Happy Tail Poll

[Guest OurIndy]

My new hound, call name Wiggles (almost 4 year old female, lots of energy, wiggly as they come) just came to us with a pretty bad happy tail injury. She's very tolerant of us changing the bandages, but shakes it off within 12 hours (I have some bandaging experience, not an expert but not a novice). I'm just wondering, of people who have battled happy tail, how many advocate quick amputation (to protect hound from weeks and weeks of a painful wound and constant re-bandaging) and how many who think you should be persistant with the happy tail healing process (not opting for invasive surgery)? Is the prognosis as bad as it seems from all the horror stories I've heard or are there success stories? I've heard vets say that 75% of animals will eventually lose their tail, but would love some hope or some reality checks from the experts...you guys!

 

So bring on the details, bring on the gore! And those of you who have had success treating happy tail, could you describe your dogs in case there are some traits that seem to predispose a hound to success (high energy vs. low energy, gender, age, etc)?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Houndtime]

I am not even going to participate in your poll. Not necessary, for me. If you have patience, follow up with diligence, you can heal happy tail. I should say, for most cases. Wrap loosely, use antibiotic ointment, change once a week, but keep your eye on it. Cover with 1/4 pipe insulation and tape the insulation at the top and further up on the tail. Leave the bottom open (n tape) for air. We kept Idol bandaged for 6 weeks when we got her and she has not (poo poo) opened it up again. She was bleeding so much, initially, the kennel thought she was in heat. The website for Grassmere Veterinary Clinic shows how to bandage. http://www.grassmereanimalhospital.com/bald_thighs_comedones_happy_tail.htm

 

Good luck. It can work out.

[Guest Geostar]

Hello, Ourindy,

 

Although, we never have owned a grey which has had happy tail, we've often heard it be said that a lot of tail problems come from the owners/foster people who apply the bandage too tightly to that injury; thus cutting off the blood circulation. We did have a foster which had only 6 inches of his tail left. Needless to say, it was quite hard to help "Pickles" find a home because the naked end and surrounding hair resembled that of his male organ. His tail was once long and beautiful until an uneducated foster family wrapped it too tightly. However, it never 'slowed' him down. Because we could not use a crate for him due to this tail problem, he accidently turned on the gas in the kitchen (that was delightful!), over-turned doggy gates, scratched up an antique table, was a dream biter and bit and pulled at our late Grace in her neck one night and destroyed other fine collectibles! He was not quite two years old at the time. He also chased our catfish in our 55 gallon tank!

 

I've heard of people using the soft sponge of the curling rods about the tail. I really don't know the answer to that one.

 

Good luck..

-star

[krissy]

Summit had a VERY minor happy tail incident this past summer. He basically just skinned the very tip of his tail. It took about a month and a half for it to heal relatively fully (I'd say closer to 2 months for absolute resolution). We did have a set back or two because it happened right before we went on vacation up north. We were doing a lot of all day hikes (we went camping) and to keep him cool we did have to let him go swimming. I tried everything to keep the tail from getting wet. I tried holding the tail out of water (but inevitably he would shake while he was in the water and I would lose my handle on that bony whip), I even tried a hair elastic and a poop bag. If it weren't for the swimming I think it would have healed a week or two sooner.

 

The biggest problem I found was that it needed to be bandaged to keep blood from getting everywhere and to keep it from being retraumatized, but at the same time if it was kept bandaged (even though I changed the bandage regularly) it would be too moist and the scab never had the chance to dry. What I ended up doing since the wound was on the very tip of his tail was using a "toe bandage" (it's a little foam tube) and bandaging around that, leaving the end open to the air. The bandage caught the drips and cushioned the wounded area, but left it open enough to the air that it could dry out. Once it was no longer really dripping and a scab had formed I opted to remove the bandage completely and we just watched him like a hawk. Any time he would go to shake I would grab his tail and hold it so he couldn't bang it on anything.

 

Anyway, my point is that if it took a really minor wound like that over a month to heal, I would definitely give a full blown happy tail several months.

[GeorgeofNE]

I dealt with it for 16 weeks with my last dog, not a Greyhound. It was rough. Then he had MAJOR orthopedic surgery anyway, so the vet chopped off two inches for me. Just a trim, really. And he wrapped the extra skin over the tip. He never had a problem again.

