[Vowel Lady]

The last several days have been too weird for words with our doxie.

She was in pain, so we took her to the emergency vet. She had a fever. He wasn't sure what was going on. So, he put her on prednisone and antibiotics. I was to crate her....which I did.

I took her to our regular vet. She noted some tenderness in her back. (She's had previous back surgery). However, she did NOT have other symptoms. We started a prednisone taper.

Her tail started to go up. Well, guess what? I noticed a giant lump in her rear end area.

This didn't seem to be there just the other day. I do believe I would have noticed this.

About a week ago, she kinda smelled bad and was constipated...Yuck!

Anyway, her **** gland was a "problem." One was expressed, the other could not be.

So...she had surgery yesterday. When I took her home late yesterday, she looked TERRIBLE!

To make matters worse, during the surgery, her heart rate was very slow, and the doc had to give her Atripine (sp??) twice. Now, she is saying she'll need an EKG in the future. She also needed pain medication last night.

Today, she is going to the bathroom all over the place. However, she seems a little chipper.

The bill was a little on the high side. All the bills for the last week are now adding up. I wanted to take her to the holistic doc, but I think I'll have to wait now.

Wedding is in about 1 week. We are sooo tired. Dog looks ragged...I'm not much better. Yesterday, I ate 1000000 brownies. UGH! This was NOT NOT NOT a good coping plan.

Well, today is another day. My thought is perhaps the entire ordeal with my little pup was this "bottom" gland and not a back issue. She's still tapering prednisone and is on antibiotics, is crated for now and she might get pain medication tonight (if needed). We don't have many rugs in the house (mostly tile) and additonally, since her surgery, she doesn't like to rub her bottom. So, I suppose we'll have to bring her in regularly to have "it done." But how often??????????

We'll see! Thanks for all your good thoughts!!! She's such a little doll...brings much joy to me and my family.

[Kitty]

Thank you for taking such good care of her.......I am certain she appreciates it even though she can't verbalize it.
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Isn't it funny what we'll do for our pets? There's nothing I wouldn't do for mine. I've heard about the procedure your little doxie had to have. My son's girlfriend's dog had to have the same thing. She said it was awful but necessary.

I hope she feels a little better each day. It might take a few days for the Prednisone to kick in. After that.....watch out!!
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[Doody]

((Vowel Lady)). This may sound strange as well, but my vet is someone we joke about frequently because...when something goes wrong he almost always first goes to the a n a l sac source, LOL!

He discovered at some conference years ago that the a*n*a*l sacs can be a great source of problems. I can't tell you how many animals I've had that have had to have those sacs expressed.

Otto had to have surgery on one of his sacs as well because they couldn't express it. It was totally impacted.

You poor poor thing!!!! I hope it isn't her back as that would be wonderful news. I'm sorry you have been through so much.

Here's a bit about those sacs.

Impacted a n a l glands are a very, very common problem for dogs, especially the smaller breeds.

From here...
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[Doody]

By the way, you could have at least shared 500,000 of those 1,000,000 brownies.
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[Jomar]

Our dog had a rupture of one of her a**l glands
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I didn't know that happened.
The vet got her cleaned up and stapled it, but by day 2 she had " lost" the staples. But all looked Ok so we let nature take it's course and just kept an eye on things.

It healed just fine and she hasn't had a problem since.
Although she doesn't like her rear end being checked now...
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[mrsD]

Sheba, our cat, has this problem too.

In fact our vet charges $25 extra over the exam fee to express them! Guess they don't like doing it, or it is a great money maker?

[Vowel Lady]

Today, I can't even look at a Brownie.
However, if I had one, I would share it with you guys!
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Anyways....since my doggie doesn't seem to know how to do this thing that doggies do, how often should I ask the vet to do this "unpleasant" task?

[befuddled2]

VL,

I hope your doggie feels better soon. I don't know much about procedures for pets so I can't add anything there.

Did the brownies have nuts in them? I could have one now if I had the ingredients I'd bake some.

[Jomar]

Maybe doggie needs a differ food?
or more fiber?

I did a quick search on it and got these results - I didn't have time to read all of them yet -

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[Doody]

I have no idea how often it should be done. It probably depends on the animals. Bruna has a check up on Saturday and I'm going to have him do Bruna's sacs. I think they need a little attention. I caught her scooting across the floor last night. E
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I hate it when they do that!

**** sacs can cause a lot of problems in animals. The dog we had for 17 years had to be done regularly. We had her treated for several years with steroids for constant scratching, she was miserable. Then when I switched to this doc, the first thing he did was clear her **** sacs. I'll be darned if she never had that itching problem again. We had her's done nearly every month.