I need some advice

I have a dog who had a severe salivary gland injury. She had surgery on March 6 to get it removed. The problem is she still has some drainage and difficulty breathing. What’s recovery time for a severe injury like that and what else can we do ? She also has lost lot of weight and strength.

Hello! I'm sorry to hear about your dogs' salivary gland injury.   I'm coming into this conversation quite out of context; as you can probably appreciate, there are injuries and injuries but it's worth explaining that the salivary gland in itself is a tricky area to operate on and complications may not be unususl.  Like a lot of GP vets, I have primarily been a medic, a communicator and a fair-weather surgeon (with additional training in emergency medicine); I would not be attempting saivary gland surgery if ever there was a more intricate, experienced surgeon to whom I could refer it.  I do not know what is causing the sticky discharge;  I have seen salivary gland surgery involving a process called marsupialisation (marsupials being creatures with pouches).  The very purpose of this surgery is to make the gland open / drain directly onto the face, to avoid problems with the gland. Other causes of sticky on the face might include infection or a the surgery not going to plan.  Because I don't know what's going on in your dogs' case or what the prognosis was or the aims were, you really do need to talk to them directly.   Good questions include:  what was the expected outcome of this surgery?  Do you feel that you've acheived that?  What is causing what I am seeing?  Is that a long-term or short-term consequence?  What will life be like moving forwards?   What can we do to improve things?  Wishing you both all the best

Ps I'm sorry; I was thinking hard about that salivary gland just then, but need to say a word about the breathing difficulties.  Breathing difficulties can be very serious sign in an animal at any time. Here in the UK it is the start of a long 4-day weekend; if you haven't already, please present this case to your vet as a matter of urgency.   Weight loss, poor breathing and strength are not signs I'd normally associate with the salivary gland and need to be looked into, possibly as an emergency.

PLAN 1.  Please get this animal seen as an emergency or at least triaged 2.  Hopefully my first post is useful

I need to elaborate what happened. I don’t know what trauma that had cause her injury. My mother found her like that running on the side walk. She been having issues since then as far as we know and was December 15th. She’s been to the vet many times. The vet that my mother first took her to said she had an infection. Once my mom switch vets , that’s when we learn that she had a damaged salivary gland. We tried to give her back to her original owners but once they found out she been hurt/sick they disappeared. I feel so bad for her. I wish there’s something we can do to help her heal. The vet that did the surgery said there nothing else they can do.

I'm sorry to hear that; it sounds as though this might be a chronic (ongoing / lifelong) problem.  If your vet is at the point where they know there is nothing more that they can do, then they are probably in a position to understand the situation much better than I do.  I think the first step is always to understand what is happening and why (e.g. It may be that the marsupialisation makes saliva run down the face instead of building up under the skin.  If this is the case, the question may be how to best protect the skin, or whether it can be protected).  In my experience, it is rare for a vet to say ' we can't do anything else' unless they have thought it through very hard; a good question would then be, 'What options do we have for goinng forward from here and what would each of those look like for our dog?'  Prcticalities and finances limit the options for most clients, also.  Wishing you all the very best, whatever your options turn out to be.