My daughter has a 14 week old Cavalier KCS and she is always"scooting" her bum along the carpets. My daughter thinks it might be her anal glands that need emptying,but surely she is too young for that? if it is the Anal glands,will she have to keep getting them emptied all the time? She is fed on Burns minibites,and her "doings" are fine.

Hi JeanB,

Yes I would have thought that your daughters cavalier probably does need her anal glands emptying.  If you take her to the vet they will check for you and empty them if need be.  Our dog was only 17 weeks old when he first had his anal glands emptied and the vet said they were full and he has had them emptied again a few months ago and he is only nearly one year old.  Some dogs do seem to need them emptied frequently and scooting along the floor is usually a sign as is chewing the back leg (like ours was doing)  My sister used to have a King Charles Cavalier and he had a lot of trouble with his anal glands, so much in fact that the vet thought it best to remove them.  Also they can become quite itchy when their anal glands need emptying.

When your dog is a little bit older, the best thing is to get the anal glands removed. I had to have this done with my dog as they fill up very quickly and you will be back at the vet frequently if you don't have them removed.

Hi Sarah,

Hope you are feeling a little better now, although it does take time I know. 

I don't know whether it is actually a good idea to have the anal glands removed except in cases where there are frequent infections and I think there can also be problems with some dogs that do have their anal glands removed, probably the vet would advise on this and maybe only remove them as a last resort.

Hi Anna
I miss him dearly, but my precious boy is on the window ledge looking out the window as he did for so many years. The staffie is still looking for him in the park and we are toying with the idea of getting another dog, but I not sure how the stink bomb will take to a new addition...
At the time Barnie had his glands removed, the vet said that it was a simple procedure and would cause less irritation and although after it, it wasn't as frequent. I guess that I took the vets word for it, or maybe it depends on the breed. Barnie was a cross and had regular visits to have his glands emptied, although there was no infection any time, I was advised by the vet to have them removed.

Hi Sarah,

I know how you feel and you have been very brave considering all that you have had to go through in the last few weeks.  I still miss my dog and it still hasn't sunk in yet that I will never see him again and that was last July, I still cry over him probably because I lost him so young (he was only nearly 6) and all our other dogs always lived into old age.

I'm not really well informed on the subject of anal gland removal but I have heard that it can cause rectal incontinence in some dogs.  I suppose some dogs will be fine and its just the odd one that will suffer with this.  I had my dog (bichon) castrated last october and although for the majority of dogs it is fine, ours had to be the one that got feminisation syndrome, which means that he smells like a bitch and we have a lot of trouble from large uncastrated dogs following us and trying to jump on him.  I had one follow me the other day and it wouldn't go away and tried to grab him by the back of the neck, I think it was a German Shorthaired pointer and it was quite a big dog to fight off.  I reported it to the dog warden when I got home because it actually knocked me over when I was trying to stop it getting to my dog.  The owners don't seem bothered that it gets out of the garden and just takes itself where it pleases and follows whoever it pleases, in fact I don't think the dog has ever had a walk with its owners, I've certainly never seen it walked on a lead anyway.  I wish I hadn't had him castrated now because it has caused more problems than it solved although I know that he is in the minority and this probably doesn't happen to a lot of dogs that are castrated, I was just unlucky I guess.

Anna
I guess it best to get the vet to make the decision what is best for the dog. It didn't make Barnie incontinet at all, it just relieved some irritation, he got bad again towards the end, but I put that down to his illness. Luckily, I have wooden floors, so it was easy to clean up after him, its not so nice when they leave smudges on the carpet after they scoot....
I had an argument with my finace last night because he said that he didn't want another cross breed again and he thought that Barnie was ugly, I think he was anything but ugly. He also tried to wind me up that he scattered his ashes, and I told him that if he ever did that without me knowing, I would kick him out the house and change the locks while he was at work.

