Ever heard of such a thing?? Yeah, us either!!! This is absolutely hilarious!!!
So, it started yesterday... Charles stayed home from work "sick" while I really was sick. He decides to do some cleaning around the house and then gave Jack a bath. Jill, it takes two. So, we bathe Jill as well and she's such a heffer and it's annoying and that's why they only get baths every so often becuase it's SUCH a chore!! Anyways...
So, last night, she is whinning like crazy and wakes up Charles at like 12:3oam. He's annoyed and thinks it's becuase she has to go outside to use the potty. So he lefts them out... She didn't poop. They come back inside and attempt to go back to sleep. She continues to whimper off and on. Today, he heads off to work while I stay at home (still sick, thanks for asking). I notice her tail is looking funny. It's just limp looking. No life to it like she usually is. She's very waggy with her tail and is always knocking things off the coffee table, knocking the doors, etc. Tonight, Charles gets home and comments that her tail looks weird. So, we assume it's broken. We already are planning on shelling out money when I take her to the vet tomorrow and prepare for the worse, that her tail must be amputated. (How weird would Jill look without her long tail??) So, then we ask "Can a dog break their tail??" So, I google it. (LOVE GOOGLE!) Yes, dogs can break their tails.
However, after looking at all these links I came across, Jill has "Labrador tail" which basically means, when she got the bath, the water was 2-3 degrees off what her body can tolerate and thus her tail went limp. WEIRD huh? Yeah, google it! So, basically she has a hard time sitting as her tail bothers her. Her tail goes straight about 3 inches and then just falls limp. It really is kind of humorous... Sorry to say as I'm sure she's in some kinda pain but that's why we gave her Motrin as we read that anti-inflammatories help with the recovery period.
So, needless to say, we have dogs that have WEIRD things... First Jack with his, "Dietary Indescrition", in other words, he ate a frog and it upset his stomach so he threw up and went diarrhea all night for a day but it ended up costing us like $300 for the vet visit, blood work, x-rays, IV meds, over night stay, and then the bedding they had in the crate at the vets, he ate so they had to do an additional x-ray (on their cost, not mine)
Okay, for those that are still worrying that maybe Jill DID break her tail, I just got off the phone with a vet friend and she has officially put our minds at ease that Jill does indeed have "Cold water tail" or whatever name you wish to use! It takes up to two weeks for it to fully recover so until then, we'll just laugh! :-) Ah, we love our Billy-goat!!!
So, it started yesterday... Charles stayed home from work "sick" while I really was sick. He decides to do some cleaning around the house and then gave Jack a bath. Jill, it takes two. So, we bathe Jill as well and she's such a heffer and it's annoying and that's why they only get baths every so often becuase it's SUCH a chore!! Anyways...
So, last night, she is whinning like crazy and wakes up Charles at like 12:3oam. He's annoyed and thinks it's becuase she has to go outside to use the potty. So he lefts them out... She didn't poop. They come back inside and attempt to go back to sleep. She continues to whimper off and on. Today, he heads off to work while I stay at home (still sick, thanks for asking). I notice her tail is looking funny. It's just limp looking. No life to it like she usually is. She's very waggy with her tail and is always knocking things off the coffee table, knocking the doors, etc. Tonight, Charles gets home and comments that her tail looks weird. So, we assume it's broken. We already are planning on shelling out money when I take her to the vet tomorrow and prepare for the worse, that her tail must be amputated. (How weird would Jill look without her long tail??) So, then we ask "Can a dog break their tail??" So, I google it. (LOVE GOOGLE!) Yes, dogs can break their tails.
However, after looking at all these links I came across, Jill has "Labrador tail" which basically means, when she got the bath, the water was 2-3 degrees off what her body can tolerate and thus her tail went limp. WEIRD huh? Yeah, google it! So, basically she has a hard time sitting as her tail bothers her. Her tail goes straight about 3 inches and then just falls limp. It really is kind of humorous... Sorry to say as I'm sure she's in some kinda pain but that's why we gave her Motrin as we read that anti-inflammatories help with the recovery period.
So, needless to say, we have dogs that have WEIRD things... First Jack with his, "Dietary Indescrition", in other words, he ate a frog and it upset his stomach so he threw up and went diarrhea all night for a day but it ended up costing us like $300 for the vet visit, blood work, x-rays, IV meds, over night stay, and then the bedding they had in the crate at the vets, he ate so they had to do an additional x-ray (on their cost, not mine)
Okay, for those that are still worrying that maybe Jill DID break her tail, I just got off the phone with a vet friend and she has officially put our minds at ease that Jill does indeed have "Cold water tail" or whatever name you wish to use! It takes up to two weeks for it to fully recover so until then, we'll just laugh! :-) Ah, we love our Billy-goat!!!
Comments
I'm so glad Jill is recovering. And I'm delighted your found something helpful over at LabTails. Apparently this is quite common in sporting breeds, but especially retrievers. We've seen our guys with it three or four times now (between our 5 Labs). It is, indeed, painful, but they DO recover fully. The longest it lasted here was five or six days, though I've read it can take up to two weeks. Hang in there. She'll be better soon!
Joan (from LabTails, for Baxter, Elsie, Ridge, Kenya, and Pinot!)