Hi, I'm Dr. Fiona Caldwell, and I'm at home today answering questions from Pets Best's Facebook page. The first question comes from Linda who writes, "I have to take my dog into the vet every two weeks for anal gland expressions or else they leak. Is there anything I can do to prevent this?"
This can be really a frustrating problem. Anal glands are really stinky. They're basically underdeveloped scent glands that dogs have that are normally used to kind of mark their territories. In a normal dog, a little bit should probably be expressed every time they defecate. For some reason, your dog isn't doing that the way that it would normally happen. When dogs are really relaxed, sometimes this fluid can leak out a little bit.
Getting the dog in regularly to have the glands emptied is one way that you can keep it from happening. Some other things that you might try, there are some things that you can do to kind of bulk up the stool a little bit so that every time your dog defecates it's more likely to do sort of some expression and squeezing on its own. Fiber is a good way to do this. Most dogs like canned pumpkin, which is a pretty good source of fiber. You could try that, depending on the size of your dog. You can talk with your veterinarian about how much is appropriate. You could also do human fiber supplements, but, again, talk with your veterinarian about what dose would be appropriate for your dog.
The next question comes from Keshla who says, "Do you recommend premium or holistic foods? Which are better?" This is a really good question. There's a lot of dog food out there, and it can be hard to know what to buy and what brands to use. A premium dog food generally refers to a dog food that has maybe higher quality ingredients, a little bit more quality control, not as much fillers is in it, whereas a holistic dog food might be more organic, preservative free, hormone free, that type of thing.
I think both types have a great place. I think either one of them are going to be far superior to sort of your grocery store brands that are a little bit less expensive and tend to have a lot of fillers. If the price is too good to be true, it probably really is too good to be true. Whatever works best for your pet and whatever your pet does best on is probably going to be fine, either a premium food or a holistic food.
If you guys have questions for me about your pet, feel free to post them at Facebook.com/PetsBestInsurance.
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