Hi Sarah,

I don't blame you for threatening to kick him out neither for saying that Barnie was ugly and threatening to scatter his ashes when you don't want him to.  Was he only joking around or was he serious?   I think cross-breeds can be amongst the most beautiful dogs in the world and sometimes not have as many problems as if my case.  We have had mongrels and pedigrees and it always seems the pedigrees that have to go to the vet more often.

What breed of dog would your fiance be happy with then?

He was joking, but I did not find it funny.

He wants a Rottwieler. However, he said if I got rid of the cats (3 of them) then I could chose the next dog.... and he was serious on that one.... My opinion is that there were their first... LOL. His dog has to go first - he stinks. Definately never going to have another staffie, I have lost my sense of smell now... Never known anything or one that burps and farts as much as this dog

He also wants a puppy and I said that because of our work hours, this is not possible and I would like to rescue another lost cause. There are so many dogs that have been abandoned they deserve a second chance. I would like a dog that is a couple of years old so that I don't have to go through severe destrution that puppies leave behind them.

Pedigrees to tend to have more problems that Cross breeds, but I think that Barnie was an exception, he was there so often, that I know all the vets and the nurses. My vet had tears in his eyes when I went to see him last week. He was fantastic and I nearly had tears when he said that he was leaving the practice to go up north.

Hi Sarah,

I don't blame you, I wouldn't have found it funny either.  I wish that I had my Sabres ashes, but it was a rather quick decision to have him put to sleep before I chickened out of the decision.  The vet didn't hold out much hope for him and said that we could have him for a few more days but I couldn't see him suffer anymore and he didn't look happy anymore or bark when someone passed the gate, it broke my heart to see him like this and also broke my heart to part with him, he was so special to me.  I have his collar which I still can't bear to look at over 8 months later.

Perhaps you might be better waiting till you have got all the excitement of the wedding over with before you get another dog, although I know that this will be hard.

We have a large dog rescue about 1/2 hr in the car away and there are some beautiful dogs there but we couldn't adopt one because we had a child under 5.   I would definitely go there when I want another dog and my daughter is a lot older and less trouble (because she is just 4 and a pain in the a-s- at the moment)

Where abouts in the country do you live?   I live in the North (about 10 miles out of Manchester) perhaps your vet is coming somewhere near us, we could do with one in the village because the vet there has been struck off  and we could badly do with another one to take his place.

I will try and find out if he is coming anywhere near you... he is fantastic, and the other brilliant vet is leaving in the summer. There are about 10 vets in my practice so I will have to start getting to know the others.
If you PM me with your email addres, I will send you a pic of by boy.
I would like to get another dog before I have children as I can't imagine not having a dog in the house at all. I will wait till after the wedding thoug as that is not too far away now.

Hi Sarah,

Will pm you now with email address. 

There are very few vets who will remove the anal glands completely as it is not a routine operation and the risk of rectal incontinence is very high.  It is generally accepted that the only circumstance in which they should be removed is due to repeated infections in the glands which is not the same as them being full.  It is very possible that your pup may need his emptied once and will never require them attended to again.  One of my dog suffers from impacted anal glands and at present we are managing about 3 months at a time before he requires them to be emptied which takes all of two minutes at the vet and even though he continues to have problems, my vet would not remove the glands until it became a last resort in my dog's best interest to do so. 

Hi Thanks for your replies. She has not been doing it today at all,so maybe its not too bad She doesnt lick herself or anything as some of the posters had reported. She has been regularly wormed.(the vet gave her the whole bottle of Drontal liquid on her first visit,for her to administrate herself ) and she has been wormed at 8 weeks and 12 weeks . next one is due next week.She does tend to chase her tail a lot however,so maybe a visit to the vets would clarify if it is the anal glands.My daughter is going to make an appointment. Thanks for your help
Jean

I would recommend a visit jeanb-my dog only does the "bum-scoot" :) and even then he doesn't do it continuously and the only other symptom he occasionally displays is the nibbling at his back end.  If she has been regularly wormed then it is more than likely her anal glands and a quick visit to the vet will relieve her off her probable great irritation and discomfort! :)  Good luck with her.