One Of My Dogs Kept Biting At His Rear End ~ A Gland Problem!

A couple of weeks ago my male dog kept nibbling his skin near his backside. This can be a sign of a gland problem in the back passage.

There are two sacs which can become full. It causes discomfort and irritation to your dog. If left infection can set in.

Signs of the problem can be biting or nibbling around the rear end or rubbing on a hard surface. There will also be a bad smell around his rear end.

Sometimes the glands will empty themselves, but it often requires human intervention!

Unless you have been trained to do this, it is a job best left to the vet - especially if infection has set in.

A sign of infection is passing blood when defecating (this may be just a few drops of dark liqiud) , blood on bedding, or blood around the back passage. Lift your dog's tail to have a look!

Anyway, back to my lad. His glands emptied themselves - you can tell by the smell!
However, a few days later he started nibbling his backend again. I was going to empty them (I've been trained to do this), but I noticed a couple of drops of dark red liquid on the grass when he went to the toilet.
That meant infection had set in and we went to the vet. There wasn't much in the glands, but one was infected. The vet prescribed a 5-day course of Antirobe - a very good anti-biotic. This cleared up the problem, but he did get a touch of diarrhoea.
I gave him light meals plus some organic live yoghurt. This quickly helped settle his system.

Problem solved!