[Meredith Clark]

I have a mix breed dog (Bella)

She is a VERY happy dog and is always wagging her tail. Recently she's be wagging her tail so hard and fast that the tip starts to bleed. She then splashes blood all over my walls.

I tried wrapping it but nothing will stay on the tip. I hate getting angry at her for being happy. What can I do?

[Bluey]

Your vet will have to look at the tail and help you treat it.
Some times it has to be amputated, the end is beyond repair.

If it happens in the crate, don't use a crate, if in the house, try to get your dog exercised hard outside, so she will mostly lay around in the house.

[ladybugred]

She may have some kind of hematoma on the end of her tail, tallk to your vet.

I opened this thread because my JRT, who has a full tail, sometimes gets a little upset, and I ask him "Where is the Happy Tail", when its not curled over his back, always have for 5+yrs.

Good luck with your pup.

LBR

We're in Ellicot City and have our fun in Patapsco Valley Park. I was looking at property up there(loff the bay, grew up on Frog Mortar Creek, and am SO tempted, if I can find it!)

[LovelyBay]

We had a dog that did this, and had to have about an inch of his tail bone removed so there was enough skin to stitch up.

Just recently, a seeing eye dog in my office had her tail cut open when someone stepped on it on the bus. I helped the student bandage it for the last 6 weeks and its staying closed.

Here's what I did:
Wrap duct tape or packing tail around the tail several times, and several inches about where you want to bandage. This is what you will use to stick other tape on. I clipped the hair around the wound, and applied triple anti-biotic. Wrap with gauze. Use wrap to secure guaze. I then used kleenex (it's what we had lots of) to wrap the vet wrap. and then we wrapped the whole thing with really stinky packaging tape or duct tape. We wraped the tape longer the the tail, and left the tip open so it got air flow but had padding and tape around it. Sorry if this sounds confusing. Basically we did lots on layers and lots of stinky tape that the dog didn't want to chew. These wraps usually stayed on for a day or two, and we were watching very carefully for signs that the dog needed to see the vet. Dog is fine. Can barely tell where the duct tape was around her tail. And we did this all base on supplies we had in our office for the first few days until I brought in vet wrap.

Oh and it's no fun to clean up after a bloody tail. It looked like a massacre had happened on the walls.

[Mukluk]

We had a bloodhound that used to do this. She ended up with a bald patch on her tail. Hope your pup will be OK.

[Horsegal984]

Use a plastic syringe casing over the tip of the tail, and use elasticon(but DON'T stretch it while you're putting it on!) to tape it on until you're about 1/2 way up. You can't justwrap the tip, you have to wrap at least 1/3-1/2 of the tail if you want it to stick. Sometimes they heal, sometimes they need surgical intervention.

Katherine
Vet Tech

[Meredith Clark]

Use a plastic syringe casing over the tip of the tail, and use elasticon(but DON'T stretch it while you're putting it on!) to tape it on until you're about 1/2 way up. You can't justwrap the tip, you have to wrap at least 1/3-1/2 of the tail if you want it to stick. Sometimes they heal, sometimes they need surgical intervention.

Katherine
Vet Tech

Should I put any ointment on the tail or just wrap it?

[Grataan]

Meredith, you can put a small amount of triple antibiotic ointment or the like if you want. I was just coming here to suggest the exact same thing that Katherine did, it's what we had to do for one of my associates' happy labs last week. Seems to be doing the trick.

[xQHDQ]

Plain old band-aids worked for us. Have you tried vet-wrap? That stuff sticks pretty well too.

For cleaning the walls, try the Magic Eraser.

[Bluey]

Plain old band-aids worked for us. Have you tried vet-wrap? That stuff sticks pretty well too.

For cleaning the walls, try the Magic Eraser.

Vetrap doesn't work, the tape to put over bandages needs to have good stick-um on it, like Elasticon does.
You don't want it tight, just not slipping.

[mosmama]

my great dane had this problem when we lived in an apt. i used a hard plastic finger protector over the end of the tail. taped it securely & then tried to stay out of reach of friendly wags.

[stella3]

Yes, my friend's pit mix did this a few times. Finally, after he did it the last time it wouldn't heal and she opted to have it docked at the vet's recommendation.