Strong dog odor. What to do?
Urine and faeces of each animal species also have a specific smell, but healthy and clean animals should not smell like excrement. As for the normal smell, it will always be. There are individual differences in the intensity of body odor, but when acquiring a dog, you should be prepared for the fact that it will smell like a dog.
Important to know: wet dogs smell stronger! Regular baths with special shampoos help keep the dog’s natural smell at an acceptable level, but it is not recommended to bathe your pet for this purpose more than once or twice a month.
Therefore, if a dog smells like a dog, then we must take this fact for granted: this means that the dog is healthy. But if the smell has changed, become more intense, sharp, unpleasant or even nauseating, then the cause is the disease.
In this situation, the owner must first carefully examine the pet, literally from the nose to the tip of the tail, since the source of the smell may not always be clearly visible or obvious.
Sources of bad odors:
Diseases of the gums and teeth, tartar very often are the causes of a rather unpleasant odor. The smell is usually stronger if the dog breathes with its mouth open. A bad odor can be the first symptom of problems in this area, so don’t wait for your dog to refuse food because of pain. Contact the clinic for diagnosis and treatment or to remove plaque and tartar. Oral tumors are a common cause of very bad breath in dogs. They are more common in older dogs and are sometimes difficult to detect on simple examination due to the location of the growth in the mouth.
Ear diseases have a “habit” to proceed without any special symptoms, especially if the disease has taken a chronic course. Owners do not always look into their pet’s ears, and if they do, they may mistakenly assume that the presence of discharge is associated with insufficient care, and not with a disease. Some dogs suffer from otitis for years, in which case the smell of inflamed ears becomes part of the pet’s smell, and the cause still lies in an undiagnosed and untreated disease.
Can give off a very bad odor inflammation of the skin folds, especially in such “folded” breeds of dogs as bulldogs, sharpei, boxers. At the same time, the dog may look normal on the outside, but if you carefully stretch and examine the fold of the skin, then you will be in for a very unpleasant surprise with the appropriate smell.
Any fold on the dog’s body can become inflamed, it can be facial folds, tail folds, folds on the neck or chin. Hot weather, humidity, and friction of the skin in the crease area are usually the causes of inflammation. Dogs with drooping cheeks often develop inflamed folds of skin on the neck or around the mouth due to drooling.
Infection with external parasites is also accompanied by unpleasant odors, here the cause can be scabies mites, lice, fleas, or a disease such as demodicosis. Of course, an unpleasant odor in this situation will not be the only symptom of the disease.
In hot and humid weather, long-haired dogs can suffer from fly larvae – maggots. At risk are dogs that are kept in poor conditions. Flies lay their larvae on the skin and fur of an animal contaminated with urine and feces. Due to the long coat, the lesions are not visible from a distance, but when this disease is detected during examination in the clinic, very often the owner of the animal faints from what he sees. The reasons for contacting the clinic in this case are usually the lethargy of the pet and a strange smell.
RџSЂRё urinary tract infections the smell of urine from normal and specific can change towards sharp and unpleasant.
The secret of the paranasal glands in dogs it has a rather sharp and unpleasant odor, but normally this odor should not be felt. Problems arise when the paranasal sinuses become inflamed or overfilled.
For systemic diseases such as diabetes mellitus or kidney failure, both the smell from the animal as a whole and the smell of urine can change. And also the smell of acetone from the mouth may appear.
In general, with any change in your dog’s smell, it is best to visit a veterinary clinic for a clinical examination and consultation with a doctor.
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4 2018 June
Updated: July 6, 2018
