"Happy Tail"

by **Marinepits** » October 17th, 2007, 6:21 pm

Sometimes a dog will wag their tail so often and whack it so hard into objects that the tail will split open and bleed every where.

If the cut is small, you can tape it, wrap it, use skin glue, or just generally leave it alone and it will heal if not whacked again.

Other times, the tail will keep splitting open, either because the dog keeps hitting it or keeps licking the tail. This happened to Betty Boop last week and my vet came up with a GREAT alternative bandage:

The plastic "cone" on her tail is the casing from a large syringe. The tail is insert into the casing and the casing is then LOOSELY taped to the tail. She hasn't bothered it yet and her tail is healing well.

by **mnp13** » October 17th, 2007, 11:21 pm

Happy tail is why Connor was docked.

by **Malli** » October 18th, 2007, 5:42 am

I've also heard it called Swimmer's Tail...

by **cinder** » October 18th, 2007, 1:06 pm

On October 17 2007, 5:21 PM, Marinepits wrote:Sometimes a dog will wag their tail so often and whack it so hard into objects that the tail will split open and bleed every where.

If the cut is small, you can tape it, wrap it, use skin glue, or just generally leave it alone and it will heal if not whacked again.

Other times, the tail will keep splitting open, either because the dog keeps hitting it or keeps licking the tail. This happened to Betty Boop last week and my vet came up with a GREAT alternative bandage:

The plastic "cone" on her tail is the casing from a large syringe. The tail is insert into the casing and the casing is then LOOSELY taped to the tail. She hasn't bothered it yet and her tail is healing well.

Atticus has that right now. He's "thrown" by wagging, about 4 of those syringe covers off. I'm not sure if you have a closed end on that, but drilling holes into it helps it "breathe".

by **Marinepits** » October 18th, 2007, 5:56 pm

Nope, open-ended. :wink:

Betty "cracked" the casing open today by whacking her tail against the fridge. Time to find another casing!

by **The Diesel** » November 6th, 2007, 12:23 am

Well at least you know your pups are happy lol

.

by **BigDogBuford** » November 6th, 2007, 12:27 am

Buford has a ferocious long, whip like 'happy tail'. I know it's only a matter of time before he'll have to get it docked. He's so big and it's so long that when he stands in doorways and wags, it hits both sides of the frame with each wag.

by **jmashaney** » December 7th, 2007, 7:34 pm

Justus definitely has happy tail. Right now it's not a big deal, because he's small.

His dad is HUGE, though, and just about knocks me over with his tail.

Good to know about the syringe casing. I will add that to the "kid care" file I am building!!

by **mnp13** » December 8th, 2007, 2:49 pm

Definately keep an eye on dogs with "happy tail." Connor's was bad when I took him in and despite a lot of work to get it to heal the last bone ended up getting exposed. We ended up docking it when he got neutered. The vet offered to take off only a few inches, but that would have looked weird and knowing Connor he would have ripped that one open as well. It's about 3 bones long - one more than Ruby's

by **hughes** » April 27th, 2008, 9:42 am

Hughes had this problem when he was brought in to have his face re-attached, as did another pit the same woman that rescued him brought into the hospital a few weeks ago.

One step you may want to add to this is to hobble the tail by fastening it, loosely, to a back leg. It works rather well and allows the dog to still wag the tail a bit, but keeps it from whacking on things and sending the syringe case flying repeatedly across the room.

You can do this by wrapping a bit of bandage/medical tabe around the tail, attaching it to the bandage and then attaching the other end to the rear leg, just above the hock. It doesn't seem to bother the dog too much and greatly speeds up the healing time, helping to minimize the amount of blood splattes on the wall, kids, tables....

by **airwalk** » April 27th, 2008, 2:09 pm

We use that at the shelter...just one word of caution, the syringe cap makes those tails positively lethal. They will bruise when they connect with a human leg...I've had the bruises to prove it

by **Marinepits** » April 27th, 2008, 8:06 pm

Awwww, but that's the fun part! You get your exercise by trying to avoid the deadly syringe-casing-whack!

by **airwalk** » April 27th, 2008, 8:09 pm

Marinepits wrote:Awwww, but that's the fun part! You get your exercise by trying to avoid the deadly syringe-casing-whack!

Okay, I was pretty sure before...but now I'm totally convinced - you have a very weird sense of "fun".

by **Marinepits** » April 27th, 2008, 8:16 pm

by **airwalk** » April 27th, 2008, 8:20 pm

Ah yes...the professionals way of saying "I know you're right, but I don't want to admit it" seen that one before :mrgreen:

by **Marinepits** » April 27th, 2008, 8:22 pm

by **Magnolia618** » April 27th, 2008, 8:23 pm

Malli wrote:I've also heard it called Swimmer's Tail...

Swimmer's tail is something totally different.

by **airwalk** » April 27th, 2008, 8:25 pm

Marinepits wrote::cheeky3:

Oh ... Okay now I get it....you dork!

by **Malli** » April 28th, 2008, 5:35 am

Magnolia618 wrote:
Malli wrote:I've also heard it called Swimmer's Tail...

Swimmer's tail is something totally different.

Guess it depends where you live, my (more educated) coworkers told me it was swimmers tail when I called it happy tail.

by **Marinepits** » April 28th, 2008, 8:18 am

Malli wrote:Guess it depends where you live

I've also heard swimmer's tail called "cold tail" and "dead tail".

Some folks do call swimmer's tail "happy tail" and the meaning behind it was that the dog was so happy and wagged its tail so much that the tail broke, LOL. Not saying that you mean that, Malli, but it was the explanation I was given. :wink:

"Happy Tail"

Who is online