that occupies a 6-foot radius around my 8 month old dog about 75% of the time.
I always have dogs and dogs poot, just like people. But this is something else entirely. The scent is unlike anything I have ever encountered, a bizarre blend of the worst farts you’ve ever smelled to start with, a dash of rotting corpse, smidge of burning hair and flesh, a substantial dollop of fresh tar, all topped off with an indefinible eau de vile that I can’t quite name.
I have no idea what is going on. I’ve tried him on 3 different foods, take away the treats, put back the treats…nothing makes a difference. It is so relentless I’m starting to get accustomed to it and I’m momentarily confused when other people enter our space and and begin choking and tearing up.
Well, perhaps I shall grow completely accustomed to it at some point and I will be comforted by the love and affection of both my dogs when all the humans in my life stop coming around entirely…
Does your puppy have a problem with his (her?) anal glands? Whatever it is that those glands secret, the smell is some powerful funk. The rotting corpse analogy that you used is what made me think of that.
My dog was attacked by a much larger dog a few weeks ago. Goliath, despite the name he isn’t that big, was nervous and self expressed his glands. For a minute, because of the smell, I was worried that the dog who attacked him, and bit me, had been eating carrion or something.
Stoid, have you tried activated charcoal or chlorophyll tablets for your dog? I have read that those can help with the stink, though I don’t have any dogs at the moment and so don’t know from personal experience if it helps.
On second thought, I believe that the chlorophyll was for doggie breath, and the activated charcoal was for stinks originating farther down the pooch, so to speak.
How long has this been going on? Please talk to your vet. That is NOT normal! Dogs with a normal, functioning digestive tract should occasionally have stink-bombs, but usually because of a change in diet.
The description you give made me think of some pretty horrible things. PLEASE see your vet!
Do see your vet – that isn’t normal. You might have even exacerbated the problem by changing food tree times in 6 months (assuming he was 8 weeks when you got him), and being inconsistent with treats. A dog’s digestive system is happiest with routine…
It’s the anal gland, I’ll bet. Ours do this occasionally; most typically, I put up with it and it passes after a while, but you can take him/her to a vet and have the anal gland expressed.
How bad is this smell? One of our vets said she would have chosen a different career path if she’d known she’d have to express anal glands.
Smells vaguely like garlic mixed in with musk and bowel, to me.
Stoid, I agree with everyone else, get the dog checked out. If the stink is constant it could be something like the anal glands. But if it comes in waves and is definitely farts then he could have some GI problems. Another possibility is that he eats too fast and swallows a lot of air. You could try raising his feeding dishes and putting obstacles (like big, clean rocks or another inverted dish) in his dish so that he has to eat slower to eat around them (just make sure the obstacles aren’t big enough for him to eat). Or maybe the dog is getting into some other food or garbage that’s making him gassy? My old mutt likes to sneak in to get the cat food and when she manages to get some she has some of the worst gas around and she always likes to lay as close to me as she can, upwind, when this happens.
You don’t mention the breed though, if it’s a boxer you’re probably out of luck because those are the most flatulent dogs I’ve ever met.
See, now you proved my point! (hijack) Dogs ARE funny, and most of them don’t have much of a sense of humor! (Neither of my parents are funny, even remotely. My mother didn’t even have a deent sense of humor, my father does. Believe me, they are different!)
I am going to talk to the vet about it, I know it’s not normal, but in all other respects he’s bursting with good health. Lively, bright eyed, etc. He’s actually going in today for a mange treatment (7 weeks of hairy chemical dips that I have to leave him there for…) so I will mention it to them. Well, it should be obvious, but the fact that it’s so persistent.
What are you feeding him? We switched to Merrick (high quality/no protein gluten - the protein comes from real meat) last March and since then our 15 year old lab has had the smelliest farts. We’ve seen the vet and everything checks out (as well as a 15 year old dog can).
I highly suspect the whole peas and possible the apples in the Merrick that is giving him gas. He loves the stuff, and at 15 I’m going to give him what he’ll eat, even if it means putting up with the smell.
Hey, that might be it! It got insufferable when I switched to a high protein/no grain food. I’ve been switching less because of the gas than because of the messy poo.
I think I’m just going to bite the bullet and feed him what was the most successful on all fronts: the expensive low-allergen food I buy from the vet for my other dog who has allergies. That’s high protein, but it’s been altered in some way molecularly…don’t know, don’t care, just know the air is clearer and yard cleanup is much less revolting.
Has he been rolling in something dead? Dogs love to do that, and it doen’t take much of a corpse to get some nasty funk going on. Dead frogs, birds, stuff like that can really make one stink.
No comments re: the OP’s situation, but I did want to continue the dogs-have-no-sense-of-humour hijack.
Once I farted right in my (normally pleasant-smelling, but occasionally flatulent) dog’s face. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. You should have seen how he looked at me. Picture a dog raising an eyebrow and sneering with disgust, while peering down his monocle at the poorly-raised commoner with whom he has the misfortune to share a couch.
I said “hey, bub, turnabout is fair play!” but he just rolled his eyes.
In other words, picture a dog giving you a look like a cat.
(Note: I do not fart in my cat’s face, although I do occasionally blow the soy trombone in her presence and say to her with a surprised look, “Kitty! Whatzat?!”)