A Tale of Annie’s Tail
Saturday Catfish and Annie dogs participated in our third annual WOOF walk at the Elk Grove Park. It was an easy walk with more than 200 other registered participants. My labrador retriever Annie is 1 1/2 years old. Catfish is three. Annie still gets very excited when around lots of other canines. She has a very active tail.
When we got home everybody was tired. The dogs went to their beds and zonked out. Later on in the evening I noticed that Annie was acting strange. Not as active as usual and she whinned a little bit once and a while as she does when she wants a toy that is beyond her reach or stuck under something. I searched for any stuck toys and found none. I assumed she was just tired as this was our first long walk of the year and she went back to sleep.
Later on, after non emergency hours are over at our veteranary, she woke up and acted as if she was in pain. I worried that perhaps her hips of legs were sore. Finding nothing I just kept an eye on her. Then came the big augh hah! Oh my, her tail is hanging down kind of limp like a stuffed toys. About 3 inches down it had a strange looking bend in it and then it just hung down.
We all start trying to think of how she could have hurt herself, was her tail broken? Was something else causing this? She had not had any scruffles, bumps, or any other incidents. I checked her tail and yep she let me know that hurt and leave my tail alone please.
This is now where all humans in the household panic thinking she has broken her tail, load her up into the car and drive to the vet. Convinced that somehow she had broken her tail and feeling guilty that this could happen without us having a clue. Finally we get to the vet, sign in, tell our tale of the tail and wait.
One hundred and twenty six dollars (after hour emergency fees and medicine) later we now know that a dog can sprain it’s tail. Similar to someone waving on a float all day and awakening with a sore arm. Yep, a sprained tail! There are a few names for this: Cold water tail and limber tail are the most commonly used. It is supposably a common occurance in sporting dogs but I had never heard of it before.
So, now you know, I took my dog to the emergency vet clinic for a sprained tail and Annie is on anti-inflammatory drugs for a few days.
Info on cold water/limber tail syndrome can be found here at the Labrador Retriever Club, Inc. site.
