Cow’s anal sac story

We noticed a wound on the left side of Cow’s anus on Saturday evening.

It was certainly a strange place to have a wound… It was bleeding slightly. I sprayed the pet spray on it, to clean and disinfect it first. I also started him on Vetri DMG.

By Sunday, the wound turned grey in colour and had stopped bleeding. It looked strange to me.

On Monday, we took Cow to the vet.

That’s the wound.

It is located at 8 o’clock of his anus and the vet said it certainly looked like an anal sac rupture. Cats and dogs have two anal sacs, located at 8 o’clock and 4 o’clock respectively, on both sides of the anus.

In Cow’s case, the anal sac on the left had already ruptured, probably due to it being impacted earlier. So what’s left to do was to have it thoroughly cleaned and treated as an open wound.

There was also necrotic tissue surrounding the wound and initially Cow allowed the vet to shave him and cut off all the necrotic tissue without throwing any fuss. But when healthy tissue was touched, it must have hurt a lot, and that’s when Cow became….Cow.

And displayed all the Cow characteristics.

Despite two vets handling him (with me trying unsuccessfully to calm him) and being wrapped tightly in a towel, he hissed, scratched and gave “warning bites”. When Cow is Cow, there is nothing to scruff, because he’s all tensed up and it’s just muscle around his neck. You just cannot get a grip to scruff him.

It was too risky to go on so we had to let him go. Cow jumped off the table and went to hide in a shelf. None of us could get him out, so the vet had to use boxes to “squeeze” him out of that spot and back into the carrier…finally!

Since Cow was too upset, we could not proceed with anything further. The vet had wanted to flush the wound thoroughly with antiseptic. Cow couldn’t be sedated for a proper (peaceful) cleaning either because I had just fed him about two hours ago. It was too soon for sedation.

So, the plan was to bring him back today to evaluate the wound and see if a thorough cleaning under sedation was still warranted. Meanwhile, since it was already an open wound, he was started on oral antibiotics. There was also a glimmer of hope that if the wound starts to heal and shows promising progress after one day, the cleaning under sedation would not have to be carried out. Still, I would have to bring him in fasted.

This photo was taken after we got home from the eventful visit to the vet’s yesterday. The vet said the wound looked very clean.

So, this afternoon, off we went again. I kept my fingers crossed.

Seeing that the wound had started to heal and was clean, the vet said we’d attempt to flush it with antiseptic and then povidone iodine without the sedation.

Not taking any chances, two vets were on hand to do the job.

This time, Cow was absolutely well behaved. He totally cooperated. Phew, what a relief!

The vet even managed to flush the wound twice with antiseptic and then, with iodine.

No sedation was required! After the flushing with antiseptic and administering the iodine, we could go home.

Cow: That’s my wound, if anyone is interested.

We hope he heals soon. The vet says to give it a week or so. I’d have to feed him the antibiotics twice a day, though. Wish me luck!