Re: Help please I think you're managing it really well. I'm sure it's stressful! Hopefully the dog ends arrive very soon.
Re: Help please I've just watched the clip and felt for you both. Hope the dog ends arrive a day early and his tail is beginning to heal. Alice
Re: Help please Tail update......are you all losing the will? ;D The problem with this injury not healing is the morning time when we go down to Dexter.....he is so excited he forgets himself and can sometimes jump up ...not often but it's still there,so we are trying to anticipate that happening to stop him,let him out of his room,hold onto his tail ,in my case avoid the licks( chris not so precious about this ;D ) and stop him breaking the wound open,Failure every morning including today :'( it just undoes all the vigilance of the previous day....I nipped to the vet and she gave me some of her surgery size syringes (20ml I think ) to carry me over until the dog ends arrive........She also gave me the dreaded cone........the thinking being that I can leave the splint on overnight with no fear of choking and it will be protected in the morning then.....lets see!it is the tiniest area,you cannot believe how much it bleeds and now I can hear the syringe thwacking everywhere I am realizing how much he whacks his tail,makes me think this is always going to happen .....I thought I had a trick about wagging your tail fast and slow in my brain game book but I must have seen it somewhere else.....sounds daft but if I could teach him to wag his tail slowly on cue...it might help...think I've gone nuts!
Re: Help please It sounds a bit of a nightmare, Angela, and I think you are right to bother about it so much. I think split tails can be troublesome (isn't this why some types of working dogs sometimes have their tails docked? To avoid this problem?). I was looking at the "stop your dog from doing things" article, and thought I needed to teach Charlie to sit when he greets people, to stop the jumping up (he only does it sometimes, at strangers) - but his tail wagging, weaving in and out of my legs, greeting each morning makes my day. I'm not sure I can give it up by teaching him to sit to greet!
Re: Help please You may find (and I hope you do) that as Dexter gets older he will have more control over his tail! Drift, my Lab, was always banging his tail and making it bleed as I mentioned before, but he now seems to control it somehow ;D My young Lab Rourke, does more damage to the coffee table with his tail, whips everything off, decapitates plants but never seems to make it bleed!
Re: Help please I didn't realise that Stacia,thanks !I thought his wag would be his wag !im so glad it's 'splinted' he's just stood up from snoozing,turned around,cracked it on the coffee table and settled back down again,that would have opened it up again for sure without the splint .....it's held all day today,he has a nose at it when infirst put it on but I spray some of that bitter apple chew deterrent spray on my hands and run it down the syringe .....he's left it alone since
Re: Help please He wasn't having any of the cone yesterday....we had a practice run a few times in the afternoon....nightmares....Simba have you and Dexter been chatting? Sooooo I slept on the couch and Dex slept on the floor beside me...no chewing on his splint,a lovely calm ,tranquil awakening this morning ....as opposed to the usual 'dog excitement olympics!' So we have got to 8 am without any blood splashes and breaking open of the tip....I'm going to do the same for the next few nights ( dog ends should arrive by the weekend..... Should be today but I know Dubai customs too well) I'm under the gun to get it healed for next Friday when,guess what?we are away again!!!Short UK trip for Chris's parents 50 th ( wow!) wedding anniversary! Have a great day everyone x
Re: Help please Angela I truly feel your pain - it's so hard when you are trying to stop them doing something that will make a problem worse, like licking an incision or wagging a tail! I honestly almost had a nervous breakdown over the Cone Incident here.....however it wasn't so much the cone itself that was the problem (except for all the bashing into things). Simba got quite used to the stupid thing quite quickly. It was when we had to start duct taping it together and he discovered the duct tape and began chewing on it and we had to have a two-cone system where we were constantly taking a cone off to do repairs and replacing it with the fixed one only to have to do it all again a day (or hours) later...no, I can't dredge up these memories, too painful All this to say - maybe Dex will settle to the cone if you give him a bit of time with it on, distracting hi with a game or treats or something? Here's hoping it's all over soon!!!
Re: Help please Lisa I've been in and out,in and out today.....your advice is good ....ill sleep,with him tonight,we are out for dinner so it will be a later night anyway ......his sitter will come in and take him out for a run at 9.30 and I don't want to land it on her....we are home all day tomorrow so I will work on it then ...it's a good opportunity to use as if we go ahead with castration,a cone may come into play then x
