Mammary Gland Infection/Female Puppy - Page 1

I took a 11 week old female puppy to the vet yesterday, because on both sides(symetrically)there appeared what looked like large pimples about ready to burst on the back tit area. The vet said there was a bacterial infection in the mammary glands and he gave me some antibiotics and an appointment to relook at it on Wednesday. Has anybody had any experience with this and does it affect the future ability to nurse(are the mammaries damaged). I kept this female from a recent litter for future breeding. Thanks in advance for any info submitted.

SGBH, My old female had one teet infected. Your vet IMO did the right thing with putting your pup on antibiotics, some would have drained it and this could result in a repeated ongoing saga. What might accompany an infection like this, and this was with our case, is an anal gland infection. The antibiotics in our case cleared up both infections for good and forever. I cannot imagine this will have any effect on the future of your pup. The teet infection might be a secondary infection and not necessarily the primary one. I enjoy your contributions on this board and wish you the best with your puppy. Sunny

Hi SGBH, Good advice from Sunny. The only thing I might add is that when I was pregnant, I read that human babies can actually produce milk themselves shortly after birth, due to the hormonal activity of their mother while they were still gestating. I suppose one can take that thought a little further to infer that a pup could also have some mammary gland activity at birth, perhaps opening milk ducts enough that bacteria might enter and cause infection? I would watch closely to be certain the infection clears completely, but would imagine this to have no long term effects.

Thank you much!

This sounds as though it could be a rash that sometimes occurs when the puppy starts teething,it has happened to a few of my puppies over the years.The spots are pus filled burst and then clear away,they only used to occur on puppies that were fed on commplete foods.Have not had any problems since I returned to raw feeding.Hope this may be of some help.

Skippy, could you elaborate on how the complete foods could cause this as oppose to the raw feeding not being a contibuting factor.

the amounts and kinds of grains in the complete foods give some dogs yeast issues.

Thanks GSDNewbie!

Grains are not a food item that dogs require or need,even worse for a puppy whose immune system is not yet fully developed.I have not had any problems with these spots since I changed to raw feeding some 8 years ago,in fact a host of problems disappeared when I stopped using complete foods.