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Dr. Bruce
Dr. Bruce, Veterinarian
Category: Dog
Satisfied Customers: 20285
Experience:  Small animal veterinarian with 15 years experience
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My jack/beagle cross has suffered for a long time with impacted

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My jack/beagle cross has suffered for a long time with impacted and infected anal glands. All antibiotics have been tried, and a culture test taken from one of the glands that has limey yellow green stuff come out gave an ecoli infection result. Tried antibiotics for ecoli, but still has trouble and same stuff coming out. Shes constantly lucking her bum, and seems a bit down in the dumps. Is surgical removal the only next solution??? Many thanks.
Dr. Bruce
Hi,
Welcome. I'm Dr. Bruce and I've been a small animal veterinarian for over 13 years. Thank you for your question. I'm sorry to hear about this situation with Molly. I'm going to be honest here and say that up to this point, it sounds like pretty much the gauntlet has been ran as far as testing and treatment options. With what has been done and the results that have been had, I would feel that surgically removing the anal glands is a very valid next step. I don't jump into that recommendation easily as there is the extremely uncommon complication of fecal incontinence that has to be brought up. At this point though, that low risk would seem to be well worth the hope the the surgery would end this long standing fight with these anal glands. This surgery is pretty straightforward and usually has great end results when all the anal gland tissue is dissected out and removed from the body.
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Customer: replied 3 years ago.

Washing them out wouldnt work?

Flushing them could help to remove some of the material that is there. For some dogs this being done in combination with oral antibiotics can be the trick. There is always going to be some material coming out of the anal glands as they have secretory material being produced all the time. Some may find that allergies can cause increased anal gland issues and dietary trials of different diets may help the situation.
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