Butt Drama

When I as in Nursing School, a million years ago, I as known as the Butt Queen.... not a name I enjoyed but, considering the issues my patients had it was appropriate. Add in the fact that I'm Southern and it is appropriate. See, we Southern women, once we become Mommy's, are pretty sure that if your alimentary canal is working well then you are good to go. No pun intended.

When TeenDream was younger it wasn't unusual for him to occasionally say "My tummy hurts" and my auto-response was "When was the last time you pooped?" Now he just says "My stomach hurts and I pooped (fill in a day and time)" - it just makes things easier.

The Hubster, as a Navy Nuke Submariner, has tortured his bowels, so they are also topics of conversation. Also, he comes from a genetically gassy family so there is always something floating around. Again, no pun intended. (BTW - there is a whole story regarding this type of thing in the new book - embarrassing but funny in a strange and twisted way.)

So no-one but me was surprised when The Beasties developed butt issues. The Hubster, upon hearing about the issues called me the Doggie Butt Queen - thanks my love.

It all started when I was down at Mama's. Girl Beast, hereafter referred to as GB, supercharged her already overdeveloped obsession with her butt. Now, we all know that dogs mess with their butts, but what you might not know is that they have some serious anal glands that secrete the stinkiest substance known to man.... even worse than "dog eats cat food" farts.We just kept telling her to stop and went on with our daily lives. Then she started getting very testy with Boy Beast, hereafter referred to as BB. Now, in normal daily life she will get testy with him about once a week but this was happening two or three times a day. Finally, on Saturday, she stopped chasing the cats. She just lay on the sofa. I went to se what was going on with her and give her some cuddle time and realized that she was sick... something was definitely wrong. After a confab with mama we decided that a trip to the emergency vet was in order. While there we noticed she now had a rash on her stomach. O.M.G. A rash.

Finally we got in to an examination room. They took her to the back and discovered that she had severely full anal glands that needed to be expressed. We had that done... I may get the whole butt thing but squeezing my dog's butt glands is just not in the cards... I will pay someone to do that. Anyway, we brought her stinky butt home and gave her a bath in the sink... then gave her the prescribed antibiotic and steroids for the time needed - problem solved.

So, we get home, me and the beasts, and TeenDream is back from his trip to visit cousins and life falls into a routine. BB, who has chronic hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, is eating okay and doing the dookie thing pretty regularly. GB is doing fine... still a little obsessed with her butt but I'm thinking that is pretty normal after having your butt violated and expressed.

Then BB begins having what I assumed were his normal butt issues. Right up until he oozed some reddish brown goo on TeenDream's shirt. Now that was some drama. ANother trip to the vet - thankfully not the emergency kinds as our vet stays open til 7 and takes walk-ins. Guess what? Anal glands again. We had them expressed.... my poor BB, and they bathed his butt for me so there wasn't any total stink going on.

So now my beasties are on a 6 month anal gland expressing schedule to avoid any future problems. Routine butt maintenance.

What more could I ask for?