A friend's 8 month old male lab pup is having anal gland problems. The breeder feeds and recommends Eukanuba Adult Maintenance (?) small bite (?) which she feeds twice a day. My friend has contacted the breeder, who says she's had no such problems on this diet (and she has a lot of labs).
I don't feed kibble, so I cannot help her. I'd like to know what would be a recommended kibble for this pup. We are in Canada.
I just had my older girl's glands expressed because she was scooting. The vet suggested adding more fiber to her diet as a precaution -- something like Metamucil. Can't hurt to try!I imagine adding green beans, pumpkin, etc. would be good too.
Thanks Aunt B. It turns out that my friend has been feeding bran, apple, carrot, beans and pumpkin (not all at the same time, of course). She doesn't think the bran is helping.
It turns out that she buys the dog food from the breeder and that the breeder feeds this food to all her stock, from puppies to seniors, and says that her dogs have no problems on the food.
Apparently, stools range from soft to well-formed, which seems odd to me, but she doesn't give people food or jerky treats. In fact she has been giving carrots as treats.
The dog eats things outside, but I don't see how sticks and grass would cause loose stools. They don't in my own labs.
Has she done a fecal? Maybe the dog has giardi or coccidia? Sometimes the fecal comes back negative but there is still a problem. I have treated with Alban in the past and stool goes back to normal. I'm assuming she is not over-feeding?
Adding ground Flax Seed to the diet has many healthy advantages one of which is preventing anal gland problems. I add two (2) teaspoons to each feeding. Start out with less & work your way up to avoid diarrhea. I get mine at the health food store.
Along with the above suggestions, regular daily exercise will help the glands express naturally. Also, too much fiber can make stool soft, so while apple, pumpkin, etc. are wonderful additions, it could be that too much is being added without the pup getting used to it first.
I would have your friend cut out anything human food related. Have them feed ONLY the kibble, and if they need a treat, have them use the kibble or a commercial natural dog biscuit. Give that 2 weeks time to see what happens, and then decide.
I have passed them along to my friend who is going to try eliminating everything except kibble for a while. If that doesn't work, she will add in some small amounts of fibre to the diet.
One additional comment to all the excellent posts above. We had a girl with this issue who did fine as long as we kept her quite thin. As soon as weight was put on, she had issues.
She also did the very best with homemade food. Chicken or venison with carrots, beans, egg, rice and a little bullion for flavor.
