Can food affect anal glands?

Hello everyone!

Does anyone know if food, specifically high protien food, can affect a dogs anal glands?

We switched out girl from Pedigree Chum dry to Fish4dogs, mainly for behavioral issue reasons. Love F4D - nice poo (!), healthy coat and dog loves it.

However, we switched to Millies Wolfheart about a month ago (coz it's cheaper and had very good reviews), and although our dog loves it, her anal glands are.... how shall I put this..... doing their thing. Over the carpet. Over the sofa. On our clothes. I am amazed how such a small amount of fluid can caused such a vomit-inducing stench!
Her poo is mostly firm, but dear lord, I gag every time I pick it up. I'm not bothered about picking up poo, but this is something else. Like radioactive!

For the last week or so, it's been a daily thing, and poor dog is always licking her bum. Also, she has started eating poo in the park, actively sniffing it out, and she has become more of a scavenger - twigs, litter, fag butts, tissues - you name it, if it's on the ground, she'll try and eat it. She's always been a bit of a 'sniffer' but Ive only noticed the manic scavenger in her since we switched her food over.

So I'm wondering if the food is so high in protein, it's just not filling her up, and her insides are having trouble with it?

She's not a working dog, or a super active breed. She's a staffy-boxer cross, 2 hours walking a day, some of that is tearing round with other dogs, some on-lead.

Has anyone had any similar experiences with a high protein diet for their dog?

If you give Millies a ring they might be able to help - they do a few different 'blends' & they're very helpful.

It may not be the protein. We mainly feed Suki raw horse meet and she has never had a gland issue. When she was a pup she had allot of allergies and no matter what food we tried she would poo 4-6 times per day. This was because her body could not properly absorb the food and would eliminate what couldn't be processed as poo. Since switching to raw she goes once per day and every now and then twice in a day. She also has less gas. Not saying this is the case with yours but worth a thought.

I'm just reporting back, in case anyone has a similar issue.

We have gradually switched over from Millies to Burns (doing about half/half mixture), and the poos are lovely....er....well, normal! There have been no radioactive anal deposits for the last 3 days, which has been great!

She's still scavenging, but has stopped eating her own poo. Result!

Glad to hear that she is improving

Glad to hear of the improvement! Some dogs just don't get along well with some foods. I've never heard of the anal gland problem before though.