1132. The Golden Retriever's hind leg keeps swinging

Mar 2, 2015  7.07pm  Bishan library

This 5-year-old male neutered Golden Retriever was very itchy. "I couldn't sleep since he had been scratching the whole night, waking me up! That was why I phoned you to see him this morning."


The dog had been itchy in 2012 and I had resolved the problem and so the working lady owner came back to me for diagnosis and treatment.

"Do you remember this dog? He exploded anal sac oil straight into Dr Daniel and onto the walls of the consultation room!"

"Yes," I had recorded this incident in the case sheet. I cannot remember every dog's explosive anal sacs as this was not the only one. For the past 4 years, the anal sacs had filled up and nobody had expressed them.  So, they were time bombs of foul-smelly oil, spreading bad odours in the consultation room. This scent makes you want appreciate perfumes.

"Did you express the anal sac weekly or before bathing?" I asked the sun-tanned lady.
"No, no, but I sent him to the groomer every 2 months and this famous pet shop charges expensively. They groom the dog, clean the ears and express the anal sacs"
"How much?"
"$160 for every visit, but as Chinese New Year was in Feb 19, I did not send him to the groomer. I put some ear drops bought from the shop and did the ear cleaning myself! But my dog gets more and more itchy every day. His hind leg will swing back and forth in mid-air (see video).

The dog's ears were relatively clean but were painful to my touch. I could elicit the hind leg motions whenever I touched the lower ear area. So, this was a case of ear pain causing this behavior. The dog had to bite his backside and back legs to relieve the continual itchiness. The whole right back was very red as well.

Was this a case of allergy to the commercial ear wash? I had the skin and hairs checked for ringworm and demodectic mites. Ringworm was present in those red inflamed backside but no demodectic mites from 4 skin scrapings.

I got the dog sedated and the coat clipped bald. The ears were thoroughly irrigated.

"The hair will take 6 months to grow," she lamented.
"3 months if there is no more skin infections or itchy skin," I told her. This dog had chronic anal sacculitis and skin infections and so the coat was sparse.