Inverted vuvla

[JillR]

My dog has an inverted vulva which she lives quite often. She doesn't let me clean it. Any advice? Thank you

 

[HA! Support]

@Dr. Jeff @Dr. Christina

 

[Dr. Jeff]

Hey Jill!

What size (and/or breed) and age is your pup?

 

[JillR]

She is a 9 year old geat pyr mix

 

[JillR]

She is a 9 year old geat pyr mix

Sorry Great Pyr mix. Half Great Pyr.

 

[Dr. Jeff]

Has she had this degree of vulva licking before?

Is the licking only after urination?

Does she have any urinary symptoms like more frequent or urgent urination than usual?

 

[JillR]

She has always liked it quite often
I don't notice her urinating a lot other than when we are in nature and I would guess that is for other reasons

 

[Dr. Jeff]

She has always liked it quite often

OK, great!

Then it may be structural or energetic.

Some dogs with inverted vulvas are prone to recurrent urinary infections.

Since she's not, you can consider having her sit in an Epsom salt solution to help keep her clean.

And you can keep on doing what you're already doing.

 

[Dr. Christina]

Jill, It will be important to train her to LOVE having you clean her vulva area. Maybe you can work with an animal communicator. Many of our behavior speakers have spoken about how to get dogs to love your treatments, by a very slow approach. Maybe one approach (and I am not trained in behavior): Reward at each step. If she will not do any of the following, go back to the earlier one, then move even more slowly to the next step. It may take a month to get her to really love this - or could take just a week of you being very clear and telling her what you are doing ahead of time. Be super patient. Only spend a few minutes a day doing this. Lots of play or a walk after each session

• Ask her to lie down
• Pet her sides and back
• Move to petting her tail
• Pet the tail, then move it around different directions
• Move the tail so it exposes the vulva
• touch near the vulva
• touch the vulva
• Introduce the warm cloth (maybe with rescue remedy or stress stopper on it) by rubbing different parts of her body with it.
• rub under the tail with warm cloth
• hold the warm cloth over the vulva
• gently clean the vulva with the cloth

Once she is accepting this, be super tuned in to her as you may need to back up and retrain from an earlier step. Be creative and pay attention to her to do this your way (mine is just a suggestion).

Dr. Christina