The part of the dog people don't pet

A public service annoucement if you own a dog:

If you see your pet scooting his or her ass on the ground, get the dog to the vet, stat! That means that the dog needs her anal glands expressed, which is a fancy medical way of saying that the vet needs to stick his or her finger up the dog's ass (ass being the perferred medical term) in order to get Fido to release anal fluid, which smells and looks about as nasty as you might expect. Normally, this foul substance is automatically released when the dog poops, but sometimes it builds up and has to be manually released. The early signs of this are the dog dragging its ass on the ground.

We didn't know what this meant, and as a result our dog's anal sac eventually ruptured, requiring her to have major surgery and causing her great discomfort as you can imagine. She's recovering fine, but it's still something that we would have really preferred to avoid. So, if you see your dog scoot, scoot yourself to a vet quickly to save a lot of trouble, expense, and pain for your pet later.

That concludes this public service announcement.