Why does my dog smell?
- ebilfeld
- Nov 4, 2020
- 8 min read
Just gave the boys baths today, expressed their anal glands and cleaned their ears too. And it gave me the idea to talk a little bit about pet hygiene and why your dog might be smelly! There are a few different reasons your dog could smell. They could just need a bath, which is an easy fix. They could need their anal glands expressed. If your not sure what that is, don’t worry I’ll talk about it in a second. It could be an ear infection. Ear infections can have an order to them depending on the type of infection your pet has. It could be a skin infection! Your pet could have a yeast or bacterial infection or a hot spot. An injury or wound that got infected. It could also be dental disease. So what to do about these things. Well first, try giving a bath. I always use dawn dish soap. Just really gets off the dirt and grime and really gets rid of the odor. I then use a little lavender baby shampoo. Just to help them smell good. If your dog has dry skin you can try an oatmeal shampoo. Remember not to bathe your new puppy too often. Puppy’s skin can dry out very easily so bathing them too often can cause some skin issues. It’s best to just bath them when they get dirty. I know some owners that are like “Yeah we bath our puppy once a week. Why is his skin all dry and flakey?” And as they get older about once or twice a month depending on the dog and what they do. Of course if you need to bathe them, bathe them! Now if a bath doesn’t do the trick and your still smelling the stink, check your dog. Which if you gave your dog a bath you might have noticed something while bathing. You should also be cleaning your dogs ears every bath as well. So you would be able to notice if they had signs of possible infection. Ears are red, a lot of wax or debris. Possibly a yeasty smell. Your pet might also be scratching or shaking their head. Those are signs of an ear infection. Now if your smelling a yeast smell but your pet is scratching everywhere not the ears then it could be a possible a skin infection. Be sure you’ve examined your pet for any possible hotspots or wounds that could be infected as well. Either way it’s best to bring your pet to a vet to determine what type of infection it is or if a wound/hotspot needs to be treated. Now anal glands. What are they? They are super gross is what they are. Ha, no but seriously anal glands are an animals scent glands. They are like two jelly beans that pretty much sandwich, well the anus. There isn’t really a pleasant way to describe that. But sometimes if not expressed they can fill up with a really nasty, smelly, gross liquid. Sometimes almost paste like. And if not expressed they can fill up and rupture and cause some booty problems. If you have a little dog or plan on getting a little dog, be prepared to have to get this done at the very least once a month. And I promise you, you will HAVE to get this done in small dog breeds. They will absolutely rupture if you don’t get them done. Now if your thinking I’ve never done this and my dog is fine. If you get your dog groomed, then, your getting it done. Although your groomer only does them externally not internally like at a veterinarian, you’re still getting them down. The reason I say you will HAVE to get them done with your small dog is because most of the time anal glands can be expressed as the animal has a bowel movement but small dog breeds stools just aren’t big enough to express them as they pass their bowels. Now as for big dogs, they most of the time can express them as they have a bowel movement. Sometimes medium and large size dogs need them expressed. Like my dogs, even though they are 35/42 pounds, I still have to express their anal glands about every month or so. If your dog is licking their butt or dragging their butt across your floor, “scooting” as some would call it. Or you smell a horrible, fishy, also molassesy smell coming from them. They might need their anal glands expressed. Sometimes they can leak if they are very full. You can bring them to your vet or groomer to have them done. As far as dental disease goes veterinarians recommend yearly dentals after the age of 1. Some will say 3-5 depending on the breed. Always starting at 1 year and once a year for cats. Sometimes cats and small breed dogs need twice a year dentals. Smaller mouths are just more prone to dental disease. A yearly dental helps with bad breath, health problems and possibly tooth infections. Also brushing your pets teeth at the very least once a week but best once a day really helps with these issues as well. Along with making it an easier and faster dental. If you don’t know dental cleanings for animals has to be done under anesthesia. Most vets, a good vet will require a set of blood work to be done prior to the procedure. And if healthy they will proceed. I have preformed tons of dental cleanings myself. It was one of my absolute favorite things to do as an assistant. If you have a good tech and you keep up with you pets teeth then your pet won’t be under for more then 30 mins to an hour. But I’ve been in