Cold Water Tail

Mar 23, 2010 by Kari    1 Comment     Posted under: Haylie, Injury

Sunday night Haylie seemed very restless and couldn’t move her tail, it was sensitive to the touch. She was pacing all night and couldn’t lie down to sleep since she was uncomfortable so I reached out to the internet and found this article: here and  here where the two main articles I liked.

It described her exact symptoms and the pictures on other sites looked just like her tail.

It’s commonly referred to as “Cold water tail”, which is a sprain in the dogs tail at the base of the tail.  They say it cant take anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks to heal, im hoping more on the 2 days!

If anyone knows or has seen a Labrador their tails are always going a mile a min, thumping up against everything due to excitement over the littlest things. Labs can clear a coffee table in no seconds flat with their tail. I knew something was wrong right away when she didn’t wag it for an hour.

Labradors are prone to this after a lot of tail wagging, exercise, and cold water – which is what we did Sunday at the dog park. The articles also say not to bath your dog are strenuous exercise which I did within in an hour of coming home yesterday.

She is uncomfortable and doesn’t want anyone near her tail, I picked up pain medicine and she is on a high dose of aspirin to alleviate some swelling.

Things where good until Fred decided he had enough and wanted to play…. He was wrestling with her and knocked her down on her butt and she screamed and attacked him.. And of course Fred attacked back. Nice. Just what I need right now!

I ripped them apart before anyone took a chunk out of each other and separated them.

I gave her the pain pill last night and we all headed off to bed – Fred in the living room on the couch and Haylie on my bed. This morning I let them be around each other and she wanted nothing to do with him again because he kept sniffing her tail. It didn’t help she was still drugged and wouldn’t get up to eat or anything.

I decided to keep Haylie in my bedroom with toys and water (keeping my fingers crossed she doesn’t rip the carpet up!) and let Fred have the living room and back yard.

My dad is going at lunch to let Haylie out for me.  She was left with a peanut butter kong, water, my bed to sleep on and stuffed animals that she never gets cause they fight over them. I am hoping she will rest, relax and not eat my carpet.

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