I have read several posts about this subject and wanted to inform members of our experience.    We have a year old working cocker who from the age of four months had to have her anal glands expressed every three/four weeks.  Our Vet recommended that we consider having her anal glands removed as she was getting more and more stressed every time she visited the vets.  After much agonising we decided to go ahead with the operation and I am so pleased that we did!  Skye had her operation three weeks ago and we did not realise how miserable she must have been before she had the op.   We feel like we have got our puppy back and she is now so mischevious and wants to play rather than lying in her basket looking sad and not wanting to do anything.  However I am not going to lie about how hard it was for the first three days after the operation took place.  When we first brought her home is was awful.   They had indicated at the pet hospital that they would either make two incisions on either side and remove the glands that way or depending on what they saw they may have to go through the sphincter muscle unfortunately they did the latter which was a bigger operation.   They gave her an epidural and this took well over 24 hours to wear off.  She would not go outside and did not have a poo for two days but apparently this is quite normal!  We had a couple of little accidents when she got a fright or when she got excited but it was only a very small amount of poo and lasted a couple of days. After the third day (which was the worst poor thing was constantly trying to lick her bottom and rub along the floor) we have never looked back.  We now have a happy little girl and therefore a very happy owner!  Would I recommend the op - in one word YES!!

Can I ask why a dog would need to have its anal glands removed? From your post I see it was because they were unable to empty properly by themselves, but what causes this. I've not had a dog that has had any anal gland problems and have no knowledge on the subject, just intently curious. :-)

one of my cavaliers,many years ago, had his anal glands removed after exhausting all the other treatments available. He made a speedy recovery and never suffered any incontinence problems and in my opinion had a much better quality of life

Apparently it is quite common for cocker spaniels to have this problem.  We were told by our Vet that spaniels can have flabby anal glands which means they fill up but the dog is unable to empty them fully when they have a poo!  When they start to fill up you can see a massive difference in the way our dog behaves, she used to get so miserable and was constantly licking her bottom and scooting across the floor to try and get some relief!  Quite often when they fill up you will notice a strong fishy smell - that is when you know it is time to visit the vets.  I hope this satisfies your curiousity :)

It does, thank you.

The normal liquid inside anal glands is just that; liquid. It should be yellowish/brownish in colour. Sometimes it becomes thickened, can be like a thick paste almost black in colour. I've even seen it turn as solid as it being possible to pick a piece of it up with your fingers. Then it becomes very difficult for the dog to empty them. There can also be inflammation inside them. The glands (really sacks) are normally emptied during stress, to scent mark, and also when the dog passes faeces. Hence if the dog has diarrhoea and there are no solid faeces to press onto the sacks, they can fail to empty. Further the sacks can get too slack, which often is as the result of having been manually compressed too frequently. Finally overweight dogs and dogs that do not get a lot of exercise often fail to empty the sacks themselves. And some breeds just seem more prone than others to have them get blocked.

It's a good idea to learn how to empty them yourself. I check my dogs' anal glands every time I bath them. You can feel if they are full or not. In my big dogs, they never need emptying. In the toydogs, about once a month.

Good explanation, thanks Goldmali.

My terrier had his removed about 7 years ago and although the recovery in his case wasn't good, once he was over the op he was a much happier dog.
The op itself was a success but we were advised to give him a bland chicken and rice diet. Unfortunately we were to discover that this diet didn't suit him. He had such a bad tummy upset, maybe a combination of the diet and the anaestetic, but as you can imagine it wasn't a good time as he had no control at all, his poor bottom was so sore - I don't need to go into detail I'm sure. We had to keep popping him into the bath to clean him, it was such a distressing time. He couldn't sleep so I couldn't sleep. The vet would ring me each morning to find me in floods of tears. Eventually they had him in there for the day to give me a break. He had a few nights rest with the help of a mild tranquilliser and after around 6 days he was over the worse. Once recovered he had no problem at all and although I don't regret the op, how he must have felt afterwards, that I do regret and will always feel guilty about.

Realise that anal sacs can loose their effectiveness if manually emptied too frequently, but do you think they & their contents are determined by genes or other factors such as diet?.

This is really interesting to read. Thank you.
my poodle boy is seven in a few months and has anal gland trouble since a few months old. They need to be emptied by the vet but in his professional opinion its not regular enough to warrant doing an op. The risks of the op, mainly incontinence seemed like quite a risk so I was always happy to not have to go down that route. Its good to hear someone with a positive experience.
ive tried diet changes but firm or loose poos seem to make no difference on the glads being emptied naturally when making a bowel movement. When it gets bad Fred will spend hours, if allowed, licking his rear end. It almost beomes a habit which needs breaking as he will continue to lick long after the problems fixed.
Is it simple enough to empty the glands myself, would love to have a go if I could (and if Fred lets me!) Dare I look on youtube lol

My T-Bone needed hers emptied every 4-6 weeks which I did myself (had my vet show me). Since we have switched to raw 14 months ago and if she gets to much meat which makes very soft poo
means I will be emptying them. But I have been careful and keep an eye on her poo to make sure I have just enough bone added into her meals, so her poo is just hard enough & helps
empty her anal glands. So far 6 months with out having to empty them :-)

Sativa kibble fed we emptied hers every 2-4 weeks and talked about having them removed cause one side was hard to empty it was like hard clay, but when doing research found the dog can end up losing control back there and was scared that would happen- so we opted not to. WE ended up pts about 2 yrs ago due to glaucoma :-(

Glad to hear yours all went fine and ur lil one is doing good :-)

Poor you.   It must have been awful there is nothing more stressful then your dog being poorly and not being able to help them.  I know how bd we felt and our girl was only ill for three days after the op.   I am pleased to see that your boy is doing much better :)

I've just answered another thread on AGs.   We had one, our first Basset, who after repeated bouts of impacted/infected glands which wouldn't respond to treatment even after switching antibiotics, had this surgery.  And as mentioned earlier, this is one I'd avoid at all costs.   As I recall it was quite a nasty surgery, immediately afterwards because of the need to keep his stools soft!!   Ouch.

He was better afterwards but we had another who years later started having repeated bouts of needing to be flushed and packed.    Eventually both we and vet decided he'd probably be best having these out.   Thankfully at the last moment, for reasons I never really understood, he improved and so we avoided the surgery.

These glands are scent glands and working as they should, expel just a little fluid with the passing of each normal stool (and yes, occasionally in a time of stress if pressed back there.... some of my bitches would manage to do this during a mating!!).    Sometimes, during period of abnormal stools (diarrhoea, or the opposite) they can become clogged, and perhaps infected which is where a vet is needed to manually drain the glands and see what's going on.   Flushing and packing with antibiotics is the best treatment (one of mine was treated with oral antibiotics which didn't work - new vet, and I knew this was pointless, but he insisted).    This hound's AGs are sited quite far in, which is why I can't manually drain them myself - I don't go 'in', usually having been able to do this, if needed, from the outside.   And if this starts to happen, it's usually a good idea to check diet, to normalise the stools so these glands, which shouldn't normally need to be touched, work as they should.   Once drained manually, they will refill - they are not meant to be empty.   And it's true that sometimes the more an owner messes around with these glands, the more they play up.