Ever heard of anal sacs? Sounds like anal sex but no it’s really anal sacs. Haha!

Anal sacs are two small pouches located on either side of the anus at approximately the four o’clock and eight o’clock positions. Their purpose is to store fluids/chemicals that act as territorial markers. This fluid is foul smelling. A small amount of this anal fluid is squeezed out by the muscular contractions whenever the cat poops. However, sometimes the fluid cannot be emptied properly from the sacs during defecation. The sacs may thus become impacted and the fluid becomes thicker and darker in colour. This may result in an infection in the sacs if bacteria in the faeces travel up the anal ducts into the sacs, forming an anal sac abscess. If left untreated, the pressure of the pus will continue to build until the skin bursts open to allow the pus to drain out.

I have never heard of anal sacs until Ning’s left anal sac burst one day in 2017. All along, her ass stank but I could never figure out what was causing it. No matter how much I bathed her or wiped her ass to make sure there was no dried shit stuck onto it, each time she walked past me, I could smell a really bad stench emitting from her butt. The closest description of the smell I can think of is a pair of sweat soaked soaks partially dried under the sun. It’s nauseating yet you would want to have a second whiff (Shhhh…don’t tell anyone)! Ah Mao never had this problem. She smelt good all the time. I think she was offended by Ning’s ass smell so she was always trying to lick it clean for Ning. But Ning was not appreciative so they would always end up in fights.

One day after work, I found Ning darting around the house looking flustered, pausing at times to lick her anus fervently. I suspected something was wrong as the fur on her bottom looked wet plus she was never one to groom this much and this thoroughly. As she licked herself, something caught my eye. Two assholes!! There were two holes on her bottom! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought to myself when the hell did she have two assholes. I grabbed and held her down for a closer look. There was a gaping hole right beside her anus (see pics below) and it was oozing liquid and small traces of blood. I could literally see her flesh. I took her to the vet immediately and was told her anal sac had ruptured.

Apparently, she had displayed signs of an impacted anal gland prior to this. She was scooting a lot and grooming her bottom excessively. I remembered laughing when she scooted. She looked damn silly with her legs up in the air and her bottom scraping across the floor. It was hilarious! Honestly, that was not an easy move. Believe me, I tried it. Barely moved an inch. I thought she did that to clean her ass since she always picked a textured surface to pull off her stunt, like rugs, towels (her towels, not mine. I’ll kill her if she did it on mine) etc. Didn’t realise she did it to to relieve the discomfort on her anus. The liquid in her anal sac had accumulated and became impacted. As her anal sac was not expressed in time, it became infected and pus started building. Very soon, pressure of the pus built up until her skin burst to allow the pus to drain. The liquid I saw that was oozing out her wound was actually pus. The doctor cleansed her wound with some antiseptic (Hibitane) and prescribed an anti-biotic cream for me to apply it on her twice daily. I felt so grateful that she is an extremely tame cat. Didn’t have much trouble at all with this daily routine. We did it for almost two weeks before the wound finally healed. Ever since, I put her on close monitor and tried to express the glands for her every time we took a bath (once a month).

Expressing anal glands is not difficult at all if you know how to do it. Personally, I feel that expressing it right after a bath works best. Her anus would have relaxed a lot by the end of the bath or it somehow feels softer when it is wet. All you have to do is to place your thumb and index fingers at the 8 o’clock and 4 o’clock position beside her anus and gently squeeze in and upwards. You don’t really need a lot of strength to do this. If the anal glands are not impacted, then you can expect brown, smelly liquid to ooze out from her anus as you squeeze. Use a piece of tissue to do it and don’t put your face in front of the cat’s anus as you squeeze, in case the nasty stuff squirts into your eyes.

If the anal glands are impacted, you can expect pasty like stuff squirming out of the anus. I’ve seen black, brown, yellowish cream like stuff coming out of there so far, somewhat like what you see when you pop a zit. There was a YouTube video I watched sometime back which showed an easier way of expressing the anal sacs. The person put the kitty lying backwards on her lap, lifted up both the cat’s legs and scratch the bottom of its thighs. This is said to stimulate the cat’s anus, making it relax and contract repeatedly until the anal sacs are emptied. I’ve tried this on Ning before but it didn’t work. All I managed to achieve was to scratch out balls of fur from under her thighs.

By the way, the technique I’ve shared is only external expression of the anal glands. I have yet to master the internal way of doing it. I’ll usually leave it to the vet during Ning’s routine checkup. The internal way of doing it is to insert a lubricated finger into the anus and expressing the anal glands from inside. If you do not know the technique to do this, leave it to the professionals so that you don’t end up injuring your kitty.

If you noticed a stench (or an irresistible smell to some people 😉 ) coming out from your kitty’s ass, or if it’s scooting or licking its ass a lot, do schedule a visit to the vet if you are unable to express its anal glands on your own. A good guide for cats with chronically impacted anal sacs is every 3 months.

Love,
TG