# Puppy Smells Like a Bag of Pennies



## marbury

MEDICAL MYSTERY!

I'd love some input! I'm stumped. I've done everything I can think of, and before I whisk her into work I wanted to see if anybody here has any suggestions. It's not urgent but it's something I've never dealt with before.

I have a 4 month old bitch puppy. She's been with me for a month now. She's had this strange issue ever since I've known her. I figured a month with me on my food would fix it, but there's been no change. Every aspect of this dog smells like a wet bag of pennies. It's subtle on her skin etc, but her mouth/breath/saliva, urine, and stool seriously smells like a wet bag of pennies. I can tell her poop from everyone else's in the yard because it has such a signature scent. I thought at first that her breath and saliva was traditional 'puppy breath', but after the four month mark that should have cleared up, right?

She's on 4Health Chicken & Purina EN with a raw chicken wing every few days, Trifexis, UTD on DHLPP, Rabies. She had hooks and tapes when she first came home and she was dewormed. Her fecal is now negative and has been for weeks. Hookworms was my first thought since that can lend a bit of a bloody smell to the stool, but if she still has them despite drontal and 2 doses of Trifexis they aren't showing up in fecal checks. She has completely normal stool, no trace of blood, no mucous coat, perfectly firm. No vomiting or belching. No fever, no other symptoms. Lively happy pup with good appetite and no inappropriate discharge from any areas. No dandruff, good coat.

I'm just scratching my head here. Really confused. I'm thinking back to my other dogs when they were young and I really never had this issue before. Is she likely to grow out of this if it's just a 'metallic phase' or will she smell like a bag of money until the day she dies? Might be a selling point to a judge, I suppose... lol!

Thanks!


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## SDG

marbury said:


> MEDICAL MYSTERY!
> 
> I'd love some input! I'm stumped. I've done everything I can think of, and before I whisk her into work I wanted to see if anybody here has any suggestions. It's not urgent but it's something I've never dealt with before.
> 
> I have a 4 month old bitch puppy. She's been with me for a month now. She's had this strange issue ever since I've known her. I figured a month with me on my food would fix it, but there's been no change. Every aspect of this dog smells like a wet bag of pennies. It's subtle on her skin etc, but her mouth/breath/saliva, urine, and stool seriously smells like a wet bag of pennies. I can tell her poop from everyone else's in the yard because it has such a signature scent. I thought at first that her breath and saliva was traditional 'puppy breath', but after the four month mark that should have cleared up, right?
> 
> She's on 4Health Chicken & Purina EN with a raw chicken wing every few days, Trifexis, UTD on DHLPP, Rabies. She had hooks and tapes when she first came home and she was dewormed. Her fecal is now negative and has been for weeks. Hookworms was my first thought since that can lend a bit of a bloody smell to the stool, but if she still has them despite drontal and 2 doses of Trifexis they aren't showing up in fecal checks. She has completely normal stool, no trace of blood, no mucous coat, perfectly firm. No vomiting or belching. No fever, no other symptoms. Lively happy pup with good appetite and no inappropriate discharge from any areas. No dandruff, good coat.
> 
> I'm just scratching my head here. Really confused. I'm thinking back to my other dogs when they were young and I really never had this issue before. Is she likely to grow out of this if it's just a 'metallic phase' or will she smell like a bag of money until the day she dies? Might be a selling point to a judge, I suppose... lol!
> 
> Thanks!


My daughter calls this "Penny Butt" because our Papillons smell exactly like a penny when their anal glands are filled. Maybe have the vet check them for you?


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## Sunflowers

Could be from teething or anal glands.


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## marbury

Just checked her anal glands, they're not full. I'm very familiar with anal gland smell and it's different. Not as fishy. But I still checked! I'll chalk it up to teething. She has the 'buck tooth' look right now; four adult incisors, two on top and two on bottom. LOVE that stage!


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## SDG

Have you looked at the ingredients of the Purina EN? Perhaps her system is not doing well on all that grain even though her poops are OK?


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## Sunflowers

Some anal glands smell metallic. Strange but true.
But Hans smelled like that when he was teething, too, from bleeding and swallowing blood.


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## marbury

SDG said:


> Have you looked at the ingredients of the Purina EN? Perhaps her system is not doing well on all that grain even though her poops are OK?


If she has allergies to grain we'd be seeing more symptoms like loose stool, itchy or dandruff-affected skin, issues with secondary infections (ear infections, eye irritation) etc. She is not yeasty at all and has no skin issues.

Plus, despite pretty high levels of corn content in their foods, we have clients at the clinic who feed EN to their dogs who SHOULD be on LD/HA or grain-free and they seem to not have any reactions to it. I'm not sure if its hydrolyzed or what to be perfectly honest, but I'm quite sure it's modified in some capacity.

If it keeps up past teething I'll keep her on grain-free and see what we get!


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## marbury

Sunflowers said:


> Some anal glands smell metallic. Strange but true.
> But Hans smelled like that when he was teething, too, from bleeding and swallowing blood.


Oy, vey! I can't imagine even WORSE smelling anal glands, lol. We do at least 2 a day at the clinic and I thought I'd smelled every possible anal gland sample on the planet. That's one I haven't encountered yet!


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## Harry and Lola

This is just something to consider:-

My 5 year old GSD bitch has that black skin disease (I can't remember the proper medical term), before she was diagnosed with this, she lost fur in her groin and under arm pits and the skin went blackish. I believe it is all hormonal and she is now treated twice daily with Oroxine and 3 times a week with macrolone. All is ok now.

I just wanted to mention this because right from when she was very young (I can't remember the exact age) she always had an odd smell about her and her ears always troubled her - red and scaly looking.

Now with the above medication, she no longer smells and no longer has problems with ears.


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## marbury

Well, looks like she's got puppy vaginitis. Discovered the discharge today after a bath, copious yellow/white mucous. Since it's been months with no resolution we're heading in to work to get a swab and see if we need to do anything to treat. We dewormed again since we found a few tapeworms lurking and that made a difference. Moving out of a metal crate into a plastic crate helped, but the metallic smell still stuck around. Hopefully this will kick it!


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