Thursday, March 3, 2011

Tale of a Tail!

Apologies to Houndstooth for the plagiarism of your blog title but the saga of Beryl's 'Happy Tail' continues:(  She's whacked it and broken it open a few times in the last 3 weeks or so but it hasn't been badly damaged and she's licked it clean and it hasn't really bled.  On Monday she gave it a decent whack, enough for me to bandage it up this time for protection.  On Tuesday she wagged the bandage off while at the park and whacked it again so I bandaged it up more this time.  This afternoon (Thursday) we went to the beach and the trip ended up with me racing her off to the vet!! Yes, there will be bloodless beach photos:)  The bandage came off after being in the sea and of course her tail got hit on something and this time blood was seeping out in a steady trickle instead of slow drips.  Fatima did a good job wrapping the tail up with a tissue and poop bags:)

Luckily the vet could see us virtually straight away, he even came out to the car and he didn't get much blood splattered on him!  He bandaged her tail up and then bandaged the tail to Beryl's left hind leg.  She managed to jump into the car OK but when we got home she couldn't work out how to stand up with her tail attached to her leg, lol!  I had to help her stand up and then lift her out of the car:)  She's worked out how to jump on the bed pretty quickly but not how to have a wee, lol!  I'm afraid I can't help her with that ....!

It's frustrating because Beryl isn't a rampant tail wagger.  She just has a knack of whacking it in the wrong place sometimes.  So I'm going to keep it attached to her leg for quite a while to give it the best chance to heal properly and see how it goes this time.  But she has gone for about 4 months between damaging it and I would have thought it should be well healed by then!  Docking is an option of course, but I'll try everything else before resorting to that.  I'm quite vain about Beryl's tail, lol!

On to happier things, some photos from the beach today:)
Fatima's foster dog, Hugo, following Beryl into the sea after the tennis ball
Beryl (before she lost her bandage!) and Louie
Still with the bandage on
Look at Hugo and Lucy go:)
Hugo and Frankie
Louie, Lucy and Hugo





Beryl's getting very brave!  Followed by Hugo:)

Beryl got it!

Beryl loves fetching a tennis ball:)
Beryl, no neck!!
Ah, that's more like it:)
Hugo had a wonderful time:)
As did we all ... until the blood started dripping at a steady rate out of Beryl's tail tip!  I'm not taking bets on the tail saga being over but I'll be doing my best to make sure it heals properly!

6 comments:

jet said...

Poor Beryl with her happy tail. It must be the velocity of the swing when she does wag it!

Barbie's tail is so long it is only an inch off the ground when she walks around, and she whacks it on things quite a bit. I try to get her to move away from walls and furniture that she might hit it on, and luckily she hasn't really hurt her tail yet. She likes to hit Bender in the eyes with it when they greet me at the door.

Barbara said...

Man, I never knew greys had such a hard time with their tails until I started reading grey blogs. Such a shame that "happy wags" lead to hurt tails!

Sue said...

Loving the photos. The one with Beryls ears straight up is just stunning. I have also fallen in love with Bruno. What a handsome fellow he is.

I hope Beryls tail heals up quickly. I have heard of people using a tube of soft foam (like you'd use to put cables together) on a tail and taping it in place.

2 dogs + 1 cat + 2 humans said...

oh poor Beryl! Arrow made his bleed for the firs time this week too!

houndstooth said...

We gladly lend you our blog title! It definitely fits. :)

We have been lucky in that we haven't had one of our hounds end up with a case of happy tail, but it is a bugger to get it healed up! We had a foster who came to us with the tail already damaged. I'll just say that the one time he got the bandage off, our back hallway looked like a murder scene. That's a great first impression for guests to see when they arrive for your kick off to summer party! :P I have been told that wrapping the tail with hair curlers helps to protect it a lot and does help it heal. I've known a few hounds with docked tails, too. A friend of ours had a little black girl who ended up with a little Doberman tail and it looked rather cute once it healed. She had a lot of problems getting, um, female infections and once the tail was docked, she never had another one. I guess you have to look for the silver lining!

Did you figure out how to get the blog to work for you?

Hiking Hounds said...

Those are great pictures! I'm hoping we get to go to the beach this summer. Zephyr's been a few times and loves it. I came home once last year to find the tip of Zephyr's tail broken. It didn't break the skin, but he has a bump where it healed. I hope Beryl's heals fast.

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