Raising Markus is the series where we share stories about our time raising Markus. Said to be aggressive and having gone unadopted for over a year, Raising Markus is the story of a rescued dog from Korea given a second opportunity, now in Vancouver, Canada. This series will include the lessons, joys and struggles of dog owners fumbling our way through our first adoption. The hope is that if you're considering rescuing a dog of your own, our stories are useful to you.

This week, we brought Markus to the vet and stumbled upon one of the worst smells I've ever encountered in my life, we got our first shipment from BarkBox and we met some new Shiba friends at a meetup!

The Anal Gland Thing

As a dog owner, sometimes there are some hard-hitting moments - none harder than being hit with the smell of Markus' anal gland expression. This was new for us and when people used to tell us about the great and happy things of being a dog owner, somehow everyone failed to mention this because it seemingly happens often enough.

I would like to pause here and warn you that it gets a little graphic, but it’s just dog stuff. We noticed in the past few days and probably over a week that Markus had been licking his butt a lot. He would prop himself up against our couch or the wall and very awkwardly contort himself so his tongue can reach around and frantically lick his butt hole. Having not seen this before, we went online to look up what the issue might've been.

There were a few suggestions, but the one that made the most sense to us was this thing about anal gland expressions. They say that if your dog hasn't had solid poop for a while, there's a good chance that their anal glands haven't been expressed, which is irritating for the dog. The anal glands are kind of like sacs by the rectum and they're naturally expressed when a dog poops. This is a way for dogs to mark their territory and leave signals for other dogs.

The anal glands become a problem for dogs when they haven't been expressed for a while. This can happen if a dog hasn't had solid poop to naturally push out the secretions and when this happens, it starts to get irritating and even painful for them. Markus did have diarrhea for a day or two leading up to this, so it seemed to align. When dogs are feeling this, they may try to lick at the butt hole to relieve some of the irritation. We're lucky that we don't have carpet, but this is also when you would see dogs dragging their butts along the carpet to get relief.

Not one to do it ourselves, we brought Markus to the vet to help us look at it. They confirmed that the sacs were full and needed to be expressed. Since Markus is really protective of himself, the veterinarian mentioned that they actually had a tough time expressing his anal glands and wasn’t able to get all of it. Still, they got most of it out and if his diet is back to regular, then the rest should take care of itself.

But the worst part of all of this had to be the car ride home. Without having known what anal glands were about, we got Markus back into the car and starting driving back. With the windows still up, the smell of the secretion completely filled the car and it's one of the worst smells I've inhaled in my life! It can only be described as this metallic hormone smell and one that I hope you'll never have to encounter. Poor guy looked so embarrassed on the ride home.

We've since introduced a little bit more fibre into Markus' diet by adding pumpkin into his meals and he's been recovering nicely. From the grocery store, we find pure pumpkin by the pie section (careful not to grab pie filling) and we haven't seen him lick back there anymore. Now that we’re aware of what anal glands are about, we've also started noticing that some groomers will actually express anal glands as a part of their grooming service, so we didn't have to take him straight to the vet.

Our first BarkBox

In recent years, subscription boxes have really exploded onto the scene and we've been interested in trying something out. We have yet to find something we're passionate about to subscribe to since they’re generally not cheap. If you're not familiar with subscription boxes, you pay a monthly fee and once a month (or more, depending on your setup), they'll send you a box of goodies usually in different themes. You can find subscription boxes for all types of things like candies from all over the world, stationary, comic-related toys, sports-related memorabilia and other collectibles.

We recently discovered a subscription box called BarkBox that sends dog toys and treats and we've been eagerly awaiting our first box. It's been a slightly longer process because we live in Canada and the box comes to us from the US. We've heard that some of these boxes tend to get stuck at customs and end up taking longer. We had this issue and the box took an extra week or two to get here, but we finally got ours this week.

Every BarkBox comes with some treats, a chew and a couple of toys and they're always centred around a theme. You can also choose between toys for super chewers or just their regular line of toys. When we opened this month's BarkBox, we were pleasantly surprised to find a Paradise Unleashed theme this month.

In our box, we got a Piña Chewlada, Cecil's SeaShell Dog Toy, a Beast of the Feast Pork and Apple dog treat, a Hawaiian Duck dog treat and a dog chew. The toys, the treats and the theme were extremely cute and we had a blast opening up the box. It definitely lived up to the expectation especially since ours took longer to arrive! If you like surprises or are looking for a subscription box to join, we would recommend subscribing to BarkBox. You can also buy the treats or their cute toys separately on their own, but where's the surprise in that?

The Shiba Meetup and more Shiba Friends

A few weekends ago, we had our monthly Shiba Meetup at David Gray Off-Leash Park. We've gone to a few of these now and we're starting to become more familiar with the other Shibas and their owners. It's always interesting to see how Markus interacts with other dogs at off-leash dog parks. He's gotten a lot better at playing with the other dogs though he still has the preference to just go off on his own and explore quieter areas of the park.

One thing that always amuses me is the fact that Markus is always way bigger than the rest of the Shibas. People aren’t shy about voicing that out either. They go, oh that’s a big Shiba! It’s actually because he's a mix between Shibas and Jindos. He looks almost fully Shiba, but he has the size of a Jindo, so the result is that he looks like an oversized Shiba. This was especially clear to us this week when he was playing with one of the other Shibas who just happens to be on the smaller side and, well, you can see the difference for yourself.

Another Food Update

If you've been following along with us, you'll know that we recently switched from Acana to Valens. We switched from Acana for a couple of reasons. First, Acana has been undergoing some legal issues and although Canadian manufacturers don't seem to be included in the lawsuit, Markus wasn't really ever fond of their food to begin with. It was a good time for us to make a switch and try him on some new foods.

We stumbled upon Valens because the pet store where we do Markus' doggy training was handing out small packets of samples to try. Markus was wolfing these samples down as if they were treats and not his meal. This indicated to us that he really liked Valens, so we picked up a big bag of their Fisher flavour and he's been consistently finishing his bowls since.

In an ideal world, we would feed Markus half the amount in the morning and the other half in the evening. This never worked with Acana because Markus wouldn't touch his food at times so he wouldn't finish his bowl, but with Valens, we've been able to practice feeding him on a routine, which is good for consistency.

Even though we’re having great success with Valens Fisher, we wanted to regularly update his food so that he was getting exposure to different proteins and types of food. After finishing the bag of Valens Fisher, we picked up a bag of their Farmer (turkey and chicken) to try him on. When we were doing our trials, Markus also really liked the Farmer, so we think he'll do well with this flavour. It's been a few days of this so far and he's been eating it as consistently as the Fisher, though, perhaps not as excited. That said, he's finishing his daily amount, so I can’t complain!

We’re so grateful for your support of The Markus Project. We mostly choose our locations through searching and word of mouth. If you know of a park, trail or location you think we should check out, please share it with us. We’d love to know!