O/T: Can a dog break it's tail?

[Coytee]

Perhaps a dumb question but it has me wondering.

We have a dog (Otis) who we make jokes about because his tail is always sticking straight up. As we are in bed you can always know where he is because his "periscope" as we call it, is always visible.

I've even mentioned to the wife that I can always tell when he's outside and has to do "his business" because his tail is even MORE stiff and points straight up.

For the last two days his tail has been consitently pointing down. This is VERY unlike him.

I grabbed the tail to see if he'd ouch with pain. He DID seem to get excited (in a bad way) about me moving the tail around.

So, can a dog break his tail? If they can and do, will it heal on it's own or is it worth a trip to the vet?

I can't say I've ever seen a dogs tail in a sling lol.

Oh, just as further evidence that SOMETHING is amis... now when he has to do his business outside, the tail will straighten out, but it's more horizontal rather than vertical...sort of like it either will not go vertical or it's just too painful for him to raise.

He's making ZERO wimpering sounds if he's in pain (does a broken tail hurt?). So other than his periscope hanging limp, he's giving ZERO indications that he's in any pain or that anything is wrong. Yet I KNOW something isn't right with the way he's currently carrying it.

(He's a retriver mix if that helps illustrate the vertical tail)

???

[Anakin26]

Hi Coyotee!

I am not a vet, but as far as I know a dogs tail is basically a prolonged part of its spine.

What I am pretty sure about is, that dogs CAN break their tail, same as cats.

I believe it is not very painfull, as the tail does not have a lot of nerves in it.

You should still go and see a vet. A dogs tail is very important for the dogs "non verbal" communication as it expresses its moods and so on.

Regrads

Nick

[Cal Blacksmith]

As has been said, the tail is the part of the spine that extends past the body so sure a tail can be broken. Dogs will not show signs of pain if they can help it as this would be a weakness visable to other animals and thus they would be more likley to be picked out as prey for other animals so I would say to get the dog to the vew asap.

[Coytee]

Welp, I just hung up with my vets office. I spoke to one of his helpers and she curried my questions back/forth to him whilst he was doing something.

She said she herself has had a couple dogs with broken tails and she always lets them heal by themselves. She also admitted that the tail might have a crook in it by doing it that way.

The vet told me (through her) that they CAN put a splint on it if in fact it's broken and we want to do that... but that a broken tail didn't seem to concern him too much.

Perhaps I should say fractured verses broken. Otis WILL use his tail but it's just not flying as high like it ALWAYS has from his puppy days to just a couple days ago when I noticed this.

If in fact it's fractured, it's very near the base of the tail as opposed to middle or above. I'd guess that a splint would be difficult at the base?

I told the vet I'd give Otis a couple more days & see how he acts.

This is a picture of Otis about a year ago. You can see his tail. If this picture were taken today, the tail would be dropped almost straight down. You can see why we called it a periscope. Just as an aside, one day I was talking to the wife on phone. She was making a comment about how cute it was seeing the little periscope walking back & forth around the bed. She just knew that Otis was pacing back & forth. She watched him for 10/15 minutes.

Later, to her horror, she found out that he was being very mischevious as he was getting into some of her fabrics and dragging them from one side of the room to the other lol. She just layed there & watched him do it all but all she could see was his periscope going around the bed.

[oscarsear]

Coytee....mebbe it's the angle of the picture but the dogs tail looks rather like a normal happy dog tail to me. If so then the new condition of tail drop could also signify some other health condition causing the dog distress reflected by the down tail position. Is the nose warm, stools solid, heart rate increased or bounding, teeth all O.K.??? Could'a been something he ate or something that bit. Also tails more typically fracture further out where they get mashed or caught on/in stuff. If this was a mis-shapen dog tail it probably occured in-utero or shortly after whelping.

[colterphoto1]

Otis is a gooood boy, yes he is!

[Coytee]

Oscar, this picture is a year old to sort of show the 'before' shot. I don't have any of him over the last two days but I might do that when I get home.

[Coytee]

Oh, and for those who care, Otis has a long story:

Cutting it REAL short, we had 2 dogs killed on Christmas day 1 1/2 years ago. Shot by a hunter

Devestated the wife.

About 6 months later she says "Richard...I had a dream... I dreamed that we had a puppy and his name was Otis"

Well, the journey to find Otis began.

She missed a week of work because of a vacation. She was sick for most of it too so at the end of it she went to the local shelter.

She found Otis on Wednesday. Took him to the vet on Thursday for his puppy shots. Friday she called me, Otis is not acting right. I told her to relax, he's in new home, new food...just saw the vet...what could be wrong?

She refused to listen to me and she took him BACK to the vet. Seems Otis had parvo virus. Something I'd heard about but until the lesson I was about to receive, had ZERO clue as to just how nasty this disease is.

Bottom line, Otis was in isolation for a week in the most pathetic condition I've ever seen a dog in as he teetered on the brink of death. We visited him twice a day as we went to work and came home from work (we live 18 miles from the vet).

He pulled through the parvo and all was fine until the following Christmas (last Christmas) when he contracted Blasto Mycosis. Evidently, this is also a highly leathal disease however unlike Parvo, this one is in fact treatable.

Kind of humerous (from my perspective), we spent near $1,200 for his week in isolation. When the vet came out telling me he had blasto he said it was treatable however, he'd have to take one pill per day for two months...and the pills cost $5.00 each ($300).

I looked at him just wondering where the issue was and why he seemed to be breaking me that news gingerly. I laughed and said if I was willing to pay $1,200 for a week stay to get Otis through parvo, I certainly was NOT going to mind paying $300 for two months of treatment. On a dollars per day basis, I was getting a real bargain!

Today, Otis is over his parvo, blasto... but now he seems to have an impotent tail

[Hardhead]

oscarsear is right. You should take Otis to the vet to make sure the problem is identified correctly. It could be something serious that doesn't have anything to do with his tail. A professional diagnosis is pretty hard for a layman to do. You'll feel better afterward, because you'll know you did the right thing for Otis.

[Jay481985]

I would get him check out from what I see you would bend over back to do anything for Otis.

On a humorous note, I remember my grade school teacher telling me a story on how he would freak girls out. There was a dog in his neighborhood that had his tail crushed by an automobile running it over, so the nerves were shot as his tail was flat. They would always jump on his tail and so forth to freak girls out. The dog would just look at them and say what the heck are you guys doing. Just a story though.

[greg928gts]

I'm pretty sure my dog fractured his tail one winter by slipping on the ice while doing a doo doo. He wasn't acting quite right and we took him to the vet. The vet didn't seem overly concerned and said it would heal on it's own. He's fine.

Greg