on a cleaning that lasted 3 hours because the doctor had to pull so many teeth and some being very difficult to get out. I love animal dentistry. and it’s soooo important to keep up with for your pets health. If they have tons of tartar and it doesn’t get taken care of, their teeth can literally rot out of their head. I have seen it. Multiple times. You wouldn’t believe the smell. So if you have a small dog, or a cat. And you don’t understand why they smell and you have done all of the things. Check their mouth or have their vet try and check their mouth. It could very well be some dental disease. I had a client come in and said I don’t know where this smell is coming from. I looked down at the dog and every time the dog stuck out it’s tongue, it’s tooth would poke out with it. Almost all the front bottom insicors were flapping. The dog needed an entire mouth extraction. Which I have been apart of doing that to multiple other dogs as well. If we didn’t remove all the teeth they only had about 5 or 6 left. And don’t worry they eat just fine. Just think, for years they were eating with rotting teething hurting all the time, eating kibble with gums is probably heaven. And the owners do say that at the check ups. “It’s like I have a completely different dog. I cant believe I went years with their mouth like that.” They say. Because the dog just feels so much better! I mean even during recovery you can tell they are like ahhh, finally my mouth doesn’t hurt anymore! I mean they are on some pretty good drugs BUT STILL! They do feel so much better. I mean I couldn’t imagine. I do have to say I am pretty bad about brushing the boys teeth. But my goal next year is to get both of them in for a cleaning. Well, all three. Ella as well, can’t forget your kittys! They need them more then any! Ella has actually had one every year since she was 1 besides last year. And Bruce had one done in 2018. Siloh just turned two so I’m not beating myself up about not getting him in but he does have some stank breath sometimes so I’d like to get him one. But I do check their teeth and lucky none of them have anything too pressing. Really none of them have too much tartar either. They would all be very boring cleanings to say the least! Which is a good thing. But that is definitely one of my 2021 goals. Get the animals teeth cleaned! Ha. OH! If your wondering price, Banfield does have plans that are around $45 a month for a year that includ shots and bloodwork and the dental cleaning. But if you go to your vet they usually run from $250-$500 depending on the vet and could be even up and over $1,000 if your pet needs any teeth extracted.
So today was bath day! Siloh has been scooting after he uses the bathroom lately and Bruce has been going to town on his bottom. Gross. So it was definitely time to do their anal glands. And unfortunately I get the lovely duty of bathing them since I know how to express their anal glands. Brandon could bathe them after I do them but he won’t go anywhere near them once it’s done. Haha. Luckily the boys are good and they just stand there. I express their anal glands, raise and lather then I clean out their ears with ear cleaner. Then raise and dry! I usually just towel dry and keep them in their room until dry but you can place a floor fan in front of or on top of your dogs crate/kennel and it’ll help dry them faster. Picture below for an example. I got some ear cleaner from petsmart that should be similar to what the vet gives you. I’ll link the ear cleaning solution the vet gives for routine cleaning thats similar to the one I bought. Along with that one as well. You can either get that exact stuff or just look at the ingredients and make sure what you get at the store has similar ingredients to what you would get from a vet. The reason I buy the stuff at the store even though it’s a couple bucks more. The vet cleaner can only be bought online. So by the time you pay shipping and handling. It’s a few bucks more then what I bought in petsmart. I’m going to be completely honest with y’all, I just went to go look to see what I bought and to look at the ingredients and they don’t even have it on there. So I had to google the ingredients real quick before I went ahead and said it was a good one. And it is fairly similar to what you would get from the vet. I must have looked them up before I bought it or was able to look at a bigger bottle or something. I just know I wouldn’t have bought it without knowing the ingredients. But either way I wanted to make sure I had them right for you! I linked that one as well! It does say its out of stock online but hopefully it’s in store for you. I picked mine up at the Gainesvilike, GA store.
They got baths and now smell like lavender baby shampoo and aren’t scooting or licking butts. Thats a win in my book!
If you have any other questions about pet hygiene feel free to send them my way! And if you need any recommendations on vets or groomers in Gainesville, GA or Columbia, SC let me know as well.
That’s all I have for now. Hope y'all have a great day!
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