 

When I got my Greyhound, he also had happy tail. Two months of diligent bandage changes and such, and he was right as rain. My vet wouldn't even CONSIDER amputating, even a little bit, until we had tried all other options. I'm glad I did it too. I never would have known the tip of his tail is white!

 

He's had one minor incident in the last four years. The effort put into healing the tail was really worth it for us.

[Sheshe]

Oh my, happy tail syndrome..Colby came with the most beautiful tail I have ever seen until he caught it in the van door. I did not realize that tails could bleed so badly. We tried everything to help him save it, but we lost the battle. He still has a beautiful tail, it is just a bit shorter. If you can save it, it is worth it. I wish I could have saved Colby's. Here's hoping Wiggles keeps her tail.

[Guest verthib]

So what is happy tail exactly? How does a dog get his tail caught in a door? A person would have to shut the door on the tail. (Ouchie!) Angus hits his tail on things when he shakes. Could that cause damage? Is that happy tail?

Edited January 21, 2012 by verthib

[Guest OurIndy]

So "happy tail" is what happens when there's an injury at the tip of the tail. Dogs with long, whippy, short haired tails are most susceptible ie. greyhounds. It is often caused by vigorous tail wagging against hard surfaces, ie. kennel walls. Basically, racers are the ideal victim. The problem with healing them is that there isn't enough skin to suture and the skin is very taught which makes it harder to regenerate tissue. Also these happy dogs get the injury because they wag like crazy, and it won't stop when they're healing. This means any progress made healing can be entirely erased by one happy wag. Also bandages fall off pretty easily.

 

 

Thanks for the input everyone! We're going to work as hard as possible to save this tail! GeorgeofNE: we know her tail tip will be white and I'm highly motivated to see it eventually Keep the past experiences coming, you guys are the best!

[JenniferS]

I've had two tail amputees. One was from getting shut in a door (before we had him, so I do not know the details of the injury), and our other snapped a vertebrae in his tail from being too happy. The strange thing was, it didn't bleed, but literally snapped so the bone was protruding. We had to amputate. What I was surprised was how much they took off. It was much higher from the break, but supposedly they needed to do that to be able to stitch it properly, but I was not happy about that.

My poor baby boy:

 

It looked a lot better once the fur grew back.

[Guest PhillyPups]

I have never had the experience, but peprsonally, I would choose to try to save the tail,

 

I do have one (DonnieDude) who thumped his tail so hard on the wall the neighbor (adjoining walls/row home) came over to see if I was okay. She thought I was thumping in Morse Code for help. He still beats his tail against anything when he wags it. My Drummer Boy.

[iluvgreys]

My boy Finnian came off the track with about 8" missing from tail. It was well healed, and no problems with it for 5 years. Then, he whacked it good on a door frame, broke open the blood vessel, and things went downhill fast. Got the bleeding under control, but he broke it open again within a week, ended up at the e-vet getting the blood vessel catherized. Was so afraid he was going to bleed to death. Just couldn't get it stopped. Then, he was fine for another week... broke open again and ended up having the amputation done. Now he's got a cute little stub that's in very good shape.

[BauersMom]

I've successfully healed 3 happy tail dogs. I would say, in most cases, it's a relatively easy thing to do with some patience. Of course, there are always exceptions. In one case, I actually had to pad the inside of a crate so that my broken leg foster could get her quiet time rehab and not continue to whack her tail on the crate sides!

 

Sometimes the set up of the house will prevent successful healing - like a narrow hallway near the front door where the dog is always going to wag and whack a wall. You may have to baby gate off places like that where the tail will get a beating, in addition to the tail wrapping, to get it to heal.

 

All things considered, losing a tail is a relatively minor thing. I would just be sure that they take enough of the tail to prevent future happy tail instances - sometimes I've seen only a few inches removed where the tail was STILL quite a "whip". You don't want to go through that and then still have happy tail!

[KF_in_Georgia]

Often, if an amputation is called for, I think vets might take more length than we think they should because they're trying to get the remaining tail short enough to avoid injury to the surgical site when the dog continues to wag his tail. If a dog wags his tail into things enough to break it open 3" from the tip, and he can't be kept from reopening the wound, why amputate just 4" of tail? What are the odds we'd be able to heal a wound at 4" if we couldn't heal it at 3"? But 6" or 7" might be short enough that when he wags his tail, the healing wound doesn't hit anything.

