops are already firm you probably don't want to go down that route..

Good luck with it all

How much bran 4 17kg whippet please?

Hi I have a Chi, which have a trait of leaky anal glands the smell is terrible it's not all the time can be when he barks ect. he's never been allowed on sofas or any soft furnishings in the house and isn't allowed upstairs as it really does stink. I buy unsented baby wipes and give his back end a wipe over sounds gross but helps with the smell, good luck x

Sometimes they can develop abcesses so really worth a second trip to the vet, if hes licking and working at it, it is uncomfortable

With regards bran, start off with only a little as it can have a laxative effect if given too much at once. Start him off on half teasp per day for a week,
second week, a teasp for a week and so on,
couple teasp a day for dog this size should be enough
You are just adding fibre to the diet

I was told by the vets to cut out the dog treats, which to be fair has worked, apart from an abcess in one gland which looked painfull, we havent had anymore problems with him for around a year.

I'm puzzled why the vet said he might prescribe antibios if he'd already confirmed there was NO infection?

Also occurs to me that if the dog keeps licking and worrying the area - surely he does have some sort of problem there?

I'd go back to the vet or even see another vet if this one keeps insisting there is no problem and it is perfectly normal.

I mean it's not as if he's always had this problem and always been worrying and licking at his rear end is it?

Good luck.

Thank you to everyone for your replies. I have been following him around with babywipes and cleaning him up regularly which he is a bit miffed about! He keeps giving me the "big eyes" look, as if to say "I'm really sorry". Bless him.

I have booked him into the vets for 6pm today. As for the previous vet visits: as far as I could gather, the vet was in between thinking he had a temporary problem which had been fixed by his manual expressing (it had improved when he did it a week after the first time), and thinking there might be another issue. He said to keep an eye on him and come back for antibiotics if it didn't seem fixed after all, which is what I'm now going to do. It did seem to improve for a while and has only recently started to drip so I do think there might be an infection or something there. Hopefully we can get it sorted tonight!

Out of interest, what reason did the vet give for cutting out treats? Was it a particular kind of treat that was causing problems? Billy does get a lot of treats during training (I lower his amount of food at meal times to compensate). He usually gets bits of baked liver or heart, or sometimes chicken/ham/sausage. He also gets the odd longer lasting treat like a pig or cow's ear, frozen kong stuffed with yoghurt etc and dried fish skin treats. Do you think any of these could be causing a problem?

I added a small amount of bran to his food this morning. His poops are very good: firm, verging on crumbly after eating bone and easy to pass.

Thanks again to everyone for your advice

Thanks Velvetboxers.