I had my dog Cookie to the vets last night, he was scratching, chewing, his back end, I noticed it was swollen, so a trip to the vet, he has an abcess on his anal gland, got an injection and has antibiotics to take for 10 days.  Never seen this before, looks really sore, he is hiding away feeling sorry for himself.  Ive to keep it clean, so would dapping it with salt water help?

Meant dabbing, LOL  Senior moment, well that my excuse.

When I had Affenpinscher's one of my girls got a really nasty abcess in the anal gland, had the same treatment as your dog is getting but I did also gently bathe it with lukewarm salt water, the abcess actually came to a head and burst within a few days, not sure if the salt water helped or not but it didnt hurt to do it anyway.

Tiva had that a couple times but could not be given meds due to being pregnant...

I used a warm cloth to help drain it then cleaned with peroxide and rubbing alcohol swabs and put polysporin on it- it cleared up real nice :-)

Best of luck :-)

I found salt water very good in this situation.  My old girl had this a a few times in her life.  Her son thought she was in season ;-)  Salt water clears it up very quickly.  For very serious cases, the vet has injected anti-b's into the wound site, but think that was only once.

A bitch of mine developed an anal gland abscess which went from no visible appearance, to a swelling, to bursting, all within 4 hours. I was given a tube of antibiotic cream which had to be squirted into the burst abscess for 10 days before the hole was allowed to heal up.She had no further problems.