 

Both my current dogs have kinks in their tails where they've broken a bone very near the tip of the tail. And I had one dog who started to get happy tail when we were staying in a motel; the place where she stood when I was coming or going meant that her wagging tail hit the corner of a desk. In that case, I just hung a bath towel over the edge of the desk, and when she wagged her tail the tail hit the towel. When happy tail promised to be a problem here at home, I moved an ex-pen to keep the dogs out of the foyer, where the walls were close enough to hit. The ex-pen kept them in the living room, where there was room to swing the tail without hitting anything.

[Guest Eyeblaura]

I would definitely try to heal it up and in our experience it is possible with some patience. Our first dog a pit bull had a really bad case of happy tail when we got her. It took us almost 2 months to get it healed up and every time she broke it open it looked like a crime scene. Bleeding, madly wagging tail sends blood everywhere!

 

Enzo also had his tail shut in a car door right before we brought him home. We have had him 3 weeks now and the skin is healed 90%, but he looks like he has a rat tail because the hair hasn't grown back. He broke the scab open a couple of times but it definitely heals faster if you can let the air get to it. We bandaged it while bleeding and it always quit pretty quickly, we would leave it uncovered as long as it wasn't bleeding, made sure to try to pet him in the middle of the room staying away from the tail etc. I didn't try it but I have heard an empty toilet paper or paper towel roll makes a decent cover if you tape it top and bottom and poke some holes in it to let air in.

[Guest Greytluv]

I dealt with happy tail for over two years. I think a week was the longest time my Danger had a healed tail. We finally had to amputate. Best decision we ever made.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Greytluv

[jamngrey]

2 solid years (meaning once it would heal it would get wacked open again) of dealing with happy tail I amputated. They took 7" off (a bit higher than where all the years of wacking caused damage). I would do it again but only after I had tryed everything I could to get it to heal

[GeorgeofNE]

So "happy tail" is what happens when there's an injury at the tip of the tail. Dogs with long, whippy, short haired tails are most susceptible ie. greyhounds. It is often caused by vigorous tail wagging against hard surfaces, ie. kennel walls. Basically, racers are the ideal victim. The problem with healing them is that there isn't enough skin to suture and the skin is very taught which makes it harder to regenerate tissue. Also these happy dogs get the injury because they wag like crazy, and it won't stop when they're healing. This means any progress made healing can be entirely erased by one happy wag. Also bandages fall off pretty easily.

 

 

Thanks for the input everyone! We're going to work as hard as possible to save this tail! GeorgeofNE: we know her tail tip will be white and I'm highly motivated to see it eventually Keep the past experiences coming, you guys are the best!

 

One of the problems is that vets will often shave the tip to "get a good look." That makes it more vulnerable, and there is less for bandages to stick to!

 

I had great luck with my own home cooked bandage protocol.

 

Buy yourself BOXES of those knee-sized Band-Aides.

 

Wrap one Band-Aid around the tip of the tail (like TP on a roll) and a second one goes over the tip in the other direction (this won't look very tidy--but you don't get points for pretty!).

 

Then use white waterproof super sticky first aide tape, and do a couple of wraps at the top of the band-aides, making sure to catch some fur in the sticky part.

 

Over the whole thing, a light coat of vet wrap, again making sure to catch as much fur as you can in the vet wrap.

 

That should stay on for at least two days if it stays dry.

 

I believe that less is more; the more weight you add to the tip of the tail via a bandage, the more inclined it is to fly off when the tail wags!

[Guest verthib]

I would definitely try to heal it up and in our experience it is possible with some patience. Our first dog a pit bull had a really bad case of happy tail when we got her. It took us almost 2 months to get it healed up and every time she broke it open it looked like a crime scene. Bleeding, madly wagging tail sends blood everywhere!

