Tuna fish... tuna dog?

First, I want to thank all who left good wishes for Sharkdog aka Chelsea the Queen Beagle aka my bestest little girl puppy in the whole world (you have to say that last one in a high pitched babytalk sing song tone to get the full effect).

There are some professions I don’t envy… like Alaska King Crab fisherman, road kill cleanup specialist, septic tank technician and avian vomitologist (owl vomit collector – yes, this is an actual job). Veterinarian is one of them. At least regular doctors have nurses they can assign to the task of giving a patient an enema.

In between two encounters with the monkeys I work with, I took a few minutes and called the vet’s office on Friday to make an appointment for Sharkdog. I told the vet tech (they have some gems working there I can tell you) about Miss Chelsea’s sore tail end and that she had yelped when I patted her and she gave us an appointment for Saturday early afternoon.

About fifteen minutes before the appointed time, I corralled Sharkdog into the car and chauffeured her to the vet’s. She hates that drive. She looked like the stick-up Garfield plush toys we used to have stuck to our car windows back in the 80s.

The vet techs were happy to see her (she suckers every one in) and came over to say hello. Sharkdog gave them a hello sniff and then tried to escape from Alcatraz um.. the vet’s waiting room. I held firm to the leash thus foiling her desperate lunges... err... best laid plans. She also gave me the “you’re not leaving me here again look” and I gave her a smooch on the head and told her everything would be ok (she understands me, you know... she doesn’t believe me, but she understands me).

The vet (he’s new but took care of Tobey aka Dumdum once and we think we like him) came and said hello and lead us to the “torture chamber”... I mean, the examination room.

Turns out the anal gland condition some of you mentioned?... yeah. As much as I adore my dog I am NOT EVER going to deal with this myself should it occur again. The vet had me put Chelsea on the exam table and we went through her symptoms.

This is not Chelsea (obviously), but you get the idea:

I told him sometimes she does the “boot scoot” and he went straight for the anal gland impaction hypothesis.



He positioned his hand at her ...um ... poop shoot and “massaged the glands”. Out squirted some yellow anal gland juice (which apparently is the normal colour) so no infection. YAY!

But then... the smell hit my nostrils and I gagged.

For a while that afternoon she was known as Tunabutt. I was attempting to explain this smell to my Honey (who had never dealt with this despite having had many dogs in his life) over the phone last night and the best description I could come up with was: picture a can of tuna in oil dating back to WWII soldier rations days that has been punctured open and left out in the baking sun of the Sahara desert for a few decades and you have a fraction of the smell that came from my dainty baby girl dog’s nether regions.

That was THE.MOST.VILE.EXPERIENCE. EVER!

Let me just say, anal gland juice could be used as a weapon of mass ... um... torture. Wanna smoke a terrorist out from the caves of Afghanistan? Pop an anal gland juice bomb in there and watch them run out vomiting, green as clover and St Paddy’s Day beer.
Seriously, unless Osama Bin Laden has had his nose surgically sealed and can keep his mouth closed while breathing through his eyeballs, this smell could send him running towards the allied forces if he thought they could make the smell stop.

Yeah... that bad!

The vet also checked out her ears and poor baby has bacterial otitis in both ears. So I have ear cleaning drops and antibiotics and we go back in a week for a follow-up.
She still isn’t fully back to her tail swinging days and I’m keeping an eye out for that. The vet manipulated the tail (stop smirking) and didn’t find anything... so we’ll see.
Sharkdog is now resting in a corner under a chair in an attempt to keep Dumdum the hell away from her behind – yup, things are back to normal. She isn’t falling for the “But baby, I just wanna express your anal glands” trick.

If anyone knows how to contact the R&D branch of the armed forces let me know. I think they need to look into anal gland juice as a weapon... seriously.

Oh... and just so that "internetpetvet" knows: Sharkdog has no problems eating fibre. Or anything else she believes is edible... like MY CHRISTMAS CHOCOLATES! Thus leading to the sparklepoop incident... that dog always has butt issues.

"My little dog - a heartbeat at my feet."
~Edith Wharton