Any luck with fiber to help glands

Our anal glands require "expression" every few weeks and our vet told us to eat pumpkin and fiber with our dry food. After a couple months of regularly eating more fiber, no significant help. Any luck out there mitigating this problem with more fiber in the diet? Any other suggestions?

Quinn & Sierra
http://www.thecatahoulas.com

Anal gland problems can be a sign of food allergy. You may want to consider switching foods. What are you currently feeding?

It is the diet that causes problems with the anal glands, your dog should have good firm stools which express they glands as they move their bowels. When dogs have loose stools the glands aren't expressed, they fill and become impacted or even infected. Although small dogs are more prone to this than larger breeds.

ShowPug is on the right lines, although it is the food and not the food allergy that can be the main cause, although food allergies portray the same symptoms of impacted anal sacs (biting/licking/scooting).

What are you feeding them?
By far the best form of diet IMO is a raw diet (biologically appropriate) although your vet will probably disagree and there is a lot of controversy surrounding it.
Google the terms 'raw-feeding' 'Prey model diet' and 'barf' and see what you think.

Ralphie was in a constant state of diarrhea, no matter what brand of kibble or museli he ate, until i made the switch. I feed our boys on the 'prey model diet' although 'barf' has the right principle, there is no need to feed a carnivore vegetables.
I hope that this helps and that you can sort out the problem, it is bad news to be 'expressed' manually as often as you are, the dogs that have it done often tend to be reliant on it and it ends up an ongoing dilemma.

Best of luck,
Keep us posted

We serve up Science Diet and Natural Balance and don't have any issues getting sick, loose stools or skin issues - pretty healthy other than this. And jsut as greater context, only one is has the problem every couple/few weeks and the other oonce every four months or so.

Will look into the raw diet.
Thanks for the responses!

http://www.thecatahoulas.com

I just noticed this thread.

My one dogs stool always seems to be soft, not runny just soft.

She is on canned Canidae chicken and rice formula.

Now I am worried that she will have anal glan problems from this.

Besides switching to RAW... what else can I do?

I have tried every kind of food, Canidae produces the most solid stool.

Thanks

Elissa

For Dante the key to perfect poops was going back to 3 meals a day.
Over eating can cause soft stools even if it's the amount eaten total isn't too much.

most dogs never ever need their glands expressed their whole lives, I think what can make gland problems even worse is having to have them expressed to much, however, with some dogs they HAVE to be expressed.

How much pumpkin were you giving? Maybe not enough,,My dogs all get pumpkin as a supplement, I throw in 2 heaping T, twice a day,,you can also use metamucil, but I wouldn't know the dosage, I had given that to my gsd years & years ago when he had gland problems that resulted in fistula's..

If you think this is an ongoing problem, discuss with your vet removing the glands,,have done it on one gsd and many friends have had their's done with no problems if you get a good surgeon who knows his job

Good luck,,gland problems are no fun
Diane