 

Enzo also had his tail shut in a car door right before we brought him home. We have had him 3 weeks now and the skin is healed 90%, but he looks like he has a rat tail because the hair hasn't grown back. He broke the scab open a couple of times but it definitely heals faster if you can let the air get to it. We bandaged it while bleeding and it always quit pretty quickly, we would leave it uncovered as long as it wasn't bleeding, made sure to try to pet him in the middle of the room staying away from the tail etc. I didn't try it but I have heard an empty toilet paper or paper towel roll makes a decent cover if you tape it top and bottom and poke some holes in it to let air in.

 

Ouch!!! I cannot imagine the pain of having a car door closed on a tail. I'm so paranoid when I put the dogs in or out of the car. Probably cautious to a fault but I'd rather it be that way. Did he lose any part of the tail?

[Guest KennelMom]

I wouldn't amputate right away...I'd definitely try to heal the tail. And we've healed a handful. Amputation becomes a consideration with chronic happy tail, where it is healed and breaks open, healed and breaks up open., over and over again over a long period of time. The more scar tissue at the tip of the tail, the more likely it is to become re-injured. We battled Harmony's happy tail (she came from the track with it) for a long time. Before we amputated her tail, it was healed for well over a year. Then one day she was wagging it like crazy and "dinked" it against a fence post juuuuuuuuuuuuust right to bust it open again. We said enough is enough and had it cut down to a stub she could still waggle like crazy, but too short to really bang into anything. We were all much happier!

 

 

Tater came from the track with a scarred up tip and it's broken open once but has been healed up for a couple years now...she's our only happy tail dog at the moment and I don't think we'll have a problem with her tail.

[fourofem]

Lizzie came with a short tail....probably 6" or so shorter than normal. Not sure what happened with her. Now House....he almost lost all but about an inch of his two years ago after a dustup with Hitchie. He had stitches on the top of tail but the big problem was underneath. There was a jagged tear that could not be stitched. It took FOREVER to heal but the vet really didn't want to amputate since it would probably cause more harm than good (pooping issues). He had bandage changes twice, sometimes more, by the vet every week for about a month. Once the bandage came off, it was a matter of keeping that underneath part clean and treated w/ antibiotics and Trypzyme spray. It probably took 3 months for it to finally heal completely.

 

[greysmom]

I've healed up two pretty bad happy tails here. The first one took longer because I wasn't as good at wrapping and bandaging. Two key factors - air and protection.

 

My way:

Ask your vet for an empty syringe tube (the tube that holds the syringe, not the syringe itself) just a little bigger than the diameter of the tail. Cut off the angled tip.

Antibiotic SPRAY - not ointment - on the wound and lightly wrap with gauze - just one or two times around for padding. Lightly tape the gauze in place.

Slide the syringe tube over the wrapping until it rests above the gauze.

Using the product ELASTIKON begin wrapping just above the end of the tube and work up the tail a good 8-10 inches above the tube. Don't wrap too tightly.

 

The elastikon will stick to the tail/hair much better than plain vet wrap or medical tape and will help keep everything in place even with vigorous wagging. I would change this more often earlier in the process to be able to clean the wound and reapply the AB spray. Using the spray is better as you don't have to touch the wound. As it scabs over and begins to heal, leave the wrapping in place longer. If your dog is prone to re-opening the wound, keep the tube in place for at least a week after you think you can stop.

 

ETA - a muzzle full of peanut butter makes the wrapping process easier!

Good luck!

Edited January 22, 2012 by greysmom

[Guest verthib]

Just curious, why are there "pooping issues" with an amputated tail?

[fourofem]

Just curious, why are there "pooping issues" with an amputated tail?

With House, his would have been amputated almost at the base of his tail. According to my vet, he would have lost a lot of his bowel control.

[Guest verthib]

<br />

<br />Just curious, why are there "pooping issues" with an amputated tail?<br />

<br />With House, his would have been amputated almost at the base of his tail.  According to my vet, he would have lost a lot of his bowel control.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

 

That is so interesting. I will keep that in mind if I ever need to get one amputated! It's amazing how everything works together in sync.

[Guest ethan]

Gordy had happy tail that he came with from the track--actually it opened up the night he was supposed to come and we said, yes, send him anyway! Being a big boy, we were diligent about keeping his tail intact. At the foster home, he bled all over the walls many times. When I adopted him, I have a smaller home and he has a huge tail, and after bleeding all over many times, I decided to amputate. He is such a tail wagger and nothing stops him so we're both happy. No problems since.