Fish breath

[Sylvia and Malley]

Ok, I give up.  Our almost 3 year old Malley has fish breath.  She gets no fish or fish oil in her diet.  I brush her teeth and have taken her to the vet to have her teeth checked and the vet says her teeth are perfect.  The vet suggest having her anal glands expressed.  Will that hurt her?  Would that cause fish breath?  I am at my wits end.  Help.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Altoids?  One of my dogs loved them.  I have a cat who I let play with them. I am sure one won't hurt  :)

[Hailey and Oliver]

  Oliver has really bad breath to.  When it gets to the point that we can't stand it anymore, we just buy him a bone.  It's a good temporary fix, but other than that, I have absolutely no clue.

[Christine & Camus]

What food does she eat?  You might try giving her yogurt or pumpkin or a non-dairy probiotic.

[Willow and J]

Your vet may be right. But I wonder why the vet didn't express glands himself/herself.

Willow has it sometimes too, and we found the source of it the hard way (i.e. smelling her and where she sat, etc. Sorry for too much information!) We stopped using groomers who used to express her glands. I brush her teeth and give her probiotics pills when we notice the fishy breath.    

[Sylvia and Malley]

what probiotic pills?  

[Willow and J]

I just gave ones that I sometimes take. It's not brand specific nor made for dogs. 

[Christine & Camus]

Camus gets a probiotic from Petco 2x daily. http://www.petco.com/product/113492/Petco-Digestive-Enzymes-And-Pro...

[Joanna, Zoe & Bender]

I don't understand why and how breath relates to the anal glands.
Bender used to have fish breath. It's gone now but idk how. Ive always brushed his teeth and sprayed him with petzlife so maybe he just grew out of it or maybe because of the anal glands were expressed when groomed.

[Willow and J]

Our experience is that Willow gets fishy breath when she licks there. I don't think it gets smelly only when there's a problem. Maybe sacks get expressed when she licks? We could link her fishy breath and anal gland when Willow sat on the armrest in the car and left a bum mark on the faux-leather armrest cover. It's probably how she sat that pressed the sack. It's very distinctive "fishy" smell that we could identify right away. We avoid kissing her when she smells like that. :) 

[Joanna, Zoe & Bender]

Ohhh got it! Thanks! Now that you say that Bender was probably licking there too! I read somewhere that larger dogs don't need anal gland expression so I didn't really know if he should get it done but the groomer automatically does it so I just had her do it.

[Sylvia and Malley]

UPDATE:  Anal gland expression by vet = Fish breath gone!!

[F, Calla & Luca]

Good news.