Common Dog Tail Injuries
If your dog is an exuberant tail wagger, like mine, he will smack it against the corner of the wall or my furniture and you can hear that it has hit the wall hard.
- Infected and inflamed dog tails.
- Lameness injuries and so called water tails.
- Broken tails in dogs
My dog did this one day and I noticed it didn't look or feel right.
It was tender to the touch and a little swollen. If this happens to your dog, get him/her to the vet right away and get an x-ray.
It could be a fracture or dislocation which might heal crooked.
My vet is strange when it comes to dog tail problems. He told me a week later that he didn't think the tail was broken, perhaps sprained or fractured but then he said he would just cut the broken end off. He said it with so little feeling and without even asking what I would like to be done. I was very disappointed with him.
You certainly can splint a dog tail and put an big plastic collar on the dog so that they will not tear off the splint. It was time to change vets as all he seems to want is expensive operations, when a simple splint could have saved the tail.
Now keeping the splint on is the hard part. Dogs keep moving the tails or keep trying to pull off the tape and splint. Since a dog tail is wide to narrow, it is easy for a dog to reach around and grab the bandage right off.
You will have to stay with your dog and keep him quiet. I would confine your pet or get an Elizabethan collar to prevent chewing and pulling off the wrapping. Be sure to give your dog lots of love and affection while healing the tail. This works best with a sprained tail. My pup sprained his tail and I did not know what to do so after about 5 days it had hardened into a slight bend at the end, about 3 inches down.
There is nothing I can do about that now but because he is always smacking it around I will be very careful next time.
If any of the following happens take your dog to the vet right away.
- The bandage and wrapping becomes wet
- The splits starts to slide or slip off
- The is an odor coming from the bandage that just doesnâ€t smell right
After speaking with my Vet I was appalled that he said that they never do a splint and if it is bad enough they would amputate it.
I know not all vets are in agreement with this so if your vet tells you this I would get a second opinion.
I also strongly urge you to take you dog to the vet because a broken tail can be very painful and you do not want yoru dog to be in pain.
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