Dogs, cats, humans…almost all mammals have anal glands. We don’t usually know it’s a problem with our dogs until we see (or hear) them licking their furry bums a little too much. Or worse…putting on a show by scooting their bums across our clean floors in their desperate effort to find anal relief. Oblivious to the horrified looks on our faces. At least they’re not scooting on our carpets. Yet.
According to Wikipedia “(Anal glands) are paired sacs on either side of the anus between the external and internal sphincter muscles. Sebaceous glands within the lining secrete a liquid that is used for identification of members within a species. These sacs are found in many carnivorans…In dogs, these sacs are occasionally referred to as “scent glands’, because they enable the animals to mark their territory and identify other dogs.“
Another early indicator is the ‘unique’ smell that comes from an anal gland slowly becoming impacted or infected. Now, before you panic and start sniffing the air around your dog’s bum, the majority of dogs live a happy, anal gland healthy life.
Preventative care for our dog’s anal glands is something you may not realize is possible. Now, I’m not talking about putting on the surgical glove, holding your breath and facing the daunting task of expressing your dog’s anal glands on a regular basis. Put away the calendar.
It’s as easy as feeding your dog.
I’ll touch on the most basic way via diet (and a couple health and consumer issues that may be worth watching for). A healthy anal gland can be supported by a higher grade kibble or a natural raw diet consisting of pieces of meat and raw (uncooked always) bones. Stay away from any frozen raw diet product that, when thawed, has excessive liquid as this indicates the producer is leaving the liquid in the product that you’re already paying a lot of money for.
Dogs gulp their food in a seemingly ravenous manner. As domesticated dogs, we forget they are part of a predatorial species. Their teeth reduces large pieces by briefly chewing apart pieces too large for their throats to swallow as a whole.
For example, Great Danes have bite strength upwards in the 700 PSI range which allows them to puncture tin cans or crush large bones in usually one bite. Walter (pictured at the top of this article) can crush and swallow an entire chicken carcass in under one minute. He will crush down, swallowing pieces as the carcass comes apart in his giant mouth. These large pieces break down during the digestive process in his stomach and work their way though the rest of his intestinal system. His feces begins firming (hardening) along the way as his body draws out the nutrients. Ultimately reaching his anal glands and outward via defecation.
As your dog exercises, involuntary muscles move their feces through their intestines. It is the movement of the dog’s feces, as it moves against their anal glands, that passively massages and stimulates them. This passive manipulation causes their anal glands to excrete and thus keep them working nicely. Additionally to Wikipedia, further opinions state the excretion is to lubricate defecation while attaching various scent markers to their feces.
This passive anal gland regularity is most effective as long as your dog’s feces is firm to hard. Soft or ‘wet’ feces lacks the integral firmness (resistance) to ‘press’ against your dog’s anal glands. I have my dogs on a raw diet consisting of cut pieces of raw chicken (with beef and offal grounded, purchased from an excellent and affordable local raw dog food producer). The normal appearance of their feces is hard, yellow-brownish and somewhat crumbles when picked up. This reflects about an 80% nutrition absorption rate by the dog’s body. This firmness is excellent in keeping all my dogs’ anal glands problem free. I feed my dogs two times a day. I split their meals in morning and evening. I randomize their feeding times on purpose (to be explained why in a future article).
For this article, I’ll discuss both raw and kibble when it comes to your dog’s anal gland regularity.
If feeding raw, consider the size of the pieces of meat to prevent choking. Start with smaller pieces and let your dog train you on how big the pieces they can tear and swallow. If you find your dog choking, then you’re giving them meat that’s too big for their throats. Reduce the size by cutting their meat smaller at their next meal (be careful not to invite resource guarding should you attempt to take their food away). By initially cutting small pieces and during each consecutive meal, you can gauge increasing the size of their meat upwards. Again, don’t give them pieces so big your dog gets to the point of choking.
Dogs on a raw diet have hard(er) excrement formation which provides natural expression due to the resistive pressure and stimulation against their anal glands when they excrete their feces.
The general rule of thumb is to raw feed between 2% to 5% of your dog’s body weight…depending on their activity level and age. My Danes are low energy. They eat about 2% of the their body weight (which varies between 2 to 3 lbs each, daily). Monitor your dog’s physical body shape so as not to add excessive weight to their frames. Most dogs can not self-regulate eating. A leaner dog is a healthier dog. I keep Nero, my 13 year 5 month old Great Dane on the leaner side as it reduces the amount of hind end stress, joint and ligament exertion, since adopting him 3 years ago at the age of 10 years 4 months. When Nero’s back end started quivering in late 2017, I was worried that I would be saying goodbye to him. Talking with my amazing friend Leza Labrador (visit her Facebook page: Peace, Love & Paw Prints) she recommended organic CBD Oil from HempMyPet.com. Nero’s quality of life has extended by 1 1/2 years longer. I am extremely grateful for “one more day” with my beloved Nero.
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Don’t ‘Over-Water’ Your Dog
With kibble or freeze-dried raw, be careful not to ‘over-water’ as you want to keep the consistency of their feces firm. Too much water at meal times will produce feces that is softer and wetter. When I adopted my first Great Dane, my beloved Lincoln Tsai, he was on a kibble diet. I noticed his feces was literally a disgusting, wet ‘two-bagger’. Before switching to raw, I noticed he was drinking copious amounts of water after every meal. I started to adjust his water intake after each meal. I mentally noted his feces when I took him outside to defecate. By adjusting his water intake during meal periods, his feces became firmer. After about an hour, I leave a full bowl of water out for the rest of the day/night, which he would drink in moderation, then walk away…whereas when I left a full bowl of water beside his kibble, he’d drink excessively.
This is a bit of a back-and-forth water adjustment, especially in that kibble is very dry and it will cause your dog to be artificially thirsty (think dry cereal every day). Some kibble is especially dry and that can cause your dog to over-drink. This can both create uncomfortable gas and in some extreme cases, bloat (which can be fatal, especially in high barrel chested dogs such as Great Danes). Excess water contributes to what I consider a (non medical) imbalance in their gut causing their feces to be quite soft as the kibble and water mixed in your dog’s stomach funnels into their intestines. Hence limiting water during meal times, within reason.
You can also add fiber by supplementing your dog’s diet with fruits and vegetables. Either ground/crushed or pieces. Though this is not necessary, these help to improve the firmness of your dog’s feces (and give him variety to a constant kibble diet). Fiber can be our best friend’s friend.
You want your dog’s feces to be firm enough so as to passively massage their anal glands during excretion. Keep in mind their feces will remain ‘staged’ at before their sphincter until they get the opportunity to defecate.
This is why monitoring your dog’s meal time water intake is important. Start by watching how much your dog drinks around the time period of their meals, before and after for about an hour time frame. Then gradually reduce the amount available at meal time, slightly less each time so that after they eat, they have enough water to quench their thirst but not over-drink out of artificial habit. We want the mix of water and kibble to contribute to firmer feces. After your dog has had at least one hour to digest their kibble, leave their water bowl out to freely drink for the rest of the day.
Each day, look at the consistency of your dog’s excrement. This may sound gross but the reality is we are already doing that every time we pick up after them. Now you’re utilizing this unenjoyable task to help maintain your dog’s anal gland health.
Never withhold water from your dog. Do NOT dehydrate.
Melody (reactive foster from CERA Dogs)
The easiest way to gauge the amount of water your dog drinks is by measuring before and after their meal period. It can be as complicated as counting the number of licks they have out of their fresh water bowl during each of their meal time periods. Or as simple as putting a non-toxic mark on the outside of their water bowl, at the top of the waterline and record the amount of water before and after, during that one hour period. That difference is how much water to give them during their meal time periods and reasonably reducing it. The dogs I rehabilitate and downtrain are always very dangerous and as such, will sometimes exhibit water guarding (because of prior abuses). I strongly caution anyone to keep this in mind with their own dogs if they are not sure of their temperament. This may also explain why some owners report their dogs get into fights at the water bowl.
These are some of the ways you can watch your dog’s daily water intake. Use this as regular monitoring in the event your dog has an unnaturally significant variation of how much water they normally drink (more or less water than usual and recorded over several days). This may indicate a medical concern. With Nero being a very senior dog, I count the number of water licks he has at any given time to mentally track the quality of his ongoing longevity.
Watch the amount of their urination and coloration. Darker can be indicative of thirst or holding their pee too long. Variations of urine smell. Strength of their stream. These are some things to look for that can point to medical concerns, especially in older dogs.
I can not stress enough that for high-barrel chested dogs such as Great Danes or any breed susceptible to bloating (known as Gastric Dilatation Volvulus) be extremely cautious to not let them drink too much water during or immediately after their meal if you feed them kibble.
Dogs on a higher quality raw diet that comprises unprocessed bones (coarse ground) and/or cut up pieces of chicken, beef, fish and other meats tend not to have issues with their anal glands.
Thousands of years…and before the advent of kibble in the early 20th century, dogs seldom had anal gland issues. Wolves in captivity and found in the wild do not normally have problems with their bums.
Kibble became commercially produced because raw was understandably too messy to store by the average dog owner and before efficient consumer refrigerators were affordable a hundred years ago.
Kibble has no firm formation during defecation. If you take a piece of kibble and smash it, it crumbles. Kibble feces does not have the natural firmness to massage and cause the passive expression of their anal glands. Hence watching the amount of water your dog drinks at meal times to artificially firm their feces. Your dog’s anal glands’ required passive manipulation is in your hands, so to speak. Alternatively, afforded by (harder) excrement, naturally occurring from a raw diet.
When choosing raw, it’s an entirely unregulated market. There are various grades/qualities of raw. You can tell the quality of the raw when you buy meat from a higher end supermarket and present that to your dog…if they do not show moderate-to-strong interest, this can indicate the quality of raw you’ve been buying may be of low-grade animals (old, sick/diseased) and possibly other additives such as flavoring and grain mill dust as filler. Most low-grade raw producers buy ‘older’ animals.
In And Out
Okay. Your dog still has a problem with his anal glands…you don’t want your floors looking like an airport landing strip. Time to book your appointment.
It’s very important to do a quick google search for reviews of the place you’re taking your dog.
You want to be extra careful who is performing their anal gland expression because an inexperienced or incorrectly performed procedure can damage/irritate their anal glands, leaving them susceptible to infection. Which can lead to a potential lifetime of uncomfortable anal gland issues for your dog. This can occur from an improperly placed finger injuring your dog’s anal gland or just inexperience.
When you pick up your dog after his appointment, pay attention for upwards of one week to see if he is still licking his bum as frequently or behaving as before. This could indicate his anal glands were not fully expressed or may be irritated. If your dog licks for a day, that’s okay. It’s not every day his bum gets a finger in it.
If you are pleased with your vet tech, they always appreciate a $5 coffee or gift card. Expressing anal glands is gross and smelly (otherwise you’d be doing it instead of them). Other times, your vet tech provides comfort to sick dogs. Work with upset owners who yell. Sometimes your vet tech will be one of the last people to tell a dying dog they are forever Loved.
My Own Dogs
Fortunately none of my dogs, rescues or fosters have had an anal gland issue. I have had dogs that came into my rescue with anal gland issues. As I feed them high quality raw diet, their anal gland issues slowly disappear (it can take several weeks to naturally flush out their anal glands).
I feed between 200 – 300 lbs raw monthly to my Danes, FMD and Jindo and other rescues in my registered nonprofit rescue. I feed small-to-large pieces of Grade A rated chicken. I buy from a wholesale supplier to supermarkets and restaurants. I give them larger pieces so the raw uncooked bones will have some residual formation in their excrement allowing further firmness to naturally massage and express their anal glands.
NEVER feed cooked bones of any kind to a dog or any animal…it can puncture their intestines. ONLY RAW UNCOOKED BONES. Please do NOT litter cooked bones or garbage.
Got A Question?
Comment below with your question. You might see it answered in a future article blog.
We offer fresh Grade A chicken carcasses for $1.39/lb. plus GST. Minimum 20 lbs. Order 50 lbs or more @ $1.19/lbs. Plus GST. Orders are taken 1 – 2 times a month. Though our chicken is Grade A from a wholesale supplier to restaurants and supermarkets, we must state “Chicken is sold as DOG FOOD ONLY and is NOT FOR HUMAN USE“.
Fresh Beef bones. Grade A, restaurant quality raw beef bones are the same sold in supermarkets for soup. They are $2.50 for 1 piece. $10 for 5. Plus GST. Though our beef bones are Grade A, we must state “BEEF BONES are sold as DOG FOOD ONLY and is NOT FOR HUMAN USE“.
What I don’t understand is why it says to feed my dog a raw diet, with raw bones is “healthy” and that ” Do NOT feed COOKED BONES. It can puncture their intestines.” ISNT raw bones MORE a reason to GET punctures in their stomachs? Cooked bones go soft, hard bones can puncture. I am confused.
There is a lot of misinformation about bones being unsafe if they are uncooked.
What is unsafe are cooked bones. Cooked bones are dangerous because during the cooking process, under heat, the bones will ‘dry out’ and become more brittle…the bones’ edges become splintered and sharp. Cooked bone splinters and fragments can puncture the soft lining of the stomach and intestinal walls.
Uncooked bones are SAFE as they maintain the relative softness of their structure. When the bones are chewed and swallowed, the dog’s stomach has a higher concentration of hydrochloric acid, which break down the structure of the bones. Somewhat chemically softening the sharp edges in the dog’s stomach before proceeding through the intestines and eventually excreted. When uncooked bones are excreted, the pieces are small and edges are soft and rounded.
What I don’t understand is why it says to feed my dog a raw diet, with raw bones is “healthy” and that ” Do NOT feed COOKED BONES. It can puncture their intestines.” ISNT raw bones MORE a reason to GET punctures in their stomachs? Cooked bones go soft, hard bones can puncture. I am confused.
There is a lot of misinformation about bones being unsafe if they are uncooked.
What is unsafe are cooked bones. Cooked bones are dangerous because during the cooking process, under heat, the bones will ‘dry out’ and become more brittle…the bones’ edges become splintered and sharp. Cooked bone splinters and fragments can puncture the soft lining of the stomach and intestinal walls.
Uncooked bones are SAFE as they maintain the relative softness of their structure. When the bones are chewed and swallowed, the dog’s stomach has a higher concentration of hydrochloric acid, which break down the structure of the bones. Somewhat chemically softening the sharp edges in the dog’s stomach before proceeding through the intestines and eventually excreted. When uncooked bones are excreted, the pieces are small and edges are soft and rounded.
Thank you for this,, Jack W. Cates, Calgary, Canada
Thank you